And the winners are…

The Everywhere API Challenge winner: Stamplay, which makes it easy for developers to combine APIs as if they are building blocks, proposed offering Visa APIs as part of the Stamplay suite to empower more people, including the 20,000 developers on its platform, to build software faster. The challenge was to use any relevant Visa APIs from the Visa Developer Platform to build a payment solution that would enhance the customer experience. Giuliano Iacobelli, Stamplay CEO and founder as well as self-proclaimed API enthusiast, was thrilled with the recognition: “It’s such a huge opportunity and could be transformative for our business. To be able to work with Visa will provide us a model to integrate Visa APIs into large, complex global businesses. It feels amazing.”

The Everywhere Cardless Challenge winner:msg.ai proposed that Visa become the defacto standard for payments in a messaging world and use its artificial intelligence-powered chatbots to provide consumers on-demand support and experiences via messaging apps. The Cardless challenge required startups to solve for a world without physical cards. Msg.ai founder and CEO, Puneet Mehta was excited by the win and what it could mean for the future of conversation commerce: “Conversation interfacing and commerce is a fairly emerging space so having Visa put its trust in us is a big vote of confidence.”

The Everywhere Global Events Challenge winner: To answer the challenge of how to use popular social media channels to engage consumers at events, Hyp3r pitched a way to use its location-based engagement platform to drive further preference for the Visa brand among influential fans as well as their friends and followers. Carlos Garcia, Hyp3r cofounder and CEO had this to say about the win: “Visa sponsors some of the largest events in the world and hopefully now we will be able to contribute to its success at those events. We see this as just the starting point to working with Visa.”Startups were judged based on criteria such as level of innovation, scalability, ability to integrate with Visa platforms, and ease of implementation, among others. Judges used Kite’s startup platform app to rate each presentation during the event. “Choosing a winner for each challenge was extremely difficult,” said Singh. “As a result, we will probably find ways to work with several of the finalists from The Everywhere Initiative class of 2016, given the quality of their ideas and what their platforms have to offer.” He continued: “As we look to the future of payments and marketing in a digital world, we’re excited to not only partner with the winners but also by the potential of bringing in outside product and marketing innovation to Visa and its clients. And in turn, we are excited to bring the best of Visa to the startup community.”

The Everywhere Initiative launched in the U.S.last year and this year it was extended to China, where it addressed local business objectives. Later this summer, the program will launch in Australia and other key markets in the near future. For more about The Everywhere Initiative event, check out this PYMNTS.com feature.