Octany has been awarded the People's Choice Award at Mastercard Lighthouse MASSIV Impact 2026, one of the most prominent programmes in the Nordics and the Baltics for startups with the potential to contribute to the UN's Sustainable Development Goals.
The award was presented during the finale at Latitude59 in Tallinn and is given to the company that received the most votes from nonprofits, mentors, industry experts and investors who have followed the two programmes FINITIV and MASSIV Impact throughout the spring, together with the 21 startups selected from several hundred applicants across Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Estonia and Latvia.
For Octany, which is building the Nordics' fundraising platform dedicated entirely to strengthening fundraising with tools designed for nonprofits, the recognition is particularly meaningful, as the votes came largely from the nonprofit organisations the company works with every day.
"This award means a great deal to us, precisely because it comes from the people and organisations we are here to serve. The fact that our customers, together with mentors and investors who have followed our journey, chose to cast their vote for us is a confirmation that what we are building together with the sector truly makes a difference," says Elise Hammarström, CEO and co-founder of Octany.
Mastercard Lighthouse MASSIV brings together startups from the Nordics and the Baltics with clear potential to contribute to the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, connecting them with banks, investors, corporate partners and advisors — including Swedbank, Danske Bank, UNDP and Synch.
That Octany was selected for the programme, and subsequently awarded the People's Choice Award, is an acknowledgement that a strong and well-functioning nonprofit sector is a prerequisite for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
This spring's programme was won by Swedish Manje Health, which is developing a payment solution for international healthcare payments. The FINITIV programme was won by Preventum Labs, a compliance infrastructure
for banks, capital markets and fintechs. CorPower Ocean was awarded the Impact Potential Award for its wave power technology. Read Mastercard's full press release.
Civil society is facing a historic transition. As public funding declines across the Nordics, nonprofit organisations increasingly need to raise funds themselves — privately and at scale. At the same time, Octany's own research shows that 46 per cent of Sweden's nonprofits are currently unable even to accept a donation online.
Octany is developing a unified infrastructure that allows nonprofits to accept donations directly on their website within 30 minutes, a CRM built for the sector's real-world needs, and a shared, anonymised data layer that provides the sector with benchmarks it has previously lacked.
Today, Octany has 107 nonprofit clients and an annual retention rate of 91 per cent. The goal is to increase the sector's reach and impact tenfold by 2030 — whatever the cause.
"We would like to extend our warmest thanks to the mentors and the team behind Mastercard Lighthouse Spring 2026, to the alumni network, to the invited investors and to everyone who was there on the day. That you see what we and our customers are building means more than we can put into words," says Elise Hammarström.
/https%3A%2F%2Fassets.v3.snowfirehub.com%2Fimages%2F121474%2F2002_o_octany-wins-the-people-choice-awards-in-mastercard-lighthouse-spring-2026-cohort.png)
