Barclays has revealed a new Rise Growth Investments, which will supply up to £10m investment capital to its Accelerator programs, powered by Techstars.
As part of this initiative, the capital will be exclusively be used for companies within the Barclays Accelerators which are powered by Techstars. Each program will have an investment pool of £10m which can be distributed among the companies.
In supplying this additional equity, the bank is hoping to further support the FinTech space and support ‘strategically-relevant companies participating in the program.’
Barclays managing director, principal investments Andy Challis said, “Rise Growth Investments will be a win-win for both Barclays and the Accelerator companies. We can support start-ups as they continue to develop their proposition and reduce the burden for access to funding, which can be very time-consuming for founders.
“At the same time, the funds allow Barclays to capitalize on early-stage opportunities ahead of potential strategic investment further down the line, ultimately positively impacting the bank.”
In addition to this, the bank also announced the expansion of its Rise New York, which is currently supporting 60 startups. The Silicon Valley-based office will increase its capacity to host over 200 startups, and will offer more events space, an auditorium and a recording studio.
A number of events and learning sessions will be held and made available to the public.
Last year’s 2018 FinTech accelerator was comprised of 10 startups. Audit XPRT was in the cohort and received support to develop its automated compliance and auditing assurance platform. Its solution ensure financial statements and data is audited in line with the necessary standards.
Another member of the accelerator was Dev/ Con, a cybersecurity solution which removes advertising fraud by detecting and fixing organisational vulnerabilities.
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