Barclays' Rise announces its first cohort with 10 FinTechstartups

Rise Accelerator set up by Barclays and managed by Zone Startups, has announced its first cohort, comprising ten FinTechstartups.

Earlier this year, Barclays launched Rise Mumbai, a FinTech community comprising of co-working, community, hackathons and the accelerator. At the time, the Rise Accelerator became India’s first FinTech-focused accelerator programme. The Rise Accelerator is built on the pillars of Connect, Co-Create and Scale.

Says Ajay Ramasubramaniam, Director, Zone Startups, “Post the launch, the Rise Accelerator team and Barclays conducted roadshows across 6 cities in India, and several international webinars, to attract entries. After 3 months of program marketing, we received 236 applications, including several international entries”. A final shortlist of 10 most promising FinTechStartups from across India have been selected for the 18-week program, during which the cohort will get to engage closely with the internal stakeholders at Barclays, and do a focused POC during the duration of the cohort.

Applications included startups across core financial technologies, including lending, digital banking solutions, trading, enterprise mobility, cyber security, data analytics, payments, cryptocurrency, insurance, and wealth management.

The 10 shortlisted startups include 4 startups from Bangalore (Customer XPS, Fund Expert, CrediWatch, MegDap), 2 each from Mumbai (RockMetric, Arrow AI), and Delhi (Capital Quant Solutions, Neuron), and 1 each from Chennai (FixNix) and Hyderabad (Anlytiqed). The lifecycle stage includes startups ranging from early stage – seeking its first enterprise client, to a mature product company that has raised a series-A – seeking Barclays and Zone Startups international market expertise and access. In addition to Rise Accelerator in Mumbai, Barclays operates its accelerator programs in 6 more countries and Zone Startups is a leading accelerator across India and Canada, working with multinationals such as GE, Rogers, Deloitte, Thomson Reuters etc.

Says HimanshuWarudkar, Director - Head of Client Facing Technology, Investment Banking Technology India & Program Director - Rise Mumbai, “Rise accelerator is an important part of the overall open innovation proposition for Barclays. Launch of the debut cohort in Rise Mumbai gives selected startups and Barclays colleagues the opportunity to work with each other on identifying innovative solutions to real problem statements. Rise Mumbai in partnership with Zone Startups is looking forward to welcome and engage with these startups over the next few months and make them a part of our community”.

Rise Accelerator will provide the selected startups with access to Barclays technology, insight and expertise, as well as offer dedicated access to onsite mentors and advisors, and enable access to international markets through the Barclays and Zone Startups networks.

The accelerator program will be managed by Puneet Sharma, an entrepreneur with first hand expertise of selling into enterprise and having been a part of a few accelerator programs himself. Says Puneet, “Getting selected into a corporate accelerator is a major validation for any startup, as it lends credibility to the problem that they are solving. In addition to this, startups get access to senior leaders and enterprise scale, that helps them build a stronger product.”

The startups will be co-located at Rise Mumbai - a world-class co-working space with state-of-the-art facilities, and will get an opportunity to present to investors, industry experts and strategic partners at the Rise Accelerator Demo Day scheduled for January 2017.