Barclay announced on Thursday it has teamed up with global fintech investor Anthemis to co-launch a New York City-based studio targeting female entrepreneurs to establish sustainable, valuable fintech businesses.
According to Barclays, the Female Innovators Lab by Barclays and Anthemis is a hands-on program targeting budding founders at the earliest stage of their journey. The duo revealed it will work with female entrepreneurs and their founding teams to shape and execute a vision, from concept development through to business launch and seed investment.
“Once established, the startups will move into Barclays’ newly expanded Rise building in New York’s Silicon Alley, where they will have unparalleled access to mentoring and networking opportunities from the world-class FinTech hub.”
While sharing more details about the Lab, Mariquit Corcoran, Managing Director, Group Innovation at Barclays, stated:
“By supporting female entrepreneurs at the earliest stage in their journey, I am hopeful that we can significantly improve diversity in the wider FinTech investment ecosystem. In addition to the close alignment with Barclays’ wider strategy on diversity and inclusion across the bank, our partnership with Anthemis will continue to drive innovation and open up opportunities for Barclays and our colleagues, clients and customers.”
Amy Nauiokas, CEO and Founder at Anthemis, went on to add:
“A commitment to diversity has been a core part of Anthemis’ DNA since our inception. Even so, we’ve seen a disappointing number of venture-backable companies led by women come through our pipeline. 15% of the startups in our current portfolio have female founders. While that is well over the industry average, it’s not enough. We are thrilled to work with a partner who shares our mission to close the entrepreneurship gender gap in FinTech, making sure that women’s ideas get the encouragement, mentorship, and, ultimately, funding they deserve.”
