Barclays today announced Rainmaking, a corporate venture builder, will help it launch a new suite of initiatives targeted at fintech founders across the globe to help grow and develop their companies.
The first to launch is the Rise Start-Up Academy, a virtual digital skills-building accelerator targeted to idea- and early-stage fintech founders. Applications are already open for founders addressing emerging fintech trends including wealth equality, climate, the future of money and more. At a later date, Barclays said Rise Growth Academy will be launched to provide capability development around key areas such as investment readiness, recruitment, accelerating sales and leadership development.
A FinTech Venture Studio will also go live later this year and focus on co-developing new ventures through working with internal talent, start-ups and other leading companies.
This partnership will support Barclays in its ambition to transform banking for the customers and clients it serves. The Barclays Group Innovation team will work closely with start-ups at the forefront of innovation to bring new products and services to market at pace and scale.
“Innovation is critical in driving growth in today’s challenging business environment and in solving some of the most pressing problems society faces today,” said Mariquit Corcoran, group chief innovation officer at Barclays. “We have been humbled and changed by the incredible FinTechs we have worked with, and we understand first-hand the power of collaboration to evolve and unlock opportunities for our customers, clients, colleagues, and the communities in which we operate. We are very excited to work with Rainmaking to further push the boundaries of corporate innovation and ensure collaboration is at the heart of our fintech strategy.”
Rainmaking has built 65 of its own ventures and through its subsidiary, Startupbootcamp, to accelerate more than 950 start-ups and 100 cohorts, it said. More than three quarters (76 per cent) of Startupbootcamp companies are still active or have exited. According to Rainmaking, this has led to the creation of 4,626 jobs and raised more than $800 million in funding.
“We are working with Barclays to drive positive change and play an active role in stimulating growth and opening up future revenue opportunities for founders of new businesses,” said Chris Locke, CEO Europe, Rainmaking. “By providing the tools to enhance digital skills, founders can build and scale their businesses for future revenue growth. The new suite of meaningful and cutting-edge FinTech programmes will combine the power of entrepreneurship, whilst unlocking the scale strengths and the deep domain expertise of Barclays.”
The partnership will be led by Sonal Lakhani, global head of programmes and strategic initiatives at Barclays Innovation Office, who also led the expansion of the Female Innovators Lab by Barclays and Anthemis last year across the UK and Europe.