Rise Accelerator, set up by Barclays and managed by Zone Startups, has announced its first cohort comprising ten FinTech startups. The selected startups will get access to Barclays technology, insight and expertise.
A final shortlist of 10 most promising FinTech Startups 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. The accelerator will offer them a dedicated access to onsite mentors and advisors, and enable access to international markets through the Barclays and Zone Startups networks.
Ajay Ramasubramaniam, Director, Zone Startups, says,
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.
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. Himanshu Warudkar, Director – Head of Client Facing Technology, Investment Banking Technology India & Program Director – Rise Mumbai, said,
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.
Startups focussing on core financial technologies, including lending, digital banking solutions, trading, enterprise mobility, cyber security, data analytics, payments, cryptocurrency, insurance, and wealth management applied for the program.
The 10 shortlisted startups include 4 startups from Bangalore (Customer XPS, Fund Expert, CrediWatch, MegDap), two each from Mumbai (RockMetric, Arrow AI), and Delhi (Capital Quant Solutions, Neuron), while FixNix and Anlytiqed hail from Chennai and Hyderabad respectively. The lifecycle stage include 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.
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. Puneet said,
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.
