Barclays Accelerator open for applications from fintech start-ups
Barclays Africa is looking for hot fintechs!
Barclays Africa and Techstars are inviting start-ups to apply for the Barclays Accelerator programme – “an initiative aimed at uncovering the next M-Pesa or Paypal”.
Ten fintech start-ups will be selected for “a game-changing opportunity” to take part in a 13-week programme beginning in May 2017. The programme will be based out of Barclays’ Rise fintech innovation hub in Cape Town.
This is the second time Barclays Accelerator is taking place in Africa. Seven out of ten participants in the first programme that took place in early 2016 signed “initial collaboration agreements” with Barclays Africa, the bank says. It was “a significant success”, it states.
The Barclays Accelerator participants will “be given the opportunity to enter or expand their presence in the African marketplace via Barclays Africa Group’s customer, product, and technology teams”.
They will also be able to scale globally through a broad international footprint of Rise, which has sites in London, New York, Mumbai, Tel Aviv and Vilnius.
Barclays says its accelerator programme “offers companies an advantage over others by providing a proven curriculum, and lifelong access to the Techstars global network of mentors, investors and venture capitalists”.
Yasaman Hadjibashi, who is leading the innovation agenda for the bank, strongly believes “Africa has tremendous untapped potential to not only pioneer its own creative solutions for its unique contexts but to also create solutions that the rest of the world can adopt for their own contexts”.
Closing date is 5th February 2017. Interested fintechs can apply here.
