Barclay’s Rise Accelerator Announces First Cohort With 10 Fintech Startups

India’s first fintech-focussed accelerator programme, Rise Accelerator has announced its first cohort, including 10 fintech startups.

During the 18-week programme, the cohort will get to engage closely with internal stakeholders at Barclays, and do a focussed POC. The selected startups will also get access to Barclay’s technology as well as mentors, and advisor support. Additionally, they will get a chance to reach to international borders through the Barclays and Zone Startups Network.

Earlier this year, Barclays launched Rise Mumbai, a fintech community comprising coworking, community, hackathons, and the accelerator.

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

The lifecycle stage included startups ranging from early stage – seeking its first enterprise client, to a mature product company that has raised a series A.

Ajay Ramasubramaniam, Director, Zone Startups says,  “Post the launch, the Rise Accelerator team and Barclays conducted roadshows across six cities in India, and several international webinars, to attract entries. After three months of programme marketing, we received 236 applications, including several international entries.”

The 10 shortlisted startups include:

CustomerXPs: Based out of Bengaluru, CustomerXPs creates real-time, intelligent software products for banking, retai,l and telecom enterprises. It is an enterprise software product company offering Enterprise Financial Crime Management (EFCM), Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Customer Experience Management (CEM) products for Tier I global banks.

CrediWatch: Based in Bengaluru, it provides integrated web-based business monitoring, compliance analytics, and reporting for banks, institutional investors, and corporations.

MegDap: This Bengaluru-based startup aims to bring the power of online commerce to the non-English speaking audience. In doing so, Megdap wants to create a technology platform, products and tools that enables rea-time delivery of content in multiple local languages.

RockMetric: Mumbai-based RockMetric offers smarter analytics to understand how each customer uses the client’s product. It further helps drive growth in conversion, retention, and engagement.

ArrowAI: Based in Mumbai, ArrowAI’s bot-based applications can be used for various things like automating processes, executing workflows, and reporting.

Capital Quant Solutions: Based out of Delhi, Capital Quant offers products and services for big data analytics and trading strategies for markets.

Fund Expert: It is an intelligent automated mutual fund investing platform based out of Bangalore. It is powered by Gumption Labs Solution Pvt. Ltd. It aims to bring financial panacea to every Indian.

Some other startups who made it to the list were Neuron (Delhi), FixNix (Chennai) and Anlytiqed (Hyderabad).

Himanshu Warudkar, Director – Head of Client Facing Technology, Investment Banking Technology India & Program Director – Rise Mumbai, said: “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 in 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”.

The accelerator programme will be managed by Puneet Sharma, an entrepreneur who has also been a part of a few accelerator programmes himself.

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.

In addition to this, Barclays operates accelerator programmes in six more countries. Zone Startups, on the other hand, is a leading accelerator across India and Canada, working with multinationals such as GE, Rogers, Deloitte, Thomson Reuters etc.