Barclays Partners With Rainmaking to Help FinTech Founders

Barclays has announced that it will help FinTech founders around the world grow and develop their companies. As part of a strategic partnership with corporate venture builder Rainmaking that was announced in a Thursday (Feb. 3) press release, Barclays will launch a new suite of initiatives.

The first of these, the Rise Start-Up Academy, is now accepting applications. This is a virtual digital skills-building accelerator meant for FinTech founders. Future initiatives are to include a Rise Growth Academy that will cover areas such as investment readiness and leadership development, and a FinTech Venture Studio that will co-develop new FinTech ventures.

Additional programs are to be introduced in the coming months.

“Innovation is critical in driving growth in today’s challenging business environment and in solving some of the most pressing problems society faces today,” Mariquit Corcoran, group chief innovation officer at Barclays, said in the press release.

Rainmaking has a track record of partnering with large corporates to build new ventures. The company reports that while only 10% of early-stage startups typically survive, 76% of companies accelerated by its subsidiary Startupbootcamp.com are still active or have exited.

“The new suite of meaningful and cutting-edge FinTech [programs] will combine the power of entrepreneurship, whilst unlocking the scale strengths and the deep domain expertise of Barclays,” Chris Locke, CEO Europe at Rainmaking, said in the press release.

The new initiatives supplement Barclays’ FinTech platform Rise, which has supported key players over the past decade.

The move follows a December announcement that Amazon is working with Barclays on new accounts that will allow customers to access installment plan payments in the United Kingdom.

Read more: Amazon, Barclays Partner on Account-to-Account Installment Payments in UK

Called “Instalments by Barclays,” the plans are intended to help customers access more flexible payment options and finance purchases of 100 British pounds (about $133) or more on amazon.co.uk.