Barclays unveils new fintech initiatives in partnership with Rainmaking

Barclays Bank has formed a strategic partnership with corporate venture builder Rainmaking, through which it will launch a new suite of initiatives for global fintechs.

Rise Start-Up Academy is the first of the initiatives to launch through the partnership.

A virtual digital skills-building accelerator, it will be targeted at what Barclays called “idea” and early-stage fintech founders, with applications already open to founders addressing “emerging” fintech trends, such as wealth equality, climate and the future of money.

Rise Growth Academy will launch at a later date, with the aim to provide “capability development” around key areas, including investment readiness, recruitment, accelerating sales and leadership development.

Later this year, the partnership will go live with a FinTech Venture Studio, with the focus on co-developing new fintech ventures by working with internal talent, start-ups and other companies.

The new partnership between Barclays and Rainmaking is being 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.

According to Barclays, Rainmaking has a track record in partnering with large corporates to build ventures, and has an approach based upon the methodology it used to build 65 of its own ventures and through its subsidiary, Startupbootcamp, to accelerate more than 950 start-ups and over 100 cohorts.

Mariquit Corcoran, group chief innovation officer at Barclays, said: “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.”

Chris Locke, CEO Europe of Rainmaking, added: “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.”

Barclays said that it expects to introduce additional programmes for fintechs at all stages over the next few months.