Barclays announced its strategic partnership with Rainmaking, a corporate venture builder leader, to provide innovatory services to FinTech leaders. With Rainmaking, Barclays will launch initiatives to scale up financial services and help companies to grow.
The first initiative is to launch the Rise Start-Up Academy, a virtual digital skills-building accelerator. The initiative is targeted to the idea- and early-stage FinTech companies. Applications are already live for companies addressing emerging Fintech trends that include climate, equality, the future of money, many other financial activities. Apart from this, Rise Growth Academy is yet another initiative that will be launched to provide capability development around crucial areas such as recruitment, investment readiness, leadership development, and accelerating sales.
In addition, a FinTech Venture Studio is also in the league to go live in 2022. The venture is focused on co-developing new FinTech ventures, working with start-ups, internal talent, and other leading companies. Barclays will have a support system for its ambition to transform banking for customers and clients it serves through this partnership. The Barclays Group Innovation team will be working closely with start-ups at each level of innovation to introduce new products and services to market rapidly.
While the news was spread, "Innovation is critical in driving growth in today's challenging business environment and in solving some of the most pressing problems society faces today. "We have been humbled 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. So we are very excited to work with Rainmaking to push the boundaries of corporate innovation further and ensure collaboration is at the heart of our FinTech strategy."
Mariquit Corcoran, Group Chief Innovation Officer at Barclays.
Rainmaking has presented a remarkable track record in partnering with giant corporates to build successful new ventures. The company is taking the initiatives based upon the proven methodology that it has already used to make 65 of its ventures. Also, with the help of its subsidiary, Startupbootcamp, it accelerated over 950 start-ups and over 100 cohorts. Out of which, only 10% of early-stage start-ups survived. According to Rainmaking, the last venture led to 4,626 jobs and raised above $800 million in funding.
We are working with Barclays to drive positive change and play an active role in stimulating growth and opening up future revenue opportunities for founders of new businesses. By providing the tools to enhance digital skills, founders can build and scale their businesses for future revenue growth. The new suite of meaningful and cutting-edge FinTech programs will combine the power of entrepreneurship while unlocking the scale strengths and the deep domain expertise of Barclays."
Chris Locke, CEO Europe, Rainmaking.