Ten fintech startups from across Africa and beyond have been selected to participate in the second Barclays Accelerator programme in Cape Town, powered by Techstars.
The Barclays Accelerator first came to Africa at the beginning of last year, with Barclays Africa signing initial collaboration agreements with seven of the 10 startups that took part in the programme.
The company has now selected the 10 companies that will participate in this year’s 13-week growth acceleration programme at Barclays Africa’s Rise fintech innovation hub in Cape Town from mid-May.
Participants include Kenyan layaway startup Flexpay, as well as event commerce platform Howler, consumer analytics startup Spatialedge, travel startup FOMO Travel, solar crowdfunding platform The Sun Exchange, payments solution provider Byte Money, and online insurance platform eCOIDA, all from South Africa.
They are joined in the cohort by American AI startup Abe.ai (USA), Israeli digital trading platform Avenews-GT, and US-based investment startup Kapitalwise.
“Our diverse, ambitious, and growth-hungry African continent with its young population is finding a growing self-actualisation momentum now more than ever, with the largest segment being the millennials,” said Yasaman Hadjibashi, chief creation officer at Barclays Africa Group.
“Through our deep and lean collaborations with fintechs, and in fact all kinds of startups, we aim to further drive this momentum that can result in the creation and accelerated distribution of new products, experiences, and services that will make a difference for our African communities.”
Applications were received from fintech startups in 52 countries, with the 10 selected after a competitive process. The best fintech solutions could be made available across the Barclays Africa Group footprint, and participants could have the opportunity to leverage the bank’s expertise and technology teams.
“Each of the 10 successful companies represented something unique that we believe has the potential to become a significant and relevant player on a global scale,” says Yossi Hasson, managing director (MD) of Techstars.
“Access to Barclays Africa’s base is a significant opportunity for these fintech companies to greatly accelerate their growth through partnership or distribution deals with Barclays and access to their senior executives as mentors, providing key expertise to the startups that ordinarily would be almost impossible to get access to.”
