The Barclays Accelerator, powered by Techstars, will on August 2 host a demo day in Cape Town that will see 10 fintech startups pitch their solutions to bank executives, investors and media.
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.
In April, 10 companies were selected to participate in this year’s 13-week growth acceleration programme at Barclays Africa’s Rise fintech innovation hub in Cape Town from mid-May. The programme is now wrapping up, and with culminate with the invite-only demo day.
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.”
