UK-based financial services firm Barclays has established a “venture capital-style” unit in order to explore new areas in which it can grow revenue, the Financial Times reported yesterday.
Barclays has been a relatively active VC investor over the past year, funding companies such as secure communications platform Symphony, distributed ledger technology developer R3 and cognitive computing platform developer Digital Reasoning.
The firm also launched an accelerator in partnership with accelerator operator Techstars in 2015, but it has traditionally been a less frequent participant than European peers such as BBVA or Santander.
The as-yet unnamed unit will be led by Barclays’ former head of strategy, Ben Davey, who told the FT he wants to use the initiative to access at least one transformational business line that could make a material difference to the bank’s bottom line by 2025.
Artificial intelligence, distributed ledger and smart contract technology are among the areas the fund will target, Davey said, adding that the unit would nevertheless have relatively free reign in its investments. It will also consider partnership agreements with startups.
Barclays has not disclosed how much capital the fund will be equipped with, but Davey said he felt “very comfortable” with the level of financial support available.
Ashok Vaswani, CEO of Barclays UK, said: “We are a growth business and Ben’s appointment will put real weight behind this new unit to provide new lines of revenue growth in addition to the organic growth of our core business.”