UK-based banking firm Barclays has launched a venture capital fund called Rise Growth Investments that will back each cohort in its fintech accelerator with up to £10m ($13.2m) of funding.
Barclays Accelerator, powered by Techstars, was formed in 2014 and hosts classes in the cities of New York, London and Tel Aviv in partnership with accelerator operator Techstars.
Rise Growth Investments will begin making investments from the demo day of 2019’s New York program, and in all subsequent cohorts.
The accelerator is intended to provide financial technology projects with connections and expertise from key Barclays decision makers. Techstars already offers Barclays Accelerator participants up to $120,000 of funding in certain locations.
Barclays also plans to expand its Rise New York co-working, mentoring and events space, which forms part of its global Rise FinTech incubator ecosystem, which currently has 200 resident businesses worldwide.
Rise New York’s facilities will be extended to five full floors over 66,000 square feet so it can host more than 200 businesses and Barclays’ new Innovation Technology R&D centre as well as spaces for events, presentations and recordings.