New York-listed financial technology (fintech) provider FIS has committed $150m to its corporate venturing unit as part of a joined-up approach to open innovation including an FIS FinTech Accelerator program, FIS Innovatein48 research and development competition and innovation labs.
FIS Ventures under Joon Cho will invest its $150m in fintech startups over the next three years targeting artificial intelligence and machine learning, digital enablement and automation, data and analytics, security and privacy, distributed ledger technology, and financial inclusion.
Asif Ramji, chief growth officer of FIS, said: “FIS Ventures is a significant new component of our investment strategy to identify and bring to market innovative new technologies that advance the way the world pays, banks and invests.”
The gold rush, however, had started a few years earlier and those early investors are collecting their winnings. In the first three months alone saw a number of mega-exits, including Visa acquiring Plaid and Intuit snapping up Credit Karma.
FIS will have to be thoughtful how it, too, can reap the rewards and certainly its prepared to do that at first glance both in how its set up for multiple open innovation approaches and the deals it is targeting. Its first deal was in Nigeria-based fintech startup Flutterwave, which seems smart and brave.
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