Techstars powered Barclays Accelerator announced the ten start-ups for its thirteen-week Accelerator programme in London

LONDON, 24-3-2015 — /EuropaWire/ — Ten businesses aiming to shape the future of financial services will begin their journey on the thirteen-week Accelerator programme in London today.

The Barclays Accelerator, powered by Techstars, is an intensive startup programme of networking, mentoring and development, aimed at supporting breakthrough financial technology (fintech) innovations. It is the second time the programme is being run in London.

Hundreds of start-ups from over 60 countries worldwide applied for one of the ten places on the programme. The chosen ideas range from new cutting edge encryption technology for cyber security, a new bond marketplace to a Bitcoin company.

The ten companies will be based at the London Escalator, an open innovation space designed to support start-ups and entrepreneurs, giving them the optimum environment to thrive, with the opportunity to network with and learn from likeminded individuals. Each of the teams will also receive $20,000 seed funding from Techstars.

Derek White, Barclays Chief Design Officer, said: “We recognise that to drive innovation within Barclays, we also need to look outside of the organisation and embrace the innovative start-up ecosystem. As the second cohort kicks off in London, I’m looking forward to working with these start-ups as we shape and co-create future financial technology. Many of the teams enrolling today are exploring technologies that could particularly help transform the ways banks operate so I’m keen to see how their ideas develop.”

Greg Rogers, Managing Director of Techstars added: “We are ecstatic to launch our second cohort in partnership with Barclays. FinTech is white hot right now and is evidenced by the amazing quality of innovators we get to work with through this unique programme.”

Each company selected for the Barclays Accelerator will refine their business model, culminating in a public Demo Day in London in June. Applications for the New York-based version of the programme are also open now.

More information on the Barclays Accelerator can be found at www.barclaysaccelerator.com

Notes to editors

The Ten Companies:

Basestone – Provides cloud-based collaboration on major construction projects, creating data streams from the field that impact loan and insurance pricing.

Blocktrace – Provides an immutable ledger for diamond ownership & related transaction history verification for insurance companies, claimants & law enforcement.

Godesic – Provides a project management platform for IT infrastructure change-over in the financial services industry.

LiquidLandscape – Provides data visualization for creating linked, immersive data exploration environments used by traders.

Origin – Provides a new marketplace for large corporations and institutional investors, using technology to facilitate direct debt and bond issuance.

PQ Solutions – Provides cyber security that uses cutting edge encryption techniques designed to beat attacks by quantum computers.

Ravelin – Provides data science and machine learning with a merchant’s fraud profile to deliver pin-point accurate online fraud detection.

Safello – Provides a Europe-focused Bitcoin exchange with plans to expand into payments.

Stockfuse – Provides a gaming platform that quantifies talent through simulation, currently used by banks to identify and find future trading employees.

Start-up #10 – Has elected to remain anonymous until a later date.

About Techstars:
Techstars was founded in 2006 and is backed by over 75 different venture capital firms. Consistently rated the #1 startup accelerator in the world, Techstars executes an intensive 90 day, mentorship-driven program for entrepreneurs. For each program, ten companies are selected from a large pool of applicants. Techstars offers programs in seven locations: Austin, Boulder, Boston, Chicago, London, New York City, Seattle and a cloud infrastructure specific program in San Antonio. In addition, Techstars offers the same successful model to corporations such as Nike, R/GA, Sprint Mobile, Microsoft and Kaplan as powered by Techstars programs.