Barclays Accelerator Announces 2019 Tel Aviv Class

Barclays welcomes ten new participants to its award-winning Barclays Accelerator, powered by Techstars programme.

Tel Aviv, 1 April, 2019 – Barclays is pleased to introduce the ten companies that will join the 2019 Tel Aviv Barclays Accelerator, powered by Techstars class.

The Barclays Accelerator is an intensive 13-week programme for Financial Technology (FinTech) startups designed to help businesses accelerate their strategy and deliver breakthrough innovations. Participating startups will have the opportunity to collaborate with a team of Barclays executives, the Techstars worldwide network, and other industry leaders to refine and validate their business models. After three months of mentoring from leading industry professionals, the companies will highlight their progress and showcase their innovative propositions at a demo day in Tel Aviv at the culmination of the programme.

With 14 completed programmes across London, New York and Tel Aviv, the Barclays Accelerator is currently one of the largest single-bank-powered portfolios globally, with more than 140 companies currently valued at over $700 million. In addition to making connections with and learning from startups that participate in the Accelerator, Barclays has benefited directly from their products and services. Barclays has significant commercial agreements with several Accelerator graduates including Sigma Ratings, Crowdz and Simudyne, helping transform the way Barclays does business.

Participating companies will also be eligible for recently launched Rise Growth Investments, new investment capital solely focused on the companies accepted into the Barclays Accelerator. The funds will allow Barclays to invest up to £10m per Accelerator class.

The programme is one of the most selective FinTech accelerators in the world, receiving hundreds of applications for this year’s Tel Aviv programme. The 2019 Tel Aviv class is one of the most diverse classes to date – consisting of businesses that address challenges covering data protection, mobile payments, tax reporting and more.

Mariquit Corcoran, Managing Director, Group Innovation at Barclays, stated: "We’re thrilled to welcome the fourth Barclays Accelerator class in Tel Aviv. The programme has been extremely successful since its launch in 2014, resulting in several partnerships between Barclays and the portfolio companies. We look forward to delivering another exceptional programme in ‘start-up nation,’ while helping the ten companies take their businesses to the next level.”

Hilla Ovil Brenner, Managing Director of Tel Aviv Barclays Accelerator, powered by Techstars, said: “We are very excited to be at the forefront of the FinTech eco-system and will be hosting ten leading startups from various fields in the FinTech world, all coming together to create and provide forward-thinking solutions in the areas of blockchain, cyber, open banking, risk management, payments and other exciting verticals of finance-related-technologies.

"In recent years Tel Aviv has become the center-stage and a major hub for all things FinTech, so we promise you'll be hearing about all the wonderful things our class will be doing very soon!"

The ten companies of the 2019 Tel Aviv class of the Barclays Accelerator, powered by Techstars, are:

• Brandable Technologies: Brandable Technologies is a b2b marketplace for peripheral purchasing.
• Cashew Fintech: Cashew Fintech is a C2B QR-code payment solution via banks' mobile apps.
• Crowdsense: Crowdsense provides early automated detection of market-impacting events for financial traders.
• Fostrum: Fostrum is a platform that facilitates the financing of the digital economy.
• INVIOU:  INVIOU is a FinTech platform for invoice factoring and trading applications using blockchain. 
• Kred: Kred is a modern banking solution for cooperative credit societies.
• PayPeanuts: PayPeanuts leverages loyalty to access high quality content and services.
• Snippet Finance: Snippet Finance is a technology-enabled consumer lending business that provides salary loans.
• untied: Untied enables radical reinvention of individual-institution reporting, starting with taxes.
• Wenspire: Wenspire is data protection platform designed to secure all data in any scenario.

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

About Techstars

Techstars is the worldwide network that helps entrepreneurs succeed. Techstars founders and their teams connect with other entrepreneurs, experts, mentors, alumni, investors, community leaders, and corporate partners who will help their companies grow. Techstars operates three divisions: Techstars Startup Programmes, Techstars Mentorship-Driven Accelerator Programmes and Techstars Corporate Innovation Partnerships. Techstars Mentorship-Driven Accelerator Programmes help founders do more faster and Techstars Startup Programmes inspire, educate and connect entrepreneurs. Techstars Corporate Innovation Partnerships helps brands supercharge growth by accelerating innovation and cultural transformation. Techstars accelerator portfolio includes more than 1,600 companies with a market cap of $18.2 Billion. www.techstars.com