Revealed: The 10 fintech startups in Barclays’ 2019 Techstars accelerator
It's that time of year again: Barclays has unveiled the 10 startups that have made the cut for its annual fintech accelerator programme, powered by venture capital giant Techstars.
Now in its sixth year, the 13-week programme puts the young companies through an intensive training course with access to mentorship from Barclays and industry experts, and the potential for up to £90,000 in funding from Techstars.
Previous editions have birthed notable London fintech startups such as Flux, Cuvva, Clausematch, Shieldpay and Everledger. Meanwhile Techstars has also had a busy year since the last cohort, achieving successful exits such as Pillpack, which was sold to Amazon last year for more than $1bn, and Sendgrid's $2bn acquisition by Twilio.
This year's Barclays cohort had 740 applicants from 67 countries, with the final 10 spanning financial services for the gig economy, cyber security, brand new asset classes and loyalty schemes.
"We are thrilled to welcome our next accelerator class," Techstars managing director Chris Adelsbach told City A.M. – he was also recently named the UK's Angel Investor of the Year.
"Our programme has yielded countless success stories, delighting founders, partners and investors. London continues to be the number one place in the world to start and grow a fintech business; Barclays has become the leading bank collaborator and Techstars the best network with the smartest capital."
Without further ado, here is this year's Barclays Techstars cohort:
| Who are you? | Location | What do you do? |
| Trezeo | Dublin |
Trezeo offers the self-employed, particularly gig economy workers, financial services that turn unpredictable income into a regular pay cheque through an income smoothing solution. |
| Spark | London |
Spark is a financial instrument that makes investing in carbon as easy as investing in the stock market, allowing individuals to offset their carbon footprint. |
| Urban Fox | Ireland |
Urban Fox provides fraud detection and prevention software to enterprise scale merchants and payment processors targeting fraudsters who create fake online identities. |
| Smarter Human | London |
Smarter Human’s technology lets digital banks and fintech firms manage operational risk as a part of the agile product delivery lifecycle so that managing risk and compliance is no longer a bottleneck to innovation. |
| Paid | Darlington |
Paid’s platform allows micro businesses and freelancers to get paid on time through its invoice financing at scale for low value invoices. |
| Krowd | London |
Krowd’s offer bidding marketplace provides personalised card linked offers to retailers and credit card issuers, allowing retailers to increase customer acquisition and retention and card issuers to increase usage. |
| Photocert | London |
Photocert’s software solution establishes and certifies the validity of visual evidence helping businesses like general insurance, on-demand asset rentals, and document certification to operate with efficiency and security reducing incidents of fraud and misinformation. |
| Inbotiqa | London |
Inbotiqa’s enterprise business email solution aimed towards high volume and group mailboxes in financial institutions improves productivity and customer service levels through workflow management in middle and back offices. |
| Capexmove | London |
Capexmove’s software lets companies issue programmable debt to create tradable units, and thereafter track and settle them at a fraction of the cost of the current debt capital markets. |
| Block Aviation | Dublin |
Block Aviation’s aircraft asset management software is creating a shared information platform to be used across the aviation ecosystem, reducing the cost of redelivery and facilitating efficient novations of aircraft leases. |