Barclays Africa is looking for start up companies to join our Tech Lab Africa programme in Cape Town. This programme forms part of a global Barclays initiative to plug start-ups, corporates and innovators into a physical and digital global network in order to connect, co-create, and scale solutions that benefit customers.
Tech Lab Africa aims to seek out, attract and support the most innovative, disruptive early stage ventures in the broad fields of FinTech, Digital Health and Health Information Technology. Successful applicants will join a 3 month programme in Cape Town, during which time Tech Lab Africa will work to catapult venture growth through facilitation of high touch engagement with local and international mentors, as well as senior Barclays Africa executives, subject matter experts and industry leaders. Tech Lab Africa will output a portfolio of businesses that Barclays Africa can further support during their growth journey. 8-10 Ventures will be selected to join this exciting programme.
To qualify, applicants must meet the following criteria:
- Formal, registered trading entity established
- You are not already an established or well-known technology business in financial services and your annual revenues for your last financial year are R10 million or less
- You have, at a minimum, a beta product/MVP, evidence of some kind of market traction to demonstrate and are prepared to share access to program partners under NDA
- Can be pre-revenue, but with preference to revenue generating ventures
- Proposition must address or solve existing challenges in the financial services industry OR create opportunities in previously unchartered areas.
- You can show that access to senior-level executives at Barclays and other professional services firms will have a meaningful impact on your growth prospects
- Your senior team can commit to being based in Cape Town throughout the 13-week program with a minimum of 20 hours per week on-site (varies by business stage of venture)
- Prepare and present bi-weekly updates and business pitches and provide weekly updates on progress against agreed objectives
- Agree to the program’s Terms & Conditions as well as the investment conditions as described under the investment section.
Startups that are eventually selected stand to gain the following benefits:
- Mentoring by leading business experts from across industry, senior executives at Barclays Africa, experienced Venture Capitalists (VCs), and other partner professional service organisations, as well as from within Tech Lab Africa’s entrepreneur network
- Access to relevant data sets for use in proposition testing and build out
- Where appropriate, fast track for proof of concepts projects with Barclays Africa
- Direct feedback from target user groups
- Strategy development and pitch coaching from expert VC mentors as well as senior Barclays Africa executives
- Opportunity to become a supplier to Barclays Africa
- Weekly participation in a leadership programme featuring meetings with senior executives, investors and experienced entrepreneurs, together with workshops and panel discussions on topics such as procurement, technology architecture, financial regulations, Intellectual Property strategies and industry trends
- For the core management team, an all-inclusive central Cape Town workspace at Barclays Africa’s ‘RISE Cape Town’ hub, situated within the Bandwidth Barn in Woodstock
- Increase in industry Public Relations (PR) and profile awareness
- Demo Day participation to showcase your technology to Barclays Africa executives, Barclays Africa Private Wealth clients, potential corporate customers, investors and journalists
You can apply on the Tech Lab website.
