Program helps innovative financial technology entrepreneurs accelerate growth and solidifies New York City’s leadership position as fintech hub
Applications are now being accepted for FinTech Innovation Lab New York, a 12-week program co-founded by Accenture (NYSE: ACN) and the Partnership Fund for New York City that helps early- and growth-stage fintech companies accelerate product and business development through in-depth engagement with top financial services and venture capital executives.
The FinTech Innovation Lab is a program for entrepreneurs who are developing disruptive enterprise technologies for the financial services sector including banking, insurance and asset management. Based on feedback from senior executives at participating financial institutions, the Lab is seeking companies leveraging innovative technologies and building solutions around artificial intelligence/machine learning, blockchain, data analytics, privacy, robotic process automation and security. Insurance executives highlighted interest in claims and underwriting automation, compliance and risk management, customer and agency experience, leveraging new data sources and new insurance products. In addition, the Lab is open to tech companies with other disruptive financial models across various domains, including asset management, treasury, investment banking, human resources, information technology infrastructure and regtech.
New York’s density of leading banks, asset managers and insurers is key to the strength of the city’s fintech sector. Collaboration between entrepreneurs and 40+ established players that participate in the Lab has been critical to unlocking growth for so many of our alumni—and for keeping Wall Street at the cutting-edge of finance.
Maria Gotsch, Co-founder of the FinTech Innovation Lab and president & CEO of the Partnership Fund for New York City
Chief technology officers and senior technology executives from the participating financial institutions will select up to 10 of the applying fintech companies to participate in the 2019 Lab through a competitive process.
Applicants must have at least a working beta version of their technology that is ready to be tested for either the institutional or retail market. The Lab, which begins in April 2019, will partner the selected fintech entrepreneurs with senior-level bank, insurance and wealth management executives, who will help them fine-tune and develop their technologies and business strategies through a series of workshops, panel discussions, user-group sessions, networking opportunities, one-on-one meetings, and presentations. The Lab culminates in June 2019 with Demo Day, a presentation by this year’s cohort to an audience of venture capitalists and financial industry executives, which will be hosted at the Bank of America Tower at Bryant Park.
“In what is now our ninth year running the FinTech Innovation Lab, we have seen an explosive growth trajectory for fintech innovation and investment,” said David Treat, a managing director in the Financial Services practice of Accenture, which co-founded the Lab. “The Lab has proven to be a catalyst for jumpstarting emerging technology companies’ product and business development, as well as forging relationships between entrepreneurs and large financial institutions. We anticipate an exciting round of innovations for this year’s class.”
John Cusano, a senior managing director in Accenture’s Insurance practice, said: “Facing disruption and the need to evolve quickly, insurers must innovate at an increasingly rapid pace to retain a competitive edge. Investments by traditional financial services institutions in cutting-edge technologies, enabled by programs such as ours, help them deliver the level of change the industry requires and customers demand. We look forward to building upon the momentum we started last year at the Lab when we first introduced the InsurTech track.”
Hicham Oudghiri, co-founder and CEO of Enigma, a graduate of the 2014 FinTech Innovation Lab, said: “The FinTech Innovation Lab breaks down barriers that can impede collaboration between fintech companies and financial institutions. The candid feedback we received from global banking executives who have made the Lab part of their R&D strategy has helped us scale our solutions in the world’s most competitive market.”
Since the New York FinTech Innovation Lab was founded in 2010, it has provided entrepreneurs from 58 technology companies with mentoring and access to CEOs, CTOs and CIOs from more than 43 financial and insurance institutions, as well as leading venture capitalists and technology luminaries.
Previous participants include Digital Asset Holdings, a provider of distributed ledger technology-based solutions; Enigma, which transforms disparate data into applicable intelligence; and Pymetrics, which applies proven neuroscience games and cutting-edge AI to reinvent the way companies attract and retain talent. Program graduates have created more than 900 jobs and have raised more than $790 million in venture financing after participating in the program; five participants have been acquired.
Among the 43 participating institutions providing mentoring and guidance for this year’s applicants are: AIG; Alight Solutions; Amalgamated Bank; Ally; American Express; Aon; Bank of America; Barclays; BlackRock; BNP Paribas; BNY Mellon; Capital One; Chubb; Citi; Credit Suisse; Fidelity Investments; Goldman Sachs; The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America; JPMorgan Chase & Co; Marsh & McLennan Companies; Mastercard; Morgan Stanley; New York Life; NFP; RBC Capital Markets; Rabobank; Synchrony; TIAA; UBS; and Wells Fargo.
In addition to the aforementioned companies, supporting venture-capital firms include Anthemis Group, Bain Capital Ventures, Canaan, Contour Venture Partners, Nyca Partners, Rho Ventures, RRE Ventures and Warburg Pincus.
About the Partnership Fund for New York City
The Partnership Fund for New York City is the $160 million investment arm of the Partnership for New York City, New York’s leading business organization. The Fund’s mission is to engage the City’s business leaders to identify and support promising NYC-based entrepreneurs in both the for-profit and non-profit sectors to create jobs, spur new business and expand opportunities for New Yorkers to participate in the City’s economy. The Fund is governed by a Board of Directors co-chaired by Charles “Chip” Kaye, co-chief executive officer of Warburg Pincus, and Tarek Sherif, Chairman and CEO of Medidata. Maria Gotsch serves as President and CEO of the Fund. More information about the Fund can be found at www.pfnyc.org.
About Accenture
Accenture is a leading global professional services company, providing a broad range of services and solutions in strategy, consulting, digital, technology and operations. Combining unmatched experience and specialized skills across more than 40 industries and all business functions – underpinned by the world’s largest delivery network – Accenture works at the intersection of business and technology to help clients improve their performance and create sustainable value for their stakeholders. With 459,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries, Accenture drives innovation to improve the way the world works and lives. Visit us at www.accenture.com.