About 150 startup companies -- and some well beyond that stage -- have applied to participate in a Little Rock-based financial technology accelerator program, the host of the program said Friday.
Thursday was the deadline to apply for the program, which promises that the 10 chosen participants will have access to some of the top executives at Fidelity National Information Services Inc., better known as FIS Global.
Jacksonville, Fla.-based FIS has about 1,300 employees in Little Rock and 55,000 worldwide. It has about 20,000 clients, more than $6 billion in revenue and about 35 million users of its mobile banking products.
FIS is the world's largest financial technology company and claims it works with more than half the world's banks. It has agreed to fund the program and plans to fly executives for the 10 chosen companies to Little Rock for the training program. Much of FIS' research and development is done in Little Rock.
The FinTech Accelerator program is designed to speed the growth of early-stage financial-technology companies.
"The quantity and the quality of the applicants have been exceptionally high," said Lee Watson, chief executive officer with The Venture Center, which will be the site of the accelerator training.
Startup companies from throughout the United States applied as well as firms from the United Kingdom, western and eastern Europe, Australia, Africa, India and Russia, Watson said.
The Venture Center had a goal of attracting at least 100 applicants, said James Hendren, the center's chairman.
The center started analyzing the applications Friday. The process included virtual meetings with some applicants, Watson said. It will take at least three weeks to determine the top 10 applicants, he said.
"It is very intense," Watson said. "We're talking to entrepreneurs and technologists from all over the country and internationally. The kinds of opportunities or problems they are building companies around are incredible."
The accelerator program will begin May 13 and end in August, Watson said. The Venture Center will announce the participants in the first or second week of the program, Watson said.
While most of the companies who applied fit the expectations of being early in their development, some have revenue in the $20 million to $50 million range, said Steve Rice, spokesman for The Venture Group.
It was a surprise that such developed firms wanted to apply for the program, said Collins Andrews, a retired former executive with Systematics Inc. and Alltel Information Services, forerunners of FIS.
Little Rock-based Systematics was founded in 1968. Alltel Corp. bought Systematics in 1990 and later changed its name to Alltel Information Services. Alltel sold its subsidiary to Fidelity National in 2003.
"Some of these companies are so far along they may not fit the concept of an accelerator," Andrews said. "So we may have to come up with another way to work with them that would work to FIS' advantage. We're talking about doing that and I hope we're able to pull something off."
The accelerator program has the potential to be a major boon to the central Arkansas area, Andrews said.
"This is verifying that you can get support for a financial technology company in this part of the country," Andrews said. "And that's probably something that was not very well known outside of central Arkansas. This will make that a much more understood concept."
Will any of the chosen applicants decide to relocate to Little Rock?
"The answer to that is not yet known," Andrews said. "But, of course, we're trying to show that Little Rock is a good place to be, because of the expertise [available with FIS] and because of the quality of life here."
The long-term impact of the program, repeated every year, could be significant, Hendren said.
"What we are hoping to create is enough economic development activity where this is a place you come to be involved with other [financial technology] companies and grow a whole significant market like Northwest Arkansas is for retail and trucking," Hendren said.
Business on 04/02/2016