Restricted by the coronavirus pandemic, the Little Rock Venture Center will conduct its fifth financial technology accelerator program in a completely virtual environment with seven U.S. startups joining global peers from Amsterdam, India and Singapore.
The Venture Center announced Tuesday that its next FIS Fintech Accelerator boot camp will begin Aug. 5 with a focus on startups that provide "promising, high-potential technologies that advance the way the world pays, banks and invests."
The accelerator program is sponsored by Fidelity National Information Services Inc., with headquarters in Jacksonville, Fla., and an office in Little Rock. The program is typically 12 weeks but will be extended another six weeks to account for the virtual environment.
"The FIS Fintech Accelerator is a key part of our overall investment strategy at FIS to develop and bring to market the most innovative, leading-edge technology innovations for our clients," said Asif Ramji, chief growth officer at Fidelity.
The 10 participants each will receive $75,000 along with mentoring and support to advance development of their companies.
This year's Arkansas participant is Cobbler Technologies, a Little Rock company started by Marla Johnson, better known as co-founder and chief executive officer of Aristotle Inc., a website design and internet marketing agency that began more than 20 years ago.
"Although I have the advantage of having run a successful Arkansas company, there is a lot I have to learn about the global financial services sector which is complex and under a great deal of regulatory pressure," Johnson said Tuesday about participating in the accelerator.
The Little Rock program drew interest from startups in more than 30 countries, Venture Center officials said.
"The FIS Fintech Accelerator program has a demonstrated history of accelerating highly successful companies and expanding financial access in all corners of the world," said Wayne Miller, executive director of the Venture Center.
Participants in this year's program are:
• Cirrus Secure of Evergreen, Colo., a lending automation company.
• Cobbler Technologies of Little Rock, which has developed an application development platform focused on audit trails.
• Dasceq of Dallas, which uses artificial intelligence for accounts receivables and collections.
• Mall IQ, which is in San Francisco and Istanbul. The company uses location intelligence to support financial institutions.
• Sequretek of Mumbai, India, a cyber-security firm.
• Silot of Singapore, which offers services to small businesses.
• Stratyfy of New York, which has developed a platform that improves risk-based decisions for financial institutions.
• Surfly of the Netherlands, which offers video-chat technology for meetings.
• TrustStamp of Atlanta, a company that provides secure authentication while protecting user privacy over networks.
• XpenseOne of Spokane, Wash, an expense-management automation company.
"The 10 companies selected for the fifth year of FIS' accelerator program bring a wealth of promising ideas and technologies," Ramji added.
The program ends with demonstration day on Oct. 14, when each company will showcase its work to potential customers and investors.