Rise Growth Academy

Once applications close for the Rise Growth Academy, then all completed applications will be reviewed by the Rise Academies team. Shortlisted applicants will be invited to attend a 45-minute virtual interview where we will assess your suitability for the programme and gain an understanding of where we can support you and your business. We will email applicants to let you know if you have/have not been successful. If you have been successful we will let you know the next steps you need to take to register for the programme. Successful applicants will receive detailed information on how to get started.

The programme is divided into ten modules, one per week. Each week you’ll meet with your scale-up coach and attend one of our weekly events. The time commitment is at least one day per week. The modules you’ll cover on the Rise Growth Academy are as follows:

- Value proposition and market sizing: Revisit value proposition and market sizing tools to establish TAM, SAM & SOM. Map out competitive landscape.

-  Generating new and repeating sales: Develop a scalable and repeatable sales process and understand how to track and optimise the sales funnel.

- Accelerating growth marketing: Build a strategic marketing plan for growth that includes key milestones, where to resource and invest, in a way that connects and is authentic to customers.

- Building scalable operations: Set OKRs for the business and team, and identify areas of the business that require automation for scale.

- Building scalable product (or service): Implement tracking processes to measure key indicators such as CLTV, cost-to-serve and churn. Evaluation of product (or service) and ability to scale, and produce a product roadmap.

- Building leadership capacity for growth: Understand the importance of EQ leadership and their own leadership style alongside identifying improvement areas. Implement a communication rhythm for the business.

- Recruiting talent and building high-performing teams: Develop their organisational structure and document the recruitment and hiring process. Understand the importance of team culture.

- Building and managing a board: Understand governance; structure and processes, and the benefits of adopting good governance practices in their business.

- Financial modelling: Introduction to financial modelling where the entrepreneur will learn how to approach and build their own budget projections, and how to present to investors.

- Road map for growth and next steps: Document ‘North Star’ and map the milestones needed to get there. Build a growth roadmap that encompasses vision, goals and metrics.

The Programme connects you to a dedicated relationship with a senior Barclays stakeholder that will provide you with unique insights, guidance and a sounding board that will help you reflect on and build out your growth plans.

You have the opportunity to be onsite in one of our rise created by Barclays locations for the duration of the programme, where you get the opportunity to mix with other fintech Founders, Academy Alumni, attend industry events & become part of the thriving rise ecosystem.

Additionally, you will have the opportunity to attend a Barclays event specifically curated for the Academy cohort and the opportunity to attend an end of programme celebration event alongside your fellow cohort, Barclays & industry stakeholders & the rise team.

Participants will benefit from a collection of products and services that are highly demanded by entrepreneurs, including Amazon Web Service (AWS), HubSpot for start-ups, 7Cups, Rooney Law and Accelerate Law.

Time to celebrate your achievements. You will have the opportunity to attend the Rise Growth Academy showcase event. You will continue to meet with your Barclays mentor for 4 months following the programme. We encourage you to keep learning as you will have access to the online content for 12 months post-programme. You will also be invited to join the invited to join the Rise Academies alumni network, allowing you to continue to connect with like-minded individuals.

Your business is located in the US/UK. Your business is operating across the future of money, banking or finance. Your business has raised seed funding and now has a genuine ambition to raise series A funding within the next 12 months. Your team has at least 10 members, excluding founders. You are able to dedicate a minimum of 1 day a week to learning with full responsibility for the actions and development roadmap directed by both the programme and your coach.

We will be accepting applications from founders and co-founders. Applicants can bring one additional team member onto the programme who must be either a co-founder or at C-level status. Including the applicant, there can be a maximum of 2 team members taking part in the programme.

There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to identifying successful founders/businesses, in terms of age, education or work experience.

Each week, you’ll be working through a new learning module addressing a particular pillar of your business and completing the related activities. Your coach dictates your learning journey and progress will be assessed on a weekly basis with your dedicated scale-up coach to make sure you are on track, and really making the most of your opportunity on the Rise Growth Academy.

The Rise Growth Academy is delivered to you by Rise, created by Barclays and Rainmaking. To ensure you can access our support flexibly, the Rise Growth Academy content will be delivered online through ASPIRE, Rainmaking’s digital learning and development platform.

Rise, created by Barclays is the #HomeofFinTech and is on a mission to connect technology, talent and trends and to accelerate innovation and growth in the financial services industry. Rise allows cutting-edge fintech start-ups and scale-ups to connect, create and scale their businesses, backed by Barclays’ global network of industry experts, mentors, investors and partners. Rainmaking has been heavily involved in supporting people launch new businesses for more than 100 years collectively. We wish you the best of luck on your next step to building your business!

No, there is no ‘sweat equity’ or automatic Barclays participation on the cap table for joining the programme.

In select cases the Barclays Principal Investments team will invest in funding rounds for RGA companies, this is typically where there is a strategic nexus to Barclays.

Generally between $1-3m as part of a funding round.

Depending on the size and structure of the round and Board, Barclays may appoint an investment professional from the Principal Investments team, or a technical expert from a product area of the bank.