Royal Bank of Canada and Franklin Templeton have thrown their weight behind the creation of a purpose-built fintech incubator in San Diego, the first facility of its kind in the Southern California region.
The SoCal centre will be run by local startup incubator EvoNexus, which has achieved $1.6 billion in funding and acquisition outcomes since its inception in 2010.
EvoNexus CEO and co-founder Rory Moore, states: “Together with RBC and Franklin Templeton, our vision is to establish SoCal’s premier fintech incubator as the driving force behind innovations between financial services and the next wave of underlying technologies, such as 5G, further enabling mobility and digitisation of financial transactions.”
The unit will work with RBS and Franklin Templeton to attract, select and launch high quality startups in an emerging fintech company portfolio, taking advantage of the region's business schools and deep talent pool.
“FinTech is an important sector for us at RBC,” says Eddy Ortiz, VP of solution acceleration & innovation at RBC. “Leveraging the time tested incubation platform that EvoNexus has perfected since 2010 will allow us to complement our commitment to invest in the best emerging technologies. We operate several RBC Innovation Labs around the globe and this partnership augments what we’re doing to incubate digital capabilities and drive innovation that creates value for our clients.”