The six-­month Fellowship scheme combines business strategy workshops, peer coaching and leadership development, and is free of charge to start-­ups. 

Applications are invited from innovators who are actively developing a financial product or service that responds to a real need in society and has the potential to transform the wider financial system. Fellows are not required to be working on their idea full-­time, but must have shown commitment to developing their idea.

Unlike intensive classroom-­based incubators, the Fellowship programme consists of six monthly sessions and a two-­day residential leadership retreat, allowing participants to learn from real-­life experience. Monthly sessions include business skills workshops, action learning sessions, and social events to build Fellows’ contacts across the Lab community.

Anna Laycock, Lead Strategist at the Lab, commented:

"We’re looking for the pioneers who will reconnect finance with the real needs of people, the environment and the wider economy. We’re not obsessed with profit or equity stakes: we’re focused on the ideas that can challenge the status quo in
finance.

Our Fellows will experience an incubator like no other – one that recognises the realities of going against the grain in our complex financial system. Working with our wider community of innovators and influencers, we’ll build a better way to do
finance."

The call for applications is open until 26 February and the Fellowship programme begins in
March 2016.