The InvestCloud Innovation Center enables teams from banks, wealth managers and other financial services firms to undertake ‘residences’ to accelerate the development of new apps through access to InvestCloud’s full technology platform, in collaboration with a team of InvestCloud mentors. Residences are also available to FinTech startups looking to build their businesses using the InvestCloud platform.

The Innovation Center echoes InvestCloud’s beginnings in a Californian garage, when a team of six designed, built and shipped its first product, PlayMyMillions, in just six months. Teams working at the Center will follow this approach, increasing the speed of delivery for digital projects and enabling large financial institutions to work with the flexibility of a startup, while affording massive technology leverage to startups and established firms alike.

John Wise, co-founder and CEO of InvestCloud, said, “The purpose of the Innovation Center is simple: to help both our clients and startups to deliver a new generation of digital solutions whilst eliminating the risk of development and decreasing the time to market.”

Wise continued, “Too often, digital projects take years to develop and cost millions. Many in-house initiatives are simply never delivered - typical failure rates for startups, incubators and internal IT projects are in the 90-percent-plus range. Our platform and approach is hyper-modular in nature, providing massive leverage and predictability in delivery of financial apps - this is truly different. No project is allowed to take more than six months. Six people, six months, success.’”

The new 10,747-foot Innovation Center in Los Angeles has capacity for fifteen teams, consisting of no more than six participants each. Further Innovation Centers are opening in New York and Soho, London later in 2017.

Participants will ‘show and tell’ their work on a weekly basis to demonstrate progress to InvestCloud and their own organization. Companies working at the Center can also create sub-teams from their own organization, or utilize InvestCloud’s staff and external partners.

The Innovation Center will also undertake research and investigation projects into the behaviors of high-net-worth individuals and other audience segments during their customer journey. This insight will be shared with participating organizations to better inform the creation of customer experiences.

Mark Trousdale, Executive Vice President at InvestCloud, said, “As major industry players - including two of the world’s largest banks as well as PwC - recognize the capabilities of our digital platform, we want to share our expertise and collaborate more broadly with internal IT teams and startups, as well as existing software houses.

“InvestCloud offers the best environment, incorporating beautifully designed spaces with the highest level of security needed for the financial markets, to create a place where innovation and collaboration occur. In addition, new teams have access to all of our distribution partners and alliances, as well as the ability to connect with our clients, in order to promote and sell their financial apps - another unique approach.”