Financial technology journalist Liz Lumley has been appointed MD of Startupbootcamp Fintech’s accelerator programme in London.
Lumley has worked in the industry for more than 20 years and was most recently special projects editor at fintech newswire Finextra, where she looked after multimedia content.
“I have seen a lot of changes in banking, technology and financial services over the past two decades, and I believe passionately in the development of the burgeoning fintech sector,” Lumley said. “I am very excited to be joining the Startupbootcamp family and look forward to helping grow and develop a new generation of innovative fintech providers.”
The London programme team is currently recruiting for its 2015 cohort and is holding pitch days in Paris, Toronto, New York, Singapore and London. Each participating startup gets €15,000 in funding for an 8% equity stake in their business and free workspace at Tesco’s Rainmaking Loft.
Last year’s participants came from as far away as Creditable, from South Africa, Insly, from Estonia, and M-Changa, from Kenya. Poland’s FriendlyScore just received SEIS investment from Mercia Fund Management.
UK teams in 2014 included P2P and equity management platform Up Investments and online share marketplace Liquity.
The accelerator is sponsored by Lloyds Banking Group, MasterCard, Rabobank, SBT Venture Capital, arvato, Route 66 Ventures and Intesa Sanpaolo.