“In the past, start-ups would spend a lot of time building their company’s IT infrastructures which left them little time to focus on developing the high-quality products, profitable business strategies and effective marketing campaigns they needed to enter the market successfully,” explains Richard Peers, director of the financial services industry at Microsoft. “Today, fintech accelerator programs enable entrepreneurs to experiment with different ideas and quickly develop breakthrough products that have the potential to revolutionize the financial services industry.”

Microsoft offers various accelerator initiatives, including seven global Microsoft Ventures programs and the BizSpark program, which gives start-ups access to its technology stack, partners and marketing engines.

Finlytics, which was established in 2006 as a joint venture with a tier-one investment bank, is one financial solutions provider that has benefited from Microsoft’s BizSpark Plus program.

The company joined BizSpark to help it save operational and development costs by offering its business intelligence solutions via the Microsoft Azure cloud platform, rather than on its clients’ on-premises servers. BizSpark’s team provided free access to Microsoft’s software development tools, servers and Azure cloud platform, as well as provided expert guidance.

“Microsoft reviewed our architecture and initial business strategies, and gave us the planning advice and software resources we needed to successfully transition from our old model in a shorter period of time,” explains Nick Simpson, the founder of finlytics. “We have eliminated our monthly development costs and can now deliver the same reporting and business intelligence applications via a more cost-effective and scalable model on Azure.”

Working in collaboration with BizSpark and its Microsoft partner Level 39, a fintech accelerator based in the UK’s Canary Wharf, enabled finlytics to interact with major banks, insurers and other financial services institutions.

“Even if a start-up had an unlimited supply of money, it would still benefit from being a member of the BizSpark program,” concludes Simpson. “Deploying cloud solutions in the financial services sector can be challenging due to the strict regulations, but the Microsoft Ventures and BizSpark accelerator programs are really helping startups to navigate these compliance issues, build viable business plans and bring their solutions to market quickly.”

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