by Elise Reuter, Reporter, San Diego Business Journal
SAN DIEGO – April 9, 2019
San Diego-based startup incubator EvoNexus is looking to launch a new financial technologies incubator with the help of two corporate partners.
EvoNexus currently runs two technology incubators in San Diego and Irvine, with portfolio companies covering the whole range from silicon to biotechnology. The new incubator will focus on fintech, including banking, capital markets and mobile payments, and the technologies that enable these transactions, such as cybersecurity, data science and edge computing.
Two new corporate partners will help EvoNexus jump-start the program: Royal Bank of Canada and global investment firm Franklin Templeton, both of which committed to long-term partnerships with the program.
“We are excited about collaborating with EvoNexus and being a founding sponsor of its Fintech incubator, as we believe it will contribute to the acceleration of our efforts in leveraging emerging technology to improve our business outcomes for investors,” Franklin Templeton Chief Technology Offficer Joe Boerio said in a news release. “Forging and expanding Franklin’s footprint within the FinTech startup eco system continues to be an important element of our FinTech strategy.”
The Irvine Company will provide EvoNexus a dedicated, 6,000-square-foot office space for the incubator, just a few floors down from its current offices in UTC. The space has enough room for about 15 startups with two to five employees each. Companies admitted to the program closer to Los Angeles or Orange County may also use EvoNexus’ space there.
“The next generation of our fintech portfolio companies will be disruptive and beneficial for developing infrastructure for new banking and investment models that will rely on unique technology and data. Leveraging EvoNexus’ deep corporate alliances to open the region’s first purpose built FinTech Incubator is important for reshaping and building sustainability in the SoCal technology innovation ecosystem,” EvoNexus CEO Rory Moore said in a news release.
Though EvoNexus has always had big corporate partners in San Diego, lately, the nonprofit has spun up incubator programs tailored to companies’ areas of interest. In December, EvoNexus opened an application round in tandem with Cubic Corp. and Viasat Inc., and most recently, it began partnering with Merck’s high-tech materials business, EMD Performance Materials.
