The £100,000 annual fund, to be called the S&S FinTech Fund, is the brainchild of Simmons & Simmons head of international finance technology Angus Mclean. The fund will offer free legal advice to up to four UK FinTech startups each year, with no one startup receiving more than £33,000 worth of free advice in any given year. ‘Our vision is for the S&S FinTech Fund to help promising startups solve challenging legal or regulatory problems that could otherwise slow down their development or, in some cases, prevent them from getting off the ground at all,’ commented Mr Mclean. In order to qualify for support from the fund, fintech startups must not have received more than £1 million worth of investment and need to have been accepted into a leading UK FinTech accelerator programme, or to have been referred to Simmons & Simmons by a leading FinTech-focused VC investor. A statement from the firm makes clear that Simmons & Simmons does not expect to take any equity in return for providing advice to the startups, but rather hopes to ‘build strong relationships with the next generation of exciting FinTech businesses.’