Startups in the Triangle will be able to earn some first-hand attention and advice from Fidelity Labs, the “innovation catalyst” and R&D group for the financial services giant.

It’s opening an office at the American Underground’s downtown Durham office.

Who knows, the Lab might just open the door to a Fidelity capital investment, too.

The office space will serve as sites for meetings with startups and also provide workspace for Fidelity staffers.

More importantly, Fidelity says it will help put on workshops, panel discussions and other education programming for the more than 200 startups that are located across the three American Underground sites (two in Durham, one in Raleigh.) American Underground also works with Google for Entrepreneurs and other organizations to provide mentoring and other support to its clients.

However, just because Fidelity Labs is on site doesn’t mean checkbooks are ready for deals.

There is no direct connection to Fidelity dollars, cautions Duke Chang, Vice President of Product Management at Fidelity Investments who will manage the Fidelity Labs outpost.

“Fidelity Labs does not make investments in startups,” Chang tells WTW.

“However, Fidelity Investments (which Labs is under) often evaluates startups in varying stages and has made investments in some, including companies such as Uber, Pinterest and others.”

Finding possible investments is how Fidelity Labs pays off for the corporate parent, which operates a huge campus in RTP (a site once occupied by Nortel).

“Fidelity Labs, is Fidelity’s innovation catalyst and R&D unit,” Chang explains. “The firm as a whole spends nearly $3 billion a year on tech and innovation and has some incredible resources and capabilities.

“Fidelity Labs operates with a lean startup mentality and has its own in-house incubator where we experiment with and create new products, service and entire businesses that can benefit our customers.

“The AU gets access to our innovation insights and experts, including our design thinking team, intrapreneurs and executives. In return, we get to learn from the entrepreneurs within the AU. Our partnerships are extremely important to us for the ability they give us to learn from the best and the brightest entrepreneurial communities.”

But Chang notes that Fidelity will be looking for deal potential.

“[W]e are always evaluating companies that we see potential in,” he says.

Fidelity works with startups in San Francisco and Boston as well, so Chang calls the American Underground partnership ” a natural next step.The American Underground has done a great job of bringing together a vital ecosystem that we are really looking forward to contributing to. It truly is a ‘campus’ for an entrepreneur that provides a rich and stimulating environment for entrepreneurs to flourish in.”

Fidelity also offers a recently launched incubator program for startups that includes a staff of what the company calls “design thinkers.”

In the announcement, Adam Klein, the chief strategist for the Underground, welcomed the Fidelity commitment.

“Both Fidelity and the American Underground are about fostering and making the most of innovation,” Klein said.

“The partnership will offer our growing ecosystem of startups the strategic insights of a world class organization and, more specifically, an expert view of the vast global financial sector.”