In fintech, as with any industry, AI can help transform time-intensive and costly processes into something slicker, smarter and more sustainable. The key is to invest in AI early on – this enables people to develop as the company grows, creating upskilling and professional development opportunities for everyone. AI can reduce unnecessary tasks, but it can also reinforce and bolster existing roles, thereby empowering intelligent scaling alongside a highly AI-proficient workforce.
In looking at this question, its important to start by breaking down the SME market. When people talk about SMEs, they generally mean the millions of micro businesses, which have seen strong focus from the likes of Starling, Monzo and Tide. Allica, on the other hand, is exclusively focused on the established SME (ESME) segment. These are companies with, say, 20 or 50 employees that have some of the complexity of a corporate, but rarely the depth of in-house finance expertise a corporate has.
This topic is certainly top of mind; just last week, I was asked to contribute to a presentation on “What founders hate about VCs and why VCs persist in these behaviours, despite being aware of the friction,” for one of Europe’s largest upcoming conferences in the start-up ecosystem.
As an early-stage investor, my objective is clear: to generate returns for our LPs within a predefined time frame. While the investment thesis and timing of Mubadala Capital differ from those of a fund like Peak, the underlying principle remains consistent. In times of economic uncertainty or company distress, fundamental changes may become necessary to protect the interests of all stakeholders—most notably, for investors, this means safeguarding returns or … losses.
What have been your biggest learnings at Algotec, and how do you apply them as a board member in your portfolio companies?
At Algotec, I gained invaluable insights into the crucial role of deep domain expertise in creating best-in-class products. Equally significant is maintaining close proximity to the customer—understanding their specific needs, how they utilize products, and identifying their primary pain points. These principles continue to inform my decisions as a board member for other companies, particularly in guiding the design of their MVPs and efforts to achieve product-market fit.
What were your biggest learnings at Deloitte, Barclays Ventures, and Augmentum Fintech?
Across my past roles I’ve come to appreciate some things that are constant across all stages of investing. For me, one of those is the team. In times of rapid flux like the current platform shift, what I am looking for in teams is their learning rate – how quickly do they incorporate developments above and below them in the AI stack to their product and GTM strategy. No matter how young or mature a company is, this is the one constant throughout a company’s life.
What were your biggest learnings from your time at Wrapp, AdProfit and HDWR from bootstrapping through to scaling a business internationally?
My main takeaway when looking holistically at my founder years is that there is a huge range of differences on the entrepreneurial path and many of them can be incredibly rewarding in their own unique way. How you define success as an entrepreneur is not always determined by being a keynote speaker at the largest tech conferences and sweet-talked by brand-name investors. There can be endless satisfaction from controlling your own destiny and moving slowly. Even though I represent the VC-backed path today, I feel society often forgets to salute the many small businesses that never aspire to grow exponentially and have a huge exit but are still essential to our economy and the lives of millions.
Startup forecasts, valuations and capital requirements are all largely driven by the founders’ and their backers’ views on the future scale of the opportunity at hand. If the opportunity is vast and unprecedented, it is likely to attract investment to match that… I believe that artificial intelligence is one such opportunity, and that – if a ‘hype cycle’ is your preferred way of gauging new technologies – we are in fact still quite far from the “peak of inflated expectations”.
Did you know that humans spend 90% of their time indoors? That’s crazy, isn’t it? And yet navigation / mapping apps only seem to work outdoors.
Why is that? It’s for a very simple reason, and it’s also not for a lack of willingness.
These types of apps require a map to help get you around, but they also need to know where you are on that map. When outdoors, GPS does exactly that. When indoors, it’s much less simple, and we at Waymap have made it our mission to build a positioning system (and app on top of that) that works everywhere GPS can’t. Our goal is to be accurate enough to help navigate blind people around modern cities, and benefit everybody in the process.
Before becoming Principal of Seraphim Space Manager LLP you were Senior Director at Astra and COO at Apollo Fusion and are currently Board Observer at D-Orbit. What have been your biggest learnings and pivotal insights gained on your journey thus far from these roles?
Team is everything. Many startups have great ideas and tech but it’s all about the execution, i.e. turning it into a product that people want to buy and doing that over and over again. That all comes down to the team. I was very fortunate at Apollo Fusion to work with a team of exceptional people that took very good tech and built a great company with a small team. For me, when I look at startups, the team is the real differentiator between startups.
Despite projections towards the end of 2023 saying we’d start to see economic uplift in 2024, UK businesses, including in the tech sector, continue to struggle amidst a horde of significant challenges. And an ongoing funding slowdown isn’t helping the situation. 
