How Nicolas Meric made the leap from particle physics to fintech, and the challenges he faced along the way with Dreamquark. 

Entrepreneurs often describe multiple existential challenges hitting them at the same time as “a perfect storm”. But Nigel Verdon, CEO of banking-as-a-service platform, Railsbank, must surely be the only fintech founder to have gone through one in the literal sense. Of course, being able to keep calm in such trying circumstances can give you perspective when dealing with 30-foot swells like a financial crisis or a pandemic - enabling you to see through choppy seas to the destination that lies beyond.

Tamas Giorgadse was a chess prodigy who survived civil war and hyperinflation. He finished school aged 12, and completed his masters three years later. He moved to Germany, gained two PhDs and went to work for McKinsey. Next, he co-founded Raisin, Europe’s leading platform for savings and investments. Already a unicorn, the fintech recently announced a merger with domestic rival Deposit Solutions, to create Raisin DS. 

A back injury - possibly caused by some overexuberant dancing at a wedding - put Anthony Beilin out of action for six months. Luckily, he worked full-time, at Aviva. His income didn't suffer, and he received all the physical and emotional help he needed. But when a contractor friend came to see him - and told him of his loss of income and benefits while off from a knee-op - the proverbial lightbulb went off in Anthony's brain. Why, he reasoned, should gig-workers, freelancers and contractors be deprived of sick pay, holiday pay and other benefits just because of the way they work? This issue became especially pressing during the pandemic - giving Collective Benefits a perfectly-timed opportunity to step into the breach.

A lunch, an idea and a co-founder she trusted were all it took for Juliette Delanoe to leave her job at Thales to create Ubble, a (for now) French-focused, web-based identity verification startup. As with so many digital-first businesses, the past 12-18 months have been a boon; banks and financial institutions account for more than half the company’s clients. And if you’re wondering why “Ubble”, it’s a riff on the famous telescope that sees into the depths of space (in French, the H is silent!). 

When he was fired by Citi in 1999, a young Nick Bortot received some friendly advice from his soon-to-be ex-boss: don't get another job in finance.  Yet that's just what he did, joining the Netherlands' first online broker, before helping to build BinckBank into the first Dutch fintech unicorn. In 2013 he founded BUX, a pan-European trading platform, partly because he had a point to prove. Inevitably, it's often compared to Robinhood, and not just because the two startups were founded within months of one another. It offers zero-fee trading, and has the size, scope and simplicity that have made Robinhood a household name. But it doesn't get paid for order flow (it's illegal in the EU). And with a focus on subscriptions, education and long-term investment, it's also Europe's anti-Robinhood. In that sense, it’s a bit like Schrödinger's cat being alive and dead at the same time. So maybe we should call it Schrödinger's app! 

Born in Bombay, and raised in Singapore, Anand Sambasivan was destined to be a doctor - till it turned out he wasn't very good at medicine. He went into investment banking and then set up a hedge fund, where he had privileged access to IPOs and other share offerings. But he didn’t think it was fair. So he founded PrimaryBid to level the playing field. Thanks to the London-based fintech - and a partnership with the LSE - retail investors have had access to IPOs, such as Deliveroo and PensionBee, and share sales by the likes of Compass Group, Ocado and Taylor Wimpey. WIth more than 160 deals done, PrimaryBid has now launched in France. The U.S. may not be far behind, as Anand continues on his mission to put the P back in IPO.

Sam Seaton was an eventing champion. She flew around the world with her horse in the hold. But after failing to make the Sydney Olympics team, and realising the demands on her and the horses were not what she wanted, she turned her hand to consulting. A management buyout (MBO) of stochastic forecasting company, eValue followed, before another MBO, this time of open banking platform, Moneyhub, which she bought for £1. 

Farmer. Missionary. Electric sign salesman. Hotelier. And most importantly - for our purposes, at least - founder of not one, but TWO successful fintechs. First came SME loan-broker, Lendio. And now NAV, a business financial health platform - matching small businesses with the best loans available, and helping them improve their risk profile, to enable access to better loan rates in future. The company has raised $100m from investment royalty, including Kleiner Perkins, Goldman Sachs, and Experian - an even larger sum than Levi's had to pay in driving fines in the U.S. and around the world. 

Georg Ludviksson was once Iceland’s top mathlete and creator of a Tomb-Raider-topping video game. But it took the global financial crisis to help turn his fintech, Meniga, into reality. The company is an innovation partner for some of Europe's biggest banks, such as Santander and Unicredit, enabling them to provide customers with advanced digital services - everything from personal finance management to carbon insights. And if you want to know how Meniga got its name, make sure you listen to the end, for a musical finale.