While London remains the capital of finance, the tech scene in the UK is somewhat fragmented.
This may not be a bad thing, though, as Cheshire have experienced a lot of growth in these areas, as they’re able to leverage remote work along northern talent pools like Liverpool and Manchester.
With that in mind, here is a closer look at the local startup scene.
Cheshire ‘s Most Known Startups & Tech
Quint Group
Gregory Cox’s Quint Group, a 2009-founded startup that belongs in the consumer finance space, has grown a number of fintechs.
Monevo is one of its frontrunners, a Cheshire-based personal credit platform.
The company currently serves over 150 banks and credit providers to offer credit solutions around the world.
Monevo alone has well over 100 employees, not to mention Credito, Infinian, Acquired.com, and moneyguru which are all belonging to Quint Group.
All of these companies operate within banking or credit services, whether it’s B2B or B2C.
As a result, a networking effect can be benefited from, where expertise is shared across companies; even if not explicitly, Quint Group is building up a portfolio of experts in credit services, to the point where one of the companies, moneyguru, is simply a personal money comparison site.
In other words, an arena to share this knowledge for the benefit of the public.
Mojo Mortgages
Founded by Richard Hayes and Nicholas Sherratt, Mojo Mortgages is a digital mortgage broker that helps people find and apply for mortgages online.
Their app, named Mortgagescore, is a way to introduce a better user experience into the world of mortgage seeking.
Both technology and human insight go into the app, and with a recent acquisition by RVU, it remains a startup on a strong path to growth.
Zuto
Car finance is a huge industry in the UK, with over 93% of all new car registrations in the UK financed by the Finance & Lease Association.
Ryan Dignan and James Wilkinson’s Zuto, which stemmed from Car Loan 4U, has become an important service for customers looking for car finance.
Zuto’s one-on-one service and transparent approach has led to 50% YoY revenue increases.
In 2020, the company hired 100 new employees in their attempts to scale up; to increase the staff by 40% during a pandemic has been greatly applauded.
Yimba
Yimba, which is a digital wallet startup co-founded by Jonathan Allan, Lee Clarke, and Robert Dowd, is another up-and-coming Cheshire company.
The software company offers new technology that allows banks to provide personalized banking services.
The company recently received a £500,000 investment from Maven Equity Finance, which is designed to spur on new product development and expand its staff numbers to serve their growing demand.
In Q3 2021, Yimba announced MasterCard and Railsbank as customers, which undoubtedly created interest from a number of high value banking clients (in particular challenger banks).
Their claim is that with only three lines of code, the software can be integrated.
With finance heading towards greater personalisation, Yimba seems well positioned to continue its path to success in the digital banking sector.
DebtStream
DebtStream is yet another consumer debt startup that is bringing digitalisation to the personal finance space.
The company, which is led by Martin O’Donnell, Leo De Freitas, and Gareth Bailey, offers a platform for efficient debt collection.
The startup recently received £1.1 million seed investment, which was led by Ascension’s Fair By Design Fund, with aspirations of revolutionizing this historically challenging area of finance.
Off the back of the seed investment, CEO Gareth Bailey stated: “We will further accelerate our growth with hires in engineering and client set-up. We will also work towards a ‘plug and play’ model where our clients can be up and running with our platform in a matter of days.”
Can Cheshire Startups Make it to the Top?
According to Alon Rajic, CEO of Money Transfer Comparison UK, one of the things that have led Wise to become a behemoth of £7bn valuation – the kings of UK’s Fintech, is that they had a mammoth mindset from the get-go.
Rajic, who has been covering the money transfer industry for nine years, says that Wise (TransferWise back then) was never about short term profits.
They had their mind set on becoming the leaders in this space, and have raised enough funds to allow themselves to grow at scale.
They were recruiting top notch talent, expanding into new territories and trying to separate themselves from the market. Even before they had a massive foothold and were burning cash.
So, says Rajic, Cheshire startups need to think big in order to be big.
It’s harder to raise money outside of London, but at the end of the day Wise’s entrepreneurs were Estonian businessmen so no reason why it won’t happen anywhere. UK, or worldwide.
The world is interconnected enough to facilitate that.
Final Word
Cheshire continues to increase the number of high-paid tech jobs in the area due to recent investments.
Fintechs appear to be a key driver of this growth, with many companies like Moneybrain, CHKKR, and Infinian not even mentioned.
There is a networking effect that happens, in which the more fintechs there are locally, the more that startups are attracted to basing themselves in the area too.
Local talent can switch companies without changing their commute, and new jobs continue to be created.
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