Fintech Startup OakNorth Adds Gousto Founder Timo Boldt to Board

• London-based fintech OakNorth has added Gousto founder Timo Boldt to its board.
• Boldt founded the recipe box unicorn in 2012 and will become a non-executive director of the bank.
• SoftBank-backed OakNorth is profitable and looking to continue its US expansion.

The founder of SoftBank-backed start-up box Gousto has joined the board of OakNorth, a fintech unicorn also backed by the Japanese investment giant, Insider can reveal.

Timo Boldt, who founded London-based Gousto in 2012, will join the fintech as a non-executive director after working in hedge funds and investment banking. His startup, which provides meal kits to customers to enable them to cook at home, became a winner during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The appointment brings more consumer-facing and entrepreneurial experience to OakNorth’s board, said CEO Rishi Khosla.

“You get good decision-making from diversity of thought and experience,” Khosla said. “Having gone into a very manual process in terms of food and food delivery to get the technology and distribution right, he shows that he has brought a lot of innovation to his industry.”

OakNorth, founded in 2015, provides loans to small and medium-sized businesses in the UK and internationally and offers a suite of credit information products. The company, which is profitable, has remained stable in SoftBank’s Vision Fund portfolio. The Japanese investor has been hammered by the decline in technology valuations, posting a record $23.4 billion loss in the quarter last week.

Boldt said he had followed OakNorth’s “incredible growth story” since it launched in 2015.

“Having started and scaled my own business, I am acutely aware of the challenges business owners face when it comes to banking and finance,” he said. “This is one of the main reasons why OakNorth’s mission and unique approach really resonates with me.”

The move comes as OakNorth, which grew pre-tax profits by more than 70% last year, continues to push into the wider UK SME space. Khosla said the company will outperform in 2022 despite a broader slowdown in the fintech market.

“We are in the fortunate position of being highly profitable and high growth while having excess capital,” he added. “The shakeout in this industry means the opportunity to step back and see which businesses are really healthy and see how we can take advantage of that.”

OakNorth acquired UK credit forecasting startup Fluidly in December 2021 in a deal that Khosla said had a “clear strategic rationale” for the company and indicated that future “inorganic acquisitions” were being explored.

Additionally, Khosla, who is a donor to Britain’s Conservative Party, said a potential UK Fintech Growth Fund, with former chancellor Phillip Hammond, could be a positive step for technology investment in the country.

“It’s a great time to invest a new fund in the space, not get caught up in the irrationality of the market, while still having new firepower untainted by the scars of previous years,” he said. Hammond is a board adviser to OakNorth and was previously reprimanded by a parliamentary lobby watchdog for contacting senior government officials in the Treasury on behalf of the bank.