FinTech startup raises £3.3m in pre-funding
FinTechInvestment
London-based Sidekick, a digital active investment manager, has raised a pre-seed equity round of £3.33m led by Octopus Ventures, one of Europe’s largest and most active venture capital investors.
Seedcamp, Europe’s leading early-stage fund, and Semantic, a venture fund that invests in new tracks for data and the digital economy, also participated in the round.
Sidekick aims to close the generation gap by offering products and services typically reserved for high net worth individuals, including access to alternative investments and the ability to borrow against these investment portfolios.
Clients will have access to the Sidekick investment team who will provide regular updates on portfolio performance and share high-quality editorial content to help clients build their investment knowledge along the way.
Serial entrepreneur Matthew Ford (CEO) and Peter Townsend (CTO) founded Sidekick in January 2022.
Ford previously founded mobile banking platform Pariti, where Townsend was CTO, which was sold to Tandem Bank in 2018. They are joined at Sidekick by an experienced broader founding team from traditional asset management, consumer credit and FinTech backgrounds.
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The £3.33m funding round is being used to further develop Sidekick’s app, expand the internal management team and secure the necessary regulatory permissions and registrations.
Sidekick will offer an innovative product mix, including both equities and crypto, and construct a responsible financing line for clients to borrow against their portfolios when needed.
Ford said: “Most retail investors have two options for building wealth: settle for passive portfolios or try to time the market and pick stocks and cryptos themselves without access to the training, tools and information needed to do this effectively.
“This funding will allow us to build a modern app-based investment service that provides clients with the same professional expertise that only high net worth individuals are accustomed to.
“We already have a fantastic team in place and we are now excited to be working towards regulatory approval for launch in the coming months.”
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Tom Wilson, partner at Seedcamp, said: “Matt and Pete have a huge amount of FinTech start-up experience from their time co-founding Pariti and working on the management team at Tandem.
“All of that to say, they’re the perfect team to go after this opportunity. We think there’s a massive business here to democratize access to financial products and help close the generation gap.”
