In profile: Mike Galvin at Toqio

Fintech platform Tokyo helps companies, not just banks, quickly launch built-in financing solutions for their business or customers.

Founded in 2019 by Eduardo Martinez and Michael Galvin, Toqio removes the need to build and manage complex software solutions through its SaaS platform and a marketplace for banking and fintech partners.

Here, Galvin, also CCO, shares insights into the company, which recently closed a €18.7 million funding round, and reveals the best things about working in the fintech industry.

Mike, tell us more about your company and its purpose

Toqio helps financial institutions take advantage of fintech innovation by providing them with a platform that allows them to digitize their financial products. To date, companies have had to make huge investments in technology to do this, which is why most of the innovation we’ve seen to date has been from Tier 1 banks and extremely well-funded technology companies. However, these are only the tip of the iceberg in the financial industry. The Toqio platform provides businesses with a set of modules, or building blocks, that allow them to build new financial products quickly, or they can develop their own custom products and features by leveraging our low-code development tools. Through our marketplace, our customers can also connect with a set of market-leading fintech and financial service providers to build their innovative solutions.

What are some recent achievements you would like to highlight?

We have just announced a €20 million Series A funding round that will allow us to strengthen our leading position as the platform for developing fintech products. The timing is also critical, given the tough economic outlook ahead. It puts us in an excellent position to operate in the coming years. We’re also excited, as we think the value proposition that Toqio delivers, versus building your own technology, is going to be very attractive to financial institutions over the coming years. We deliver them a much more attractive business case from a financial point of view, but without having to give up anything in terms of innovation. The funding round is great for us, but we think it’s good for the fintech industry in general, as our customers will still be able to move forward despite the broader economic conditions being challenging.

How did you get into the fintech industry?

I’m still pretty new to fintech; Toqio is my first fully focused role in the industry. It was at my previous company Genius where I realized the potential of fintech and embedded finance, especially for SMEs and large companies. We provided payroll but not payments, expense management but not expense cards, and cash flow forecasts but not lending. It was 2015, so fintech was still emerging, but it was clear we were only tackling half the problem. It was this insight that really drove our ambition to create Toqio, jumping head first into fintech.

What is the best thing about working in the fintech industry?

It’s a hugely connected and personal industry and I’ve developed great relationships with our team, our customers and our partners. Despite the hype, the industry is still in its early stages, so people realize that there is an advantage to making the collective industry successful. Everyone is willing to connect and help where they can. It is also an industry that can really do good through the democratization of financial services. The projects I see happening, and some of the ones we are lucky enough to support in Tokyo, can have a real and meaningful impact on society. I believe this will be the most important impact of the fintech industry in the next 10 years.

What frustrates you most about the fintech industry?

The industry is still in its infancy, which makes it fragmented and complex. I think the perception, often driven by the fintech hype, is that everything is simple, connected and ready to use. The reality is different. Regulation is still localized per country, so companies cannot simply access global services. Accessing best-of-breed services means aggregating via technology that has historically been very expensive, and using aggregated services erodes core margins. Fortunately for me, one of Toqio’s key roles is in alleviating this frustration, so we clearly see a light at the end of the tunnel.

How have your previous roles influenced your career?

Definitely, I genuinely appreciate the work ethic and expectation to deliver high quality work that was instilled in me at Accenture. Not only is it one of the qualities that has helped me further in my career, but it is the primary quality I look for when bringing new people into Toqio. After that, at Geniac, I learned what it meant to build a startup and how to deal with all the ups and downs that come with running an early stage business.

What’s the best mistake you’ve ever made?

I quit my job at the height of the financial crisis in 2008. I was on Accenture, then, which I have always considered a top company, but I knew at the time that it was not what I wanted to do long term. That being said, I quit the same day as my co-founder Eduardo and we launched our first company the next week. So, despite the initial challenges, it was the start of a journey that brought us to where we are today.

What does the future hold for your company?

I think fintech is at an inflection point today, there’s been a lot of investment in infrastructure, VC investment in the sector, but we’ve still only really seen the tip of the iceberg when it comes to financial institutions and companies that have taken advantage of this. We believe it is because innovations must be more accessible, both from a technological and cost perspective. That’s exactly what Toqio delivers. We have seen similar turning points with CRM and CMS, where companies built their own platforms early on, but then providers such as Salesforce and Shopify delivered better solutions than building homemade systems. We believe fintech will follow this path, and we consider Toqio to be positioned as the best solution for the long-tail companies that still need to start their journey of digitizing their financial services.

What are the next key points or challenges for your industry as a whole?

One of the challenges for fintech is accessibility to all the innovation that has been developed. Especially in the B2B sector, where fintech is at an even earlier stage. For this reason, I think we’ll start to see a lot of conversations around embedded economics for businesses, as it’s very different from what we see in the consumer market today. While we haven’t seen it happen yet, I still think we’re going to see market consolidation in the next 12 to 24 months. Many fintechs are limited by geography as they must be regulated, so the market downturn and reduced access to funding should drive interesting market activity.