4 Rising UK Fintechs to Watch in 2024

Fintech certainly wasn’t immune from tech industry headwinds last year, with total worldwide invested being cut almost in half compared to the year before. While the UK fintech sector inevitably saw a decrease in investment in line with this global trend, it has comfortably retained its position as one of the world’s most prominent fintech hubs, being second only to the US in terms of money raised, and racking up more investment than the next 28 European countries combined.

There’s a number of factors making the UK particularly fertile ground for fintech. These include:

• Geographical location – With London being a longstanding global financial centre, since long before fintech was a glimmer in a founder’s eye, the UK provides a well-established ecosystem for new financial services firm to flourish.
• Access to capital – London is home to a wealth of VC firms and incubator/accelerator programmes (including entirely fintech-focused ones like Barclays Accelerator and Startupbootcamp Fintech).
• Official support – The UK has a nurturing and forward-thinking legal and regulatory framework for fintech, with the FCA’s digital sandbox providing a testing environment for firms to test and evaluate their products.
• Fintech-savvy domestic market – Fintech adoption has been soaring in the UK, with a recent poll showing 86% takeup in the population and UK consumers using 2.8 fintech products and services on average

Of course, success also breeds success, and the UK’s established cohort of major fintech brands, such as Revolut, Monzo and SumUp, has blazed a trail for more startups hungry for success. Let’s take a look at some of the up-and-comers which may yet join the fintech elite.

Super Payments made headlines in the tech press when it launched in 2022, largely because its founder is a bona fide fintech heavyweight: Samir Desai CBE, one of the founders of Funding Circle.

The startup, which wasted no time in completing a £22.5 million pre-seed round, is taking on rivals like Klarna and PayPal by providing an online checkout solution which doesn’t charge transaction fees to merchants, and provides cash rewards for consumers who use its app to make payments.

The company generates revenue by selling advertising space on the Super app, and also by charging businesses which want to gain more visibility through premium listings. Its stated mission to ‘combine all the advantages of store cards (free payments for businesses and higher rewards for customers), eliminate the disadvantages (only available in one store) and reinvent them for the digital age’ is certainly a compelling elevator pitch and we’re looking forward to seeing how the startup progresses.

With the cost of living crisis still having an impact on so many people, there’s a natural need for fintech solutions which make it easier to manage and get out of debt. Aiming to meet this need is SuperFi, which was founded in 2021 by two friends who were motivated by the dire financial predicaments of people they personally knew.

The SuperFi app allows users to connect their credit cards, BNPL and bank accounts in one place, so they can instantly see what they owe, enable notifications so that repayment dates aren’t missed, automatically allocate spare change from online transactions to paying off debts, and complete money management challenges to win rewards.

Last year SuperFi raised £780,000 in pre-seed funding, and the company estimates it will save its users up to £130 million in debt repayment costs by 2028.

Lending companies have long had a bad rep, but Plend has successfully positioned itself as an ethical alternative. Founded in 2020, the company has boldly trumpeted the fact that it’s “changing the loan game for good” by providing low-interest financing to people who might otherwise be considered ineligible thanks to inaccurate, out-of-date credit histories.

It does this by vetting customers using proprietary technology to look beyond simple credit scores to examine individual spending habits and financial situations. The platform can then come up with a ‘Plend Score’ for a customer, and use that to calculate how much can be reasonably borrowed.

In 2022 it racked up £40 million in seed funding from backers including the co-founders of Monzo. One investor hailed the company for “creating a fairer lending environment and improving the lives of many consumers currently burdened with high-interest loans.”

AI has been impacting fintech just as it has every other sector, but 2024 is anticipated to be the true tipping point for AI implementation. One company that’s been ahead of the curve is Revenir, which is one of the older firms on this list, having been founded in 2019.

The firm is leveraging AI to offer a white label API service for banks. This allows the banks to broaden the capabilities of their apps by optimising VAT reclaim for their customers returning from trips to the EU.

Every year, a whopping £30 billion in VAT are left unclaimed by UK visitors to Europe, largely because the process of reclaiming the money is cumbersome – and because they simply don’t know they can do it. Revenir’s solution can be plugged into banking apps so that VAT is automatically refunded via debit and credit cards.

It’s an example of a fintech solution that tackles a genuine problem with elegant simplicity, so the CEO’s declaration that he believes “almost everyone will use it in the coming years” shouldn’t be dismissed as mere entrepreneurial hyperbole. The company has raised £2.5 million so far, and we wouldn’t be surprised to see it attract the attention of more backers this year and beyond.

Here at Hampleton, we have decades of strategic and operational experience in the financial services industry. If you’re a fintech founder or senior executive poised to enter the M&A market and seeking expert guidance, get in touch for a chat today.