Tide Banking Startup Raises $14 Million For Small Business Services

Once upon a time, traditional banks dominated financial services for small businesses. Today, fintech companies like PayPal and Fundbox offer flexible, tech-savvy business loans while startups like Monzo and Qonto provide small companies with mobile banking services. A UK-based startup called Tide just raised $14 million to grow its banking app for small businesses.

The tide is turning, in more ways than one.

Business Insider reported Tide’s A round was one of the most lucrative funding series by a fintech company so far this year. Competition is fierce, but Tide has well-established backers in its corner, including Creandum, the venture capital firm that helped fund Spotify, and Anthemis, a fintech investment firm in London that also backed leading fintech innovators like Betterment and Currencycloud. With the global fintech market booming and Brexit on the horizon, Tide’s timing couldn’t be better.

Read: Peek Inside The Fintech Arms Race Between Banks And Startups

Brexit is expected to redraw borders in the United Kingdom’s financial ecosystem, hitting small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) the hardest, according to the Telegraph. A recent report by the Boston Consulting Group warned Brexit could reduce SMEs’ access to banking services, or at the very least make them much more expensive. A nimble startup like Tide could react to the changing market much quicker than banking dinosaurs.

"Our investors believe there is a real opportunity to support and champion small and medium-sized companies in the wake of Brexit," Tide CEO George Bevis told Business Insider. "Britain's smaller firms have been let down by traditional banks, which often charge vulnerable companies eye-watering fees and keep them waiting weeks to open a business account."

Taking A Different Look At Lending

The young startup bank even has a new partnership with Iwoca, an online European lender. They plan to launch a loan program later this summer, servicing SMEs that wouldn’t be eligible for traditional bank loans. “I used to be a banker at a traditional bank, so I’ve seen how this process works from the inside,” Bevis told International Business Times. “Their lending criteria often changes from week to week, often for nothing that has to do with the creditworthiness of the businesses who are applying.”

He said the entire loan application process is fraught with human error and subjective associations. For example, some bankers might wrongly associate a e-cigarette business with narcotics. It may seem counterintuitive, but automated loan processing may offer more flexibility than paper forms because it can account for more complex and diverse circumstances. “A fully automated decision would be A) rapid, B) very low effort for the borrower and C) as a higher chance of developing fair lending,” Bevis said.

Just like Tide’s simple signup process, which uses a passport or driver’s license, the mobile app plans to slash bureaucratic loan processes to a matter of mere minutes. If Tide represents the prospective future for niche banking, then all signs point to mobile-first services fueled by collaboration instead of clear-cut competition.

Read: PayPal Sets Sights On Small Businesses, Offers New Toolkit for Business Owners

Tide doesn’t have a banking license. Instead, partners like Barclays take care of the more heavily regulated aspects like bundling values and holding accounts in bulk. Rather than beefing up licensings credentials as it expands services, Tide set its sights on utility partnerships and geographic diversity.

Bevis told IBT that Tide aims to offer a full business checking account, one that fundamentally refocuses services around saving time and effort. Think of the way Uber and Lyft shifted the way people think about booking and paying for a cab altogether.

Along those lines, Tide can be directly integrated with external fintech services like currency exchanges and Xero accounting software. Users can scan invoices for Tide to prepare, ready for payment processing at the click of a button, automate bookkeeping and reminders to follow up on unpaid invoices.

According to Bevis, Tide’s popularity is growing by 10 percent each week and the startup is expected to serve tens of thousands of businesses by the end of the year. “We have global ambitions,” Bevis said. Tide plans to expand beyond British businesses in 2018, targeting Europe first and keeping the United States in mind for the future.