Europe’s later-stage fintechs continue to be a crucial training ground for the next generation of entrepreneurs and typically dominate lists of “founder factories”. According to a recent report by VC firm Accel and data platform Dealroom, Europe’s seventy fintech unicorns have produced 423 startups founded by former employees.
Neobank Monzo, which just raised a mammoth $430m funding round, is no exception to the rule and appears to be moulding its own set of former employees into founders. Sifted have identified at least seventeen startups founded by former employees of the digital bank.
While alums from rival Revolut credit its “get shit done” environment for what makes good founder training, the former Monzo staff that Sifted spoke to point to its open culture that has helped steer them into the path of entrepreneurship.
“Monzo had a really good culture of transparency,” says the company’s former head of financial difficulties Stuart McFadden. “You ended up accidentally learning a lot about design, engineering, customer experience — it’s a really good culture for thinking about the customer in everything you do and for learning how to set up a business.”
There’s also a culture of collaboration among the burgeoning group of founders. Those who spoke to Sifted also said there was an ex-Monzo Slack group with a channel dedicated to entrepreneurs. McFadden, who is now the cofounder of scam support startup Refundee, also says he uses the services of payroll startup Onfolk and customer support company Cordless — both of which are founded by former Monzo employees.
Here’s a list of some of the former Monzo employees looking to make their own dent in Europe’s startup ecosystem.
Valerio Magliulo, cofounder at Abatable
Former Monzo product manager Valerio Magliulo cofounded carbon offsetting startup Abatable. The startup took part in accelerator Y-Combinator in 2021, raising a $3m seed round later that year. In 2023, the startup raised $13.5m from Azora Capital and acquired another carbon credits startup named Ecosphere+.
Now a team of just over 30, Abatable is a revenue-making company. Magliulo says he learnt many of the basics of building a company from his time at Monzo and continues to reach out to both former and current employees when in need of advice.
Joss Tasker and Alex Fox, cofounders of Sync Savings
In March last year, ex-Monzo employees Joss Tasker and Alex Fox founded fintech startup Sync Savings. A former compliance director at the neobank, Tasker says that one of her first tasks at Monzo was to help with its savings “Pots” product. She says she leveraged that experience to build Sync, which connects cash savings products with fintech applications.
Having previously secured a pre-seed round back in August last year, Tasker says she and her cofounder are hoping to close another round in the next few months.
Zain Hussain, cofounder at Trident AI
Joining Monzo in 2019 in his year out before university, Zain Hussain was an employee at Monzo for close to five years before leaving earlier this year. Using his experience as senior fraud expert at the company, Hussain cofounded Trident AI, a startup aiming to build AI-powered fraud investigators for banks and fintechs.
The project was a culmination of taking part in startup incubator Entrepreneur First, which is backed by Monzo cofounder Tom Blomfield. The AI startup is looking to raise seed funding after finishing up the program.
Neal Lathia, Dimitri Masin and Danai A., cofounders of Gradient Labs AI
A seven year veteran at the neobank, ex-VP of data science and financial crime Dimitri Masin left the neobank in June last year to cofound Gradient Labs with two other former Monzo employees. Gradient Labs, which recently closed a seed funding round, is building an “autonomous AI agent” for customer support services. Masin says that he and his cofounders’ decision to set out on their own came about while working on the same team at the neobank.
“It became clear to us from what we saw internally at Monzo that the technology was ripe enough to automate a large portion of the repetitive manual work that humans do within operations in larger companies like Monzo,” he told Sifted.
Stuart McFadden and William Ayles, cofounders of Refundee
As head of financial difficulties and vulnerable customers at Monzo, a straight line can be drawn between the neobank and Stuart McFadden’s new venture, Refundee. Cofounded with former Monzo business banking specialist William Ayles, Refundee helps victims of fraud and scams to get their money back.
Bootstrapped by the founders, McFadden claims that the startup has been profitable every month from about half a year into founding. Refundee currently has no plans to seek VC funding.
Mikkel Dengsøe, cofounder at Synq
In April 2022, former head of data science for operations and financial crime Mikkel Dengsøe teamed up with Pleo founder and former CTO Petr Janda to found data reliability platform Synq.
“At Monzo, we used data for machine learning and regulatory reporting,” Dengsøe told Sifted over email, “Uncaught errors on key pipelines could cost the company £ 100k+ per day. This is a trend we see with most of our customers today.”
Around 11 people make up Synq, which Dengsøe claims is revenue-making. It previously raised a seed round from Index Ventures.
Michael Colley, Charlie Thomas and Naz Malik, cofounders of Onfolk
Founded by three former Monzo employees, Onfolk took part in the summer 2021 cohort of Y-Combinator with the aim of “bringing that Monzo magic to the payroll space” , says Michael Colley, who worked in the data science team at the neobank.
The spirit of collaboration at Monzo rings true for Colley who says that some of his customers are former Monzo employee-founded companies. He claims that the startup is “on track” to becoming profitable with the view of raising further funding
Hugo Cornejo, Tristan Thomas and Josh Garnham, cofounders of Packfleet
Hugo Cornejo was at Monzo for more than six years, leaving as VP of Design. Tristan Thomas headed up marketing and communications as VP at Monzo while Josh Garnham was engineering manager at the digital bank. The trio founded London-based logistic startup Packfleet in 2021, later raising £8m in funding the following year in a round led by Creandum.
“My exposure to startup culture, the challenges and the success achieved at Monzo inspired me to venture into entrepreneurship with Packfleet,” says Packfleet CEO Thomas. “At Monzo, I learned that figuring things out as you go and having a certain flexible mindset to problems lead to success down the line. I approached Packfleet with the same mindset. You don’t have to know everything about a market to be able to solve an existing issue in it.”
Thomas says that the startup recently closed a $10m Series A round and is currently revenue-making by charging for its delivery services.
Other Monzo alums turned founders
Luba Chudnovets and Irina Bednova, cofounders of Cordless
Role at Monzo: Luba Chudnovets was at Monzo for close to four years in the roles of product manager and head of scaling operations while Irina Bednova was at the neobank for three years in roles where she led payments and tech operations.
New Venture: In November 2020, the pair founded customer support platform Cordless, which raised a $2.3m funding round in February last year.
Katie Savitz and Natasha Vernier, cofounders of Cable
Role at Monzo: Katie Savitz was senior manager of financial crime between September 2019 and December 2020 while Natasha Vernier was head of financial crime for four years at the fintech.
New Venture: Savitz and Vernier founded compliance startup Cable in 2020. It most recently raised an $11m Series A from Stage 2 Capital and Jump Capital in May 2023.
Chris Evans, Pete Hamilton and Stephen Whitworth, cofounders of Incident.io
Role at Monzo: Both Stephen Whitworth and Pete Hamilton were engineers at Monzo while Chris Evans occupied the role of technical director.
New Venture: The trio are founders of Incident.io, a platform that helps technology companies manage IT incidents. The startup raised a $34m funding round in July 2022 with an intent to expand to the US.
Tom Foster-Carter, cofounder at Cherrypick
Role at Monzo: Tom Foster-Carter was chief operating officer of Monzo between 2017 and 2020.
New Venture: He founded grocery shopping app Cherrypick (previously named Lollipop) in May 2020. It raised a £5m funding round in May 2022.
Peter Huang, cofounder at Healthtech 1
Role at Monzo: Peter Huang was a web engineer at Monzo for a year between 2018 and 2019.
New Venture: Huang cofounded Healthtech 1 in August 2021, which aims to reduce NHS workforce deficits through automation. It took part in Y Combinator last year.
Luke Singham, cofounder at ilumadata
Role at Monzo: Luke Singham was at Monzo for just over two years as a software engineer and data lead.
New Venture: He founded ilumadata in May 2022, which was part of Y Combinator’s spring cohort that year. He’s also working on a startup in stealth, per his Linkedin.
Mike Hudack and Simon Amor, cofounders of Sling
Role at Monzo: Mike Hudack was chief product officer at Monzo while Simon Amor acted as product designer between 2018 and 2020 at the neobank.
New Venture: The pair are currently building Sling, a global money transfer app.
Kieran McHugh, founder of Daybridge
Role at Monzo: Kieran McHugh was an engineer at Monzo for close to two and a half years.
New Venture: McHugh is the founding chief executive officer of Daybridge, a productivity and time management app that raised a £750k seed round led by Passion Capital.
Jonas Templestein and Oliver Beattie, cofounders of Nustom
Role at Monzo: Jonas Templestein is one of the cofounders of Monzo and acted as CTO at the neobank until December last year. Oliver Beattie was VP of Architecture at the digital bank.
New Venture: The pair are cofounders of an AI startup named Nustom, which is set to raise a $5-6m funding round per a Business Insider report last month.
