SHIFT Community Update #37
Opportunities, research and Volatile Markets
Hey SHIFT Community, here’s your update on all things SHIFT.
I am sure many of you have heard and seen about Trump’s tariff rampage.
Most recently, he has added tariffs on the uninhabited (apart from penguins & seals) islands of Heard and McDonald.
With fears of further sweeping regulation on the islands the Penguins are quickly preparing their capabilities for DORA and an Open Banking Mandate.
SHIFT Updates
🚀 Ignite is looking for ambitious early-stage Fintech Founders wanting to take their growth to the next level! Ignite is our exclusive incubator designed to transform fintech ideas into reality through financial support, expert guidance and extensive networking. Apply before the 2nd May.
🛍️ SHIFT will be at the Building Societies Annual Conference on the 7th & 8th May in Birmingham. We’re super excited to be exhibiting with D·One, Doshi, Eleos, FintechOS, Nivo, Wollette. If you’ll be attending the conference, let us know!
Member Updates
👋 Some awesome new SHIFT members, so make sure to say hi on Slack:
James Rowell, Founder of Capture Expense — a spend management platform helping companies globally
Shriya Johari, Product Manager at Syndesi offering a financial well-being tool designed for accountants to provide to their clients. Using open banking, it generates actionable financial insights that help clients manage their money more efficiently.
💸Vouchsafe secured a £1 million pre-seed fighting ID poverty at scale and build the next generation of identity verification.
🖥️Sikoia is hosting a webinar on Practical Innovation in Mortgages to cut through the buzzwords and explore how innovation is being applied, where it's working, where it's not, and what’s coming next.
📈My Finance Future featured in PensionCraft a brilliant video using the MyFinanceFuture app to plan pension withdrawals.
If you have news that you want to be included here then make sure to post it in the #news-and-views channel on Slack or tag Kyle in your posts!
Partner Updates
🎤 Invitation to participate in UCL's research study on collaboration in hybrid Fintechs. It’s an anonymous and quick 8–10-minute online survey for Engineering teams and for all other non-technical teams. Where you can gain personal insights into your own work practices, and if chosen for interview, receive an organisational summary report with practical recommendations.
📈 Fintech Innovation Lab Kicks off! Best of luck to all the fintechs and a couple of our SHIFT members; Serene, Lyfeguard, Etcho,
📣London’s Largest Demo Day happens in three weeks! Make sure to grab your ticket to see a thousand early-stage founders pitch!
Resource Recommendation
Klarna Public Listing
Public markets are fragile at the moment and this isn’t good on any stage of fintech funding.
Only three weeks after Klarna filed for IPO - an act that was supposed to spur hope of more British Fintech listings like Monzo, Starling and Zilch - they have put it on hold.
There are many causes for volatile markets with the main culprit currently being Trumps drastic Tariff warfare.
When more Fintechs go public it means they are no longer reliant on private forms of capital. This allows them to fuel even bigger growth.
When more companies go public it also pays off the huge holding that private investors have currently locked in these companies allowing the capital to be refunneled to earlier stage fintechs.
If there are any resources you find enjoyable, useful, or interesting then let me know :)