Matt Ford, Co-Founder & CEO of Sidekick
So, we first profiled Matt back in May 2016. He founded a popular consumer-focused money management app called Pariti — it was such a great idea back then. The company was then acquired 2 years later by Tandem Bank.
I am delighted to be able to feature Matt again, now as the CEO and Co-Founder of his latest venture, Sidekick. Welcome back Matt!
Now then, Sidekick is a wealth management platform for modern investors that unlocks access to the financial products and services typically reserved for the ultra-wealthy. Let’s find out more.
Over to you Matt:
Who are you and what’s your background?
I’m Matt Ford, CEO and co-founder of Sidekick. As a founder and previously an investor, my whole career has been about changing the world of money and challenging the financial status quo.
At Sidekick, we’re dedicated to levelling the playing field by making wealth-building opportunities accessible to everyone, not just the privileged few. Our mission involves unlocking the financial advantage of the ultra-wealthy and reimagining and redesigning financial products tailored for modern investors.
Before Sidekick, I founded Pariti, a fintech startup acquired by Tandem Bank in 2018. I have also been a Partner at fintech-focused venture capital firm Mouro Capital and Head of Customer Acquisition at OnTrees (acquired by Moneysupermarket Group). Early in my career, I was a Strategy Consultant at Deloitte and Capgemini.
What is your job title and what are your general responsibilities?
As the CEO and co-founder of Sidekick, I oversee the company’s overall direction and operations. This includes developing and executing strategic plans to provide our customers access to various financial products and services traditionally reserved for the ultra-wealthy. My previous experiences leading businesses through the development and scale-up stages have helped get Sidekick off the ground.
I work with the team closely to ensure we meet our goals and objectives. This involves setting priorities, making critical decisions, and providing guidance and support where needed. I also closely oversee product strategy, applying my understanding of consumer products and distribution to create offerings that resonate with our target audience.
I aim to drive Sidekick’s success and bridge the ever-widening wealth gap.
Can you give us an overview of your business?
In a nutshell, Sidekick is built for entrepreneurs and hard-working professionals who are looking for a modern, more comprehensive and sophisticated approach to wealth management. It tackles the wealth gap head-on by unlocking the financial advantages of the ultra-wealthy. While wealthy individuals have long had access to sophisticated wealth management tools, hard-working professionals outside of the top wealth bracket have been locked out of such services.
At the same time, traditional wealth management providers are historic heel draggers and have been unable to adapt their solutions to meet their needs and aspirations. Sidekick offers tailored solutions that have been proven to resonate with founders, tech workers, lawyers, and other professionals who are ready to take their finances to the next level. It provides these individuals with unique products and guidance to support them every step of the way.
We leverage the latest tech advancements to provide financial strategies designed to maximise returns and navigate the ever-increasing complexities of financial markets. Users can access exclusive investment opportunities, unique liquidity options, and alternative asset classes (coming soon) to unlock new avenues for wealth accumulation.
Sidekick’s strategic focus has been targeting technology workers and finance professionals, providing them access to sophisticated financial products and services. By honing in on this specific demographic, we have been able to tailor our products and services to meet our core customer base’s unique needs and preferences. With over 2,000 individuals already part of the Sidekick community, it’s evident that our approach resonates deeply with our customers.
Tell us how you are funded?
We began our journey in 2022 with a £3.3 million pre-seed round led by Octopus Ventures, with participation from Seedcamp and Semantic alongside several prominent fintech sector angel investors. This helped us lay the groundwork and obtain key complex regulatory permissions from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
Recently, we raised a £4.5 million seed round and secured £4 million through a debt facility to expand our product lineup, obtain our European license, and scale our team. Pact VC and TheVentureCity co-led this round, which also included participation from 1818 Venture Capital, MS&AD Ventures , BlackWood, Octopus Ventures, Seedcamp, and Semantic. Columbia Lake Partners provided the debt financing.
What’s the origin story? Why did you start the company? To solve what problems?
To understand the genesis of Sidekick, I’d have to take you on the safari that is my CV, but the TLDR version looks like this: for as far back as I can remember, I’ve been fascinated by, and active in, changing the world of money.
From strategy consulting to entrepreneurship to investing, there’s been a common thread throughout most of my work: the intersection of technology and financial services and what outcomes are possible through rolling these dice together. I’ve been involved with tackling this topic from multiple angles for over a decade.
The wealthiest are getting richer, and most other people are still locked out from the most return-generating opportunities. Sidekick was born to fix this. I firmly believe that the biggest businesses are often created when a technological leap forward collides with a cultural moment. And it’s this exact collision that we’re seeing right now.
Technologies like fractionalisation, AI, and tokenisation enable businesses like Sidekick to create genuinely innovative products from scratch at a fraction of the cost compared to incumbents.
When you combine this with a catalysed retail investor base that has to take a lot more accountability for their wealth creation (driven, I believe, by a declining role of the state and the employer in long-term financial security) and has been introduced to stock trading, crypto, challenger banks, and mobile apps for finance over the past decade, the ingredients seem right to make a significant impact.
Sidekick is paving the way for a new era of financial services that is inclusive, accessible, and tailored to the needs of the modern investor.
Who are your target customers? What’s your revenue model?
Sidekick’s strategic focus has been targeting technology workers and finance professionals, granting them access to sophisticated financial products and services. By honing in on this specific demographic, we’ve been able to tailor our products and services to meet our core customer base’s unique needs and preferences. This approach has been confirmed via the 2,000+ (and growing) individuals who have joined the Sidekick community.
Notably, 50 per cent of Sidekick’s investment customers are repeat regular investors, a testament to our user base’s high level of satisfaction and loyalty.
Our revenue model is built on high gross margins, supported by diversified revenue streams. Unlike other fintech wealth platforms, Sidekick manufactures and distributes the products, which allows us to achieve 80 percent+ gross margins, a percentage unparalleled in the fintech wealth space.
If you had a magic wand, what one thing would you change in the banking and/or FinTech sector?
Easier passporting of regulatory licenses from the UK across Europe. Did someone say Brexit, cough…?
What is your message for the larger players in the Financial Services marketplace?
I think one thing the whole sector has realised is that the narrative of ‘down with the incumbents, fintech will overthrow it all’ is just naive and wrong.
Some of the best magic happens when large incumbents partner with and leverage cutting-edge fintech innovation, rather than trying to do everything themselves.
Sidekick for instance serves clients directly, but we see also lots of partnership opportunities, whether that’s with larger asset managers to offer semi-liquid alts, traditional wealth managers who want to serve a younger more digital audience, or international larger banks who don’t have an offering for the mass affluent segment.
Where do you get your Financial Services/FinTech industry news from?
So many different sources. Running a wealth manager, the FT is an obvious starting point. But, we produce a lot of original content ourselves, so tend to read widely across sources.
Can you list 3 people you rate from the FinTech and/or Financial Services sector that we should be following on LinkedIn, and why?
- Freddy Kelly – founder of Credit Kudos, who exited to Apple. A great guy, Sidekick investor, and an early pioneer in the open banking space which is close to my heart.
- Ollie Purdue – founder of Loot, an early mover in the challenger bank space focused on students, and most recently a partner at Antler. He achieved more by the age of 25 than I did at 35!
- And from a content perspective, I’d highly recommend following Simon Taylor. His Fintech Brainfood newsletter is one of my top reads each week.
What FinTech services (and/or apps) do you personally use?
As you can probably guess, I’m a fanatical user of fintech products.
Monzo Bank’s continued sustained innovation, exceptional user experience, and growing product set have been incredibly impressive. From being an early user of it as a spending card, I now consider Monzo my day-to-day transactional banking primary account.
Many of Sidekick’s users similarly use Monzo as their transactional account; Sidekick’s goal is to then build a suite of more sophisticated wealth and lending offerings for those who want and need more.
What’s the best new FinTech product or service you’ve seen recently?
Yonder. Tim Chong and the team have created a wonderful lifestyle product, reimagining Amex for a younger audience.
Finally, let’s talk predictions. What trends do you think are going to define the next few years in the FinTech sector?
The ongoing democratisation of alternative investments and private markets – we’re only just getting started here.
Structuring is still a mess, regulation is complex, and retail investors are still largely locked out from the opportunity to invest in small tickets of less correlated, more diversified assets.
The large asset managers have woken up to the opportunity, so there are a lot of semi-liquid products coming to market, and LTIFs and LTAFs have the opportunity to broad accessibility, but it still staggers me how hard it still is to easily access opportunities in this space. (Small plug, this is something we at Sidekick are hoping to help solve!)
Matt, thank you so much for participating — again!
Reach out to Matt on LinkedIn at Matthew Ford and find more about Sidekick at https://www.sidekickmoney.com/.
