News: FinTech matchmaker: TISAtech recruits UAE start-ups looking to expand to Britain

The platform is not only about matching corporates with innovative FinTechs, it also curates the start-ups it profiles to ensure viability or due diligence processes are complete.

The work of finding out whether a FinTech is a good start-up or has the right credentials “is already done on the platform”, Mr Vandenreydt said.

“If you have a start-up in the UAE, or in other parts of the GCC, and you are mature enough to export … anything that helps them make the case to clients and investors abroad, such as in the UK, is a welcome addition.”

Mr Vandenreydt is looking to recruit post-Series A FinTechs to ensure the right companies, or those that are “fully functioning businesses in one geography”, are featured.

With 70 per cent of companies that raise at Series A never reaching Series B and 43 per cent that raise at Series B never reaching Series C, Mr Bull said, the platforms also helps its users understand the risks.

“For most businesses, your home market is not big enough to become a very valuable business, so you need to go overseas. But going overseas is very risky and that is what the platform has been designed for, to do risk,” Mr Bull said.

Pre-pandemic companies would have spent “tens of thousands of pounds with management consultants to find out whether the UK market is the right fit for them”, Mr Bull said.

“Now you can get access to that same insight for a fraction of that.”

The entry-level cost for start-ups on the TISAtech platform is £3,000 per annum, which includes a TDH assessment and promotion on the platform.

The £4,000 silver package includes a meeting with an expert from your sector, while the £5,000 gold offer includes two meetings with interested parties, and the £6,000 platinum includes four meetings.

Mr Bull said the costs are similar to a business trip for two people flying to the UK for meetings once you factor in flights and accommodation.

However, that cost may be even higher with the UK’s new hotel quarantine rules for travellers from the UAE, which is on the red list.

With TDH assessing another 55 FinTechs in the UAE – including Now Money, a financial services platform for low-income migrant workers, and price comparison site Souqalmal.com – the UAE will soon have a greater presence on the TISAtech platform.

Ian Dillon, co-founder of Now Money, which recently raised $7m in a funding round led by UK venture investor Anthemis Exponential Ventures, said the benefit for raising its profile through the platform was “being able to be seen and hopefully introduced to traditional regulated financial institutions that could partner with us”.

“In terms of raising our profile in the UK, Anthemis is probably the leading FinTech-focused venture capital firm in the world based out of London. They led our round this time and we have a couple of other investors from the UK as well,” Mr Dillon said.

“London has become a massive hub for FinTech, so there’s a lot of expertise there so although we are in different geographies, there’s a lot of understanding that goes with the industry and that means it can actually be a really good place for us to find potential investors.”

TISAtech is also looking to recruit UAE investors with a large portfolio of start-ups on their books that want to sign to boost their visibility in the UK.

“There might be investors in Abu Dhabi, for example, that are working on exporting their UAE services to the world that would be interested in having a wholesale agreement with TISAtech to bring their portfolio companies on,” Mr Vandenreydt said.

With the recruitment drive focusing initially on the UAE before expanding to the wider GCC and Mena region, Mr Bull said the platform was also attractive to the Emirates from an inward investment perspective.

If the UAE not only helps people grow “brilliantly in the Emirates” but can also “help them grow fantastically, internationally, into a market that’s well-aligned with them”, then that is hugely beneficial for the UAE’s burgeoning ecosystem, he said.

TISAtech is now drawing up a list of FinTechs, investors and government organisations in the Emirates as it looks to grow the UAE segment of its offering.

Ultimately, TISAtech hopes its platform saves the FinTech industry time.

“It takes a lot of time to set up meetings for a start-up and very often you go into a meeting and then you suddenly realise that the person in front of you is not the right person or has a different expectation,” Mr Vandenreydt said.

“With this matchmaking system, the chance of having a great meeting is higher.”