Tide: Bringing financial structure to 2M businesses

Tide, the business account and small business management tools provider, had just a few dozen employees when Oliver Prill signed on as CEO in 2018. In other words, it was too large for everyone to sit around a kitchen table but not big enough to execute on its plans to scale and reach international markets.

The London-based company had only been founded in 2015, received its initial regulatory approval to offer financial services in 2016 and launched its first mobile app in 2017. Prill brought with him more than 20 years of banking and insurance experience in both Germany and the UK and set to work expanding the range of products it offered.

Fast forward to 2026, and the company employs 3100+ staff, is active in the UK, India, Germany and France, and has plans for further expansion. Though not a bank itself, it offers a comprehensive business management platform to support business owners in running their business. This includes business bank accounts through partner ClearBank, as well as loans, payroll and accounting tools, payment processing and services like website development and fraud protection, which small and medium businesses rely on to manage their finances and operations.

Everything to start a new business and help it scale is available from Tide, which supports more than 2 million business owners. In our latest Voices That Matter interview from our Red Book series, we sat down with Tide CEO Oliver Prill who shared his journey with the company to date.

Q Tide was founded over 10 years ago and launched in 2017. You joined a year later. I understand that was a bit of a challenging time. What was the situation when you started?

A At that stage, Tide had launched and had early traction. The positive thing was a business with product market fit, solving a real customer problem. The challenge was scaling. Tide was an uncut diamond that needed cutting, meaning it needed to be set up for scaling. Priority one was putting a team and structure in place. The second was turning the product vision into a product strategy. Thirdly, we needed to work on risk and compliance, as a financial services business.

Q So Tide is more of a platform for small and medium-sized businesses rather than a neobank. Can you describe the breadth of services you offer?

A That’s right, we’re neither a neobank nor limited to banking. We focus on small businesses that don’t have a finance structure and want to do as little admin as possible. We help them solve finance and admin problems by making everything work seamlessly together – writing invoices, chasing payments, current accounts, accounting, etc. We offer financial services like current accounts, payments, savings, credit, and admin services like invoicing, accounting, expense management, payroll, company formation, and even website building. We provide a finance and admin platform so business owners can focus on their business.

Q You haven’t actually gone after your own UK banking licence. Why is that?

A Licences follow strategy. For now, it’s out of scope because our platform doesn’t need it. We have 14–15 product offerings and focus on connecting everything up. We work with banking-as-a-service partners who hold the banking licence and act as the system of record. We do everything else.

The same applies to accounting and other partners. The differentiating functionality is on the Tide side; only the deep manufacturing isn’t.

Q Strategically, what’s the main reason for that?

A It’s about complexity. Our primary growth vector is broadening the platform into all these products. We can make good money at 80% gross margin. We do lose some margin to providers, but for now, expanding the platform offers a bigger return than vertically integrating. In the future, we might consider it, but not now.

Q There was a key moment in 2019 when Tide and ClearBank won a government-backed competition with a substantial prize in the tens of millions of pounds. Can you tell me what that meant to you as a company?

A There was the Banking Competition Remedies, a package of funding the EU forced the UK government to set aside, which NatWest had to provide as a bailout condition of saving RBS in 2009 after the financial crash. We won that with ClearBank. It was pivotal – Tide was small, with 30–40,000 members, and VCs doubted we’d grow much. Winning that support transformed us and the market. Over 50% of UK business current accounts are now with challengers, not the big five banks. Tide delivered all its targets, and the scheme transformed the market.

Q You arrived after the original LocalGlobe investment in 2016, but have maintained a relationship with Phoenix Court, which has a seat on the board. What’s that relationship been like?

A Robin Klein was an investor and board member when I joined. LocalGlobe and Phoenix Court have invested through all their funds. Their capital was important, and they’ve given valuable advice – early on about organisation, later about funding and unit economics. They’ve been extremely helpful across all challenges.

Q What specifically have they helped you with?

A A board seat is more a title or position. It means the investor wants some control and information flow. Most value comes from the investor engaging and giving support, not from the formality of the board seat.

Robin and the team have been most helpful when I reached out for advice on specific topics. The board seat helps with context, but critical advice usually happens outside formal board meetings.

Q One of your priorities was international expansion. Tell me about the markets you moved into and why.

A There were two parts: first, product engineering. Brexit meant UK engineering talent was drying up, so we built centres in Sofia, Bulgaria and Hyderabad, India. Then we expanded operations.

The second wave was business expansion – India was the first country, as it’s the largest SME market and was transforming digitally. It’s been a great success, with more members in India and strong revenue. We then focused on Indo-European markets: UK, India, Germany, France, and a few

others. Our strategy is to roll out the full platform in each market, not just single products.

Q You mentioned revenue growth in India. How about the business overall?

A The UK is roughly profitable and could fund international investment if we slowed expansion. We’re running the group slightly negative to accelerate international rollout, but could be profitable if we slowed down.

Q How is AI affecting the business, in terms of product and internally?

A There are three strands — we’re using AI for software engineering (all engineers use it); we count on it for member operations to automate processes (our first agentic solutions are live); then we offer it to members (first solutions live, but we’re cautious here, as it’s a vital service).