There's no ego in Zego! And so when Estonian-born Sten Saar replaced his co-founder in the top job, there were no recriminations. Instead, the insurtech, which offers policies from 1hr to one year, has boomed, becoming, after its most recent fundraising, a "reluctant" unicorn. It's not Sten's first success: he founded his first company - notepads with study aids tucked into the covers - when he was just 18, growing it to $1m in turnover. In between, though, he had to learn some painful...

In his early 30s, Victor Trokoudes was a man without a plan. He was also a man with no savings, and a father who kept nagging him to do something with his money. What should such a person do? Why, co-found and run a fintech that enables people to save and invest without having to think about it, of course. Plum is young, but it’s already on track to have some three million customers by the end of the year, as the coronavirus pandemic gets more people into the habit of putting money...

Aged 10, and freshly arrived in the UK, Husayn Kassai watched his parents struggle to prove their identity. A couple of years later, he “borrowed” his sister’s ID to set up an eBay business that did a roaring trade selling CDs online. These two experiences helped plant the seeds of the idea that, a decade later, would become Onfido, a global leader in identity verification and fraud protection, which he co-founded and - until recently - ran.

Running a fintech is apparently just as challenging as playing professional rugby. Al Lukies should know - he’s done both, though he only broke half the bones in his leg with the latter. His first attempt - Monitise - hit a market value of some £2 billion at one point. After a stint as the UK Prime Minister’s “fintech ambassador”, he went on to found Pollinate, which helps big banks provide digital tools, such as merchant services, to small businesses. And it’s a good time to speak with Al:...

Already well-known as the world’s biggest cheerleader for Israeli tech, Jon Medved set up OurCrowd in 2013 to enable retail investors to get the same kind of access to tech startups that he had as a VC. In this sometimes riotous podcast, he reveals that on one occasion one Marc Benioff offered him the chance to invest in the seed round of a tiny startup called Salesforce. He declined. But as he concludes, with his usual ebullience: “Life is life. It’s all good. I’m still in the game.”

Forget glass ceilings, Christian Wiens had to break through glass doors - and be billed for them by his landlord - before being inspired to found his insurtech, Getsafe. Based in Germany, Getsafe provides coverage for everything from cars to drones to pets to legal fees. You could call it: Europe's Lemonade.

Rob Straathof is CEO of Liberis, an alternative lender for SMEs, whose technology and data enable it to pre-approve businesses for loans.  Of all the fintech founders we’ve had on the show so far, Rob’s stints as a cheesemaker and alligator-dodging pilot probably qualify him as the one with the most varied stories. And though he may never have fulfilled his ambition to become an astronaut, keeping his feet on the ground has meant helping many small business owners keep a roof over their heads. 

With a passion for motor racing and cars Giles Andrews wasn’t always destined to found a fintech. And when he did, he almost crashed and burned. But under his leadership, he turned the p2p lending pioneer around. And while banks and other lenders were coming unstuck during the global financial crisis, Zopa sailed through - and even grew, eventually becoming one of the UK’s biggest challenger banks

They say founding a startup is like raising a child. After blowing more than $100,000 on her own fertility treatment, Claire Tomkins did both, alongside founding Future Family - a fertility-financing fintech - to help others do the same.

Serial entrepreneur William Reeve is CEO of lettings software platform Goodlord and Chairman of robo-advisor Nutmeg. He sold his first startup - Fletcher Research - to Forrester (just before the #dotcom bust), and co-founded Secret Escapes. But is probably best known for co-founding LOVEFiLM which, after seeing off Amazon, was eventually bought by the company.

Picture this: you've been beavering away for years on your fintech. Friends and family have chipped in. And now you've just raised your seed round of €1m. Everything is going great - until your bank closes your account for no reason, leaving you with no means to receive the cash. What do you do? Philippe Gelis doesn't need to use his imagination for this scenario. It's what happened to him and Kantox. Fortunately, Barclays came to the rescue, and this currency management-focused fintech has...

They say bad things always come in threes. Shachar Bialik would no doubt agree. Brexit and COVID would ordinarily be enough on their own to floor many businesses. Throw in the Wirecard fraud fiasco, and it’s a wonder he’s still around to tell the tale. But not only did he and Curve survive. They thrived. The #fintech recently announced it had raised an additional $95m, taking its total to $175m. Now, Curve is coming to America. (Listen closely, and you may hear his baby son in the background).

Is working in roller coasters not the perfect metaphor - and experience - for running an online trading platform? We think so! Yoni Assia, who leads social trading platform eToro, had his first taste of entrepreneurship when he founded a startup that involved installing video cameras on white-knuckle rides, and then selling DVDs to the riders as they wobbled out of their cars. He eventually sold it to former a high-flying tech stock called Kodak. And while that company's best years may be...

Is it an insurtech, is it a unicorn, is it a hippo? It's all three! Having raised more than $700m, Hippo - which unlike, Lemonade, is firmly focused on homeowners insurance - is one of the hottest insurtechs on the planet. An IPO may happen this year. But getting to this point wasn't a given: “When we started the company," says Assaf, "the VCs kicked us off the stairs and basically said, that's the dumbest thing ever."