From 30 Employees to 1.5 Million Members: Tide’s Scaling Story
Scaling at Speed is back from summer break with a must-read expansion playbook.
London’s SME banking giant Tide has been on a growth tear in recent years, now serving more than 1.5 million members globally as it cements its role as a single platform for small business needs.
I recently caught up with CEO Dr. Oliver Prill for a candid chat about early challenges, the power of forward-looking hiring and culture, and how Tide is scaling fast through product-led acquisitions and international expansion. It’s a can’t-miss playbook for any founder focused on building with ambition.
Plus, if scaling science is more your speed, you won’t want to miss the latest from Orakl Oncology’s Fanny Jaulin and Neuroharmonics’ Brad Treeby. The two health and bio founders are pushing the boundaries of what’s possible and leading breakthroughs with real-world impact.
An excerpt from: Tide’s Playbook for Scaling Fast👇
Scaling a lasting business requires the right people, at the right time, and for Tide, early decisions around hiring proved crucial.
“There is a real temptation, especially when you start, for talent to structure around individuals,” Oliver explained. “And to celebrate the warm body that’s around.”
In other words, it was easy to hire reactively, filling immediate gaps rather than planning ahead. But Oliver quickly realized that this approach wouldn’t support Tide’s ambitions.
“We realised very quickly, right, you would go in and you say, Oh, well, I need, you know, a head of this, or, you know, a director of that or a VP of this… and you say, No, no, no, we need someone that actually can be with us for the next couple of years,” he said.
“And so we… size that role not how big it is today, but what it would be in two to three years, and then let’s hire someone and pay that person the package that we would only be able to pay them at that time.”
By thinking two or three steps ahead, Tide avoided the costly cycle of constant rehiring and restructuring. That forward-looking approach to talent helped the company scale rapidly without losing focus on execution.
Scaling Science
It's no secret that building and scaling a science-based startup requires incredible patience and an entirely new set of skills to go from the lab to real-life impact.
This month, we're highlighting two of our Health & Bio companies that are doing just that – and making waves in the process.
- Paris-based Orakl Oncology is building a rare, hard-to-replicate platform in oncology drug discovery. We sat down with CEO Fanny Jaulin for a candid conversation on making the leap from academia to startup CEO, and earning the trust of Big Pharma to scale, while staying true to Orakl’s mission. Read our full conversation on our blog.
Estelle Botbol
- Bradley Treeby and the Neuroharmonics team are making global headlines for developing a breakthrough ultrasound helmet that offers non-invasive treatment for Parkinson’s and other brain disorders—potentially changing millions of lives. While driving this game-changing science, they’re also building and scaling Neuroharmonics into a world-class neurotech company, showing what’s possible when vision and entrepreneurship meet real-world impact. Coverage in Nature and The Guardian below.
Eleanor Martin
Ivana Drobnjak O’Brien
Upcoming Events: Will we see you there?
Catch the Speedinvest team attending & speaking at leading conferences and exclusive events across EMEA. We would love to meet you!
- Bits & Pretzels – [September 29-October 1, Munich]: One of the biggest tech events in Germany, Bits & Pretzels brings together the European ecosystem for a major conference alongside Munich's world-famous Oktoberfest. Our GPs, Marie-Helene Ametsreiter & Markus Lang, will be presenting our report on German corporate innovation, while our investors, Sophia Escheu, Julien Leze, James Garcia, and Paula Schumacher, will be in Munich to mingle with the best startups in DACH.
- Italian Tech Week: [October 1-3, Turin] Italy's largest tech event returns with Jeff Bezos taking the stage, and our Senior Associate, Julien Leze, will also be there to meet some of the country's most promising founders.
- HealthTech Summit: [October 8, Berlin] Our Health & Bio investment team will be co-hosting HealthTech Summit with Google and leading European funds in Berlin. Our Partner, Andrea Zitna, will also moderate a panel with André Glardon, cofounder of our portfolio company, Roclub.
- Sifted Summit: [October 8-9, London] Hosted by one of Europe's leading tech media brands, the Sifted Summit is an annual get-together for the ecosystem. Our Deep Tech Partner Will Wells will be on the ground in London and would love to connect.
👉 Check out future events we'll be attending on our blog.
From the Investors' Desk
From deep sector expertise to our take on the future of tech and venture capital in Europe, here are some of our recent musings from social media.
Speedinvest recently closed a continuation vehicle, helping to return funds to our LPs and also continue backing our founders as they build generational companies.
Our CEO, Oliver Holle, outlined our holistic, long-term liquidity approach in a recent LinkedIn post, while our founding partner, Daniel Keiper-Knorr, and Lawrence Kilian of our DPI unit also weighed in on the transaction and what it means for European tech.
👉 What else we're reading:
European start-up valuations boom on investor frenzy - The Financial Times
Mistral Emerges as Last, Best Hope for European AI Contender - Bloomberg
Why there’s been a ‘massive increase’ in continuation funds - Sifted
Thanks for reading — see you next month,
Have feedback, suggestions, or topics you'd like us to dive into? Email us at press@speedinvest.com.