Pariti founder Matthew Ford’s new startup Sidekick raises £3.33m

Investment manager Sidekick, co-founded by Pariti’s CEO and CTO, has just raised £3.33m pre-seed.

The London-based fintech was founded by Matthew Ford and Peter Townsend, who have taken on the same roles at Sidekick, at the start of the year.

Ford also founded the mobile banking platform, which was sold to Tandem Bank in 2018.

They founded the wealth management startup with the aim of closing the generational wealth gap, offering products and services normally reserved for high-net worth individuals.

“Most retail investors have two options to build wealth: settle for passive portfolios or try to time the market and pick stocks and crypto themselves without access to the training, tools and information needed to do this effectively,” Ford said.

“This funding will allow us to build a modern app-based investment service that gives customers the same professional expertise that only high-net-worth individuals are used to.” 

The £3.33m will be used to further develop Sidekick’s app, expand the asset management team and work towards regulatory approval to launch “over the coming months”.

Led by Octopus Ventures, the pre-seed round also included participation from early stage investor Seedcamp and venture fund Semantic.

“Matt and Pete have a huge amount of fintech startup experience from their time founding Pariti and working on the exec team at Tandem,” Seedcamp partner Tom Wilson said.

“We believe there’s a massive business here to democratise access to financial products and help close the generational wealth gap,” he added.

Sidekick’s offering includes access to alternative investments and the ability to borrow against these investment portfolios.

Customers will also have access to the Sidekick investment team who will give updates on portfolio performance and share educational content on its products, which will include both stocks and crypto.