Monzo founder Tom Blomfield is Y Combinator's newest group partner

Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan: “There’s not a startup that [Blomfield] can’t give useful advice to.”

Y Combinator alum and one of fintech’s most well-known founders Tom Blomfield is returning to the renowned startup accelerator as the newest group partner.

Blomfield, who has led billion-dollar companies Monzo and GoCardless, is now bringing his knowledge and expertise as both a CEO and a technical co-founder to help the next generation of startup leaders.

Having first gone through Y Combinator back in 2011 with online payments processor GoCardless, which he co-founded with Matt Robinson and CEO Hiroki Takeuchi, Blomfield went on to create Monzo in 2015.

He went on to leave the digital bank in 2021 and returned to Y Combinator later that year as a visiting group partner for the last three batches of startups.

Now he is now taking on the role on a permanent basis.

“The traits I saw in Tom as a founder in 2011 have proven to be extremely beneficial as a group partner. He’s direct with founders while having empathy for the difficulties of being one,” Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan wrote on the company blog.

“He helps founders see that the smallest ideas can lead to world-changing companies, and he provides them with the optimism needed at the lowest points in the founder journey.”

Among the more than 90 billion-dollar companies that Y Combinator has funded are a number of notable fintechs, including Blomfield’s own Monzo and GoCardless, as well as the likes of Stripe, Coinbase and Brex.

Run by startup founders for startup founders, Tan said that the accelerator’s “best alumni” are increasingly coming back to act as group partners and help guide the next generation, noting “there’s not a startup [Blomfield] can’t give useful advice to”.