Rabo Frontier Ventures invests in mobile business platform Tide through Anthemis Group

Rabo Frontier Ventures (RFV) has invested in the Tide series B investment round, led by SBI Group and Augment. The RFV deal was structured through an SPV that is managed by Anthemis Group, a major early stage investor in Tide and one of the most active fintech investors.

Tide is the fastest-growing SME business banking platform in the UK*. It provides an agile banking service designed specifically for SMEs and sole traders to help them save time and money, while providing them with seamless access to a curated offering of the best financial products sourced from third party partners. With Tide, customers can manage their accounts without the need to visit a branch as Tide is mobile first (not mobile only) and everything can be managed through the app or the web browser. The platform approach makes Tide unique and creates significant value add services in cooperation with other leading fintech companies through integrations with a.o. Xero and Sage for accounting and Iwoca for lending.

Tide’s vision is to create a market-leading digital banking platform targeting a UK market share of 8% within 4 years. The underlying market dynamics are robust with the SME banking market ripe for disruption. The demand for better customer service, lower costs and less bureaucracy is driving the need for improved infrastructure and modern business banking services. These circumstances resulted in the rapid growth of Tide, which already surpassed the 100.000 users.

Last week, Tide announced the closing of a significant series B round of £44m led by the Japanese The SBI Group and Augmentum Fintech plc. The funding will help Tide substantially increase its share of the UK business banking market, as well as to support the Company’s planned international expansion. Earlier this year, Tide and its partner, ClearBank secured a £60 million grant (US$74 million) from the RBS Alternative Remedies Package. Tide subsequently committed to raise an additional £60 million (US$74million) in upcoming funding rounds. Including the BCR grant, this will take the total capital raised by Tide to more than £130 million (US$160 million) to fuel its growth plans.
*Tide is not a bank, but a business banking platform and the leading digital challenger in business banking services.

Anthemis is an early stage investor in Tide and one of the most active fintech investors. Anthemis invested in the seed round of Tide in December 2016. Sean Park is Founder, Chief Investment Officer of Anthemis has a board seat at Tide.

Rabo Frontier Ventures

RFV is a €150 million investment fund of Rabobank, focusing globally on innovative fintech and agtech companies. RFV aims to invest in the early growth stage (series B) of companies that are disrupting or influencing the current business of the Rabobank. As an investor RFV strives to share in-depth knowledge in order to add value to portfolio companies. “This investment in Tide will generate valuable insights regarding innovation and development in SME banking and further gives us the opportunity to work together with Anthemis and alongside existing investors such as LocalGlobe”, according to Jeroen van Doornik, Partner at RFV.

RFV and Rabobank will use these insights in order to better serve its own customers. Both RFV and Rabobank are looking forward to the cooperation with Tide and Anthemis.