80. Teal

Teal is improving the lending industry for both borrowers and lenders by making income verification fast and easy.

Founders: Michael Hart, André Saavedra Pinto, and Luchesar Cekov
Year founded: 2023
Website: goteal.co

The lending system is broken, claim founders Michael Hart, André Saavedra Pinto and Luchesar Cekov. They argue that income verification isn’t up to task. At the moment, borrowers face lengthy application journeys as they have to upload payslips, wait on HR confirmations and sometimes deal with affordability checks that aren’t easy to understand.

At the same time, lenders are being held back by outdated systems that are prone to fraud, as well as trying to collate data from hundreds of different payroll providers. And that doesn’t even take into account self-employed or hybrid income profiles.

The results, say the founders of Teal, are “friction, high dropout rates, and in many cases, unfair lending decisions”. Which is why the London-based team created a platform which “unlocks” payroll, HR, and tax systems at scale. Lenders can access real-time verified income and employment data as soon as they have the borrower’s authorisation.

To get the platform off the ground, the team had to build a hybrid model as they faced what they called “a classic chicken-and-egg problem”.

“We needed strong coverage to attract lenders, but also lender demand to justify expanding coverage,” they explain.

This gave clients something to see, and the team also invested in compliance and security right from the start, to then build their trust. Teal won the backing of Passion Capital, ACF Investors, and K Fund, together with strategic angels from Plaid and Checkout, allowing it to raise £1.4m in pre-seed funding.

With the product launched and the first UK client onboard, Teal is now hoping to bring the platform to more lenders across the country. It touts easy integration as a huge USP.

With the product launched and the first UK client onboard, Teal is now hoping to bring the platform to more lenders across the country. It touts easy integration as a huge USP.

The ambition is for Teal to become the default Income API in the UK, covering every kind of lending from personal loans to auto finance. The founders add, “beyond verification, we’ll evolve into the infrastructure layer that connects payroll directly with financial services, enabling a new generation of products built on trusted income data.”

This means changing tenant referencing, insurance, and employment-related financial products for the better too. Teal could become “the backbone of income-linked financial infrastructure in Europe”, delivering better experiences for lenders and borrowers alike.

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Written By

Helena Young Deputy Editor

Helena is Deputy Editor at Startups. She oversees all news and supporting content on Startups, and is also the author of the weekly Startups email newsletter, delivering must-know SME updates straight to their inbox.

From interviewing Wetherspoon’s boss Tim Martin to spotting data-led working from home trends, her insight has been featured by major trade publications including the ICAEW, and news outlets like the BBC, ITV News, Daily Express, and HuffPost UK.

With a background in PR and marketing, Helena is particularly passionate about giving early-stage startups a platform to boost their brands. That’s one reason she manages the Startups 100 Index, our annual ranking of new UK businesses.

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