David is the CEO and Founder of Firenze – an embedded lending platform unlocking access to financing once reserved for the ultra-wealthy. Outward recently led the £2.5m Seed round and you can read more about our investment thesis here. For now, let’s hear from the founder himself.
1. What was your upbringing like?
I grew up in a small farming village in Nottinghamshire, in the middle of nowhere. I was always someone who worked hard, and I spent my free time either working on various building sites with my old man or doing paper rounds to earn a few extra quid. In my late teens, I started working in kitchens, where washing pots soon turned into a real passion for cooking. During my gap year in Australia, I managed to work at some high-end restaurants, intending to get back into cheffing after university. However, during my undergraduate degree, I became deeply curious about the financial services sector, as I saw the world fall apart during the Global Financial Crisis in 2008. My cooking career got put on hold for a graduate scheme at Barclays.
2. What was your first encounter with entrepreneurialism?
My first formal foray into entrepreneurialism was at the age of 14 when I launched Newman’s Bouncy Castle Hire. I spent the summer working for my dad, earning £1.50 an hour and £2 on Sundays. By the end of the summer, I managed to save up £560 by working all the hours I could. There was a guy who used to come around the building site selling stuff that had fallen off the back of lorries, and one such item was a bouncy castle. I bought it for £500 and paid my sister £50 to clean it up. In return for a free lunch, my dad drove me around the local pubs and neighbouring villages to promote my new venture. Fast forward a year, I had made enough money to buy a set of sumo suits and expanded to Newman’s Leisure Hire.
3. Why does the world need Firenze?
Prior to joining Barclays, I had never heard of Lombard lending — the ability to borrow against your liquid investments. In fact, I continue to be amazed by how few people know about it, despite it being used by the wealthiest in society. The most famous example is Elon Musk, who used his Tesla shares as security to buy Twitter. Love him or hate him, Musk has been able to do amazing things by leveraging both sides of his balance sheet. In Europe, without more than £1 million in NAV, you can’t unlock the liquidity of your assets and grow your wealth in a way that the wealthiest in society can. I genuinely believe that Lombard lending, as a solution, is one of the things that helps perpetuate wealth inequality. That’s why Firenze will bring Lombard lending to the mass affluent — an audience that has been locked out of the market until now. This will be no small feat, and it requires a huge amount of effort to educate the market, but it’s something the world needs.
4. What is the biggest risk you’ve taken to get here?
The first jump is always the riskiest, especially at a time when there are plenty of de-stressed, stable alternatives to pursue (albeit less exciting). I was in Switzerland on a road trip with my 3-year-old daughter, taking some time out since exiting my former venture, Delio, when I made the mental decision to launch a new company. Firenze was nothing more than an idea. I wasn’t sure if the pricing would work or if the market needed or wanted it. Frankly, I had no idea if I was absolutely crazy, but I just had a very strong feeling that it could work.
5. A lesson you’ll take forward from your previous venture?
There are a million and one things I learned at Delio, but the one I always return to is the importance of focus. As a founder, you come across many incredible opportunities in a day, and you’ll meet people who want to pull you in different directions. Having a clear sense of direction helps you say no to the opportunities that can wait, and spend time on the things that really move the needle today.
6. What’s it like to work at Firenze?
Hopefully, it’s good fun! It’s a very small but really high-quality team. There’s no ego, just a bunch of credible people who want to work together to solve hard problems. If someone is having a bad day, my response is always, “Come join a client call – you’ll see why we’re here.” It’s genuinely humbling how excited our clients are to see the product work, which in turn creates positive momentum in the team to keep pushing.
7. The most helpful advice you’ve received from a fellow founder?
I’ve received a lot of good advice over the years, but the one that sticks with me is quite simple: trust your gut. Great founders are obsessed with the problem they are solving; they live and breathe their market from the moment they wake up to the moment they fall asleep. I’m fortunate to have lots of incredible investors, angel partners, and stakeholders around the table who give valuable advice, but sometimes you need to listen to your instincts and move with conviction rather than dwelling on a decision. That’s the one that I’m thinking through a lot at the moment.
8. Why have you chosen to build up North?
Besides this being my home, in my view, Manchester is the greatest city in the country. It has a deep pool of talent, with around 10 million people living within an hour of the city — almost as large as Greater London. It boasts excellent bars, restaurants, and a great culture of friendly people. It’s well connected internationally, and it’s only a couple of hours by train down to London, where everyone else seems to think the world exists! It’s got everything you could ever need.
9. A story that has inspired you?
I haven’t told this one for a long time, but when I was thinking about stories that inspire me to make a difference, I thought of my mum’s. My mum dropped out of school when she was 15. She’d always been told by her parents to find a man and settle down. Ten years later, she was working as a cleaner in a school when she bumped into her old form tutor. He was shocked to see her there — a student he believed had so much potential — and urged her to return to school to finish her A levels. With his support and guidance, my mum finished high school at the age of 26. She then went on to graduate from university, selling double-glazed windows on the side to support her three children and over the years, she built up a successful career in housing associations. Her life turned out to be so different from the trajectory she was on because one person chose not to accept the status quo.
