Building the financial home for European founders

"I had a £600,000 check and nobody would take my money."

That's what a founder told me after raising his pre-seed. He couldn't find a single bank willing to open an account for his startup in a timely manner. Over the past year I spoke to 50+ European founders. Again and again, the same pain points came up – and they're shaping what we're building at Seapoint. The folks building the companies that will define our economic future are repeatedly being failed by financial services designed for the last century.

Today's financial services are holding startups back

In the UK and Europe, venture funding has exploded to over €50 billion annually. We now have over 160 unicorn companies valued at $1bn or more. We are producing more STEM graduates than the US every year. Yet the companies at the forefront of this transformation can't access the financial services and software they need to scale their businesses.

Traditional banks see venture funding as suspicious. "Why would someone invest money if you have no revenue?" one bank manager asked us after Seapoint raised our $3 million pre-seed round. Another founder waited six months for account approval. A third visited the post office four times just to verify their identity.

So founders turn to neobanks, only to discover they've automated away everything. To serve 500,000 micro-businesses profitably, they've reduced every company to a basic checklist. Regarding a prominent neobank one founder said: "They were so bad, I mean they were really bad. It was a train wreck". "Customer service is non-existent," another founder reported. "Just absolute freaking nightmare. I use it for the bare minimum. I get no support, nothing."

The result? Founders juggle 4-6 different financial providers, and are still left with a mountain of manual work. As one put it: "Our fractional CFO has concocted a financial stack more complex than the product we're trying to build."

Fragmented, manual and costly processes hurt innovation

In the early days, the responsibility for finance falls to the founder. Here's what "running finances" actually looks like for European founders:

Payroll is a monthly panic. "I've got an Excel sheet with 26 staff and I pay each person individually. I've done that for years," a founder who raised €10+ million told me. Another admitted: "I forgot to pay one of our new employees." A third received a Slack from his team one month: "Hey, you forgot to pay us."

Invoices pile up in Gmail folders. "I have maybe 10 invoices a month which just sit in a folder in Gmail," one founder explained. Another: "I keep two folders: 'invoices to pay' and 'invoices paid.' Takes about 1.5 hours per month." A third forwards 60 emails manually to her accounting system. Every. Single. Month.

Financial visibility disappears entirely. "The source of truth is the Google sheet where we pile it all together," multiple founders told me. Or they wait weeks after month-end for their accountants to send them a report. "The biggest thing that's going to kill a startup is you run out of money," one founder said. "So having the finance overview is so important." Yet they're flying blind.

Our research revealed founders waste countless hours monthly on these fragmented, manual and costly processes. That's time spent not building products or talking to customers. It's time lost to the operational tax of European entrepreneurship.

The Seapoint revolution: Automated, integrated, startup-friendly

Seapoint is the financial home for startups. Where today's tools are fragmented, we unify. Where workflows are manual, we automate. And where banks are hostile, we stand with founders.

First, we unify everything. We connect all your banks, link Gmail for invoices, integrate your accounting software and CRM. For the first time, you can see your complete financial picture in real-time. No more Google Sheets as truth. No more surprises about burn rate.

Second, we automate the chaos. Our AI transforms Gmail invoices into one-click payments. Payroll happens in bulk, never forgetting anyone. Expenses categorise themselves. VAT calculates automatically. Everything that used to take hours becomes instant.

Third, we provide every financial service you need. Multi-currency accounts, corporate cards, international payments, treasury management – all in one place. No more juggling providers or losing runway to inefficiency.

But here's what makes us fundamentally different: While we automate everything that should be automated, we never automate our relationship with you. You get a dedicated relationship manager who knows your business, understands Delaware C-Corps, runway, VC funds and gets the challenges of startups. A real human who actually cares, not a chatbot.

Neobanks can't do this—they're serving 500,000 customers. Traditional banks won't do this—they don't understand startups. We're building exclusively for venture-backed companies, which means we can provide the white-glove service you deserve alongside the automation you need.

The team behind Seapoint

We've built Seapoint with a team of engineers, product leaders and operators from Stripe, Tide and other high-growth companies. Many of us have been founders ourselves. We've lived the problem, and we're building the solution we always wanted.

Today we're coming out of stealth mode and announcing that we've raised $3M in pre-seed funding. We're proud to be backed by investors who share our conviction that Europe needs better financial infrastructure: the round was led by Frontline Ventures with support from Tapestry, Andrena Ventures, Angel Invest, Nomad Capital, and prominent angel investors including Claire Hughes Johnson (ex-COO, Stripe), Laurence Krieger (ex-COO, Revolut and Tide) and Colm Long (ex-COO, Tines).

What's next?

Right now, we're building fast with a cohort of startups who are already getting value from the product. Later this year, we'll open the doors wider. From there, we'll expand to serve the mid-sized companies who are trapped between the limited offerings of neobanks and the bureaucracy of corporate banking.

But we're starting where the problem is sharpest – with you, the founder.

Because when Europe's startups can run their finances smoothly, they can scale faster. And when startups scale, Europe grows.