Europe’s banking stack wasn’t built for high-growth digital operators.
Not for D2C brands spending six figures a month on Meta.
Not for agencies juggling multiple revenue streams.
And not for founders who want real-time clarity without stitching together six tools and burning a weekend on reconciliation.
In this episode, Andreas sits down with Theo Cesarini, CEO & co-founder of Incard, and Thomas Depuydt, Managing Partner at Smartfin — lead investor in Incard’s recent £10M Series A — to unpack the thesis behind building a financial operating system for modern entrepreneurs.
This is a conversation about why fintech isn’t “done,” why software + banking is the real wedge, and why the next generation of financial tools will look less like a bank… and more like a customizable platform.
What’s covered:
01:56 Theo’s journey: ecom → SaaS → agency → fintech
03:28 Why Smartfin invested: market, team, and velocity
04:40 What Series A looks like in fintech today
05:51 The App Store model: customizing banking by vertical
07:39 Competition in fintech: why crowded doesn’t mean closed
10:27 Customer impact: cashback economics + spend insights
11:41 After the £10M raise: what actually changes
12:57 The ambition: international from day one
14:13 Built for Gen Z founders
16:04 Who Incard is for (and why accounts don’t get frozen)
17:08 Hiring a “Navy SEAL” fintech team
18:50 AI-era org design: scaling with fewer, more senior operators
From fragmented finance to orchestration layer
Theo didn’t start in fintech.
He started in e-commerce, moved into SaaS and media agencies, and ran head-first into the same problem many founders quietly accept: finance is fragmented, slow, and disconnected from how modern digital businesses actually operate.
Cash spread across platforms.
No real-time bottom line.
Manual reconciliation.
Banks that look identical whether you’re a freelancer or scaling internationally.
Incard’s answer is not “another neobank.”
It’s a financial orchestration layer that combines:
banking infrastructure
payments
and an App Store of vertical-specific modules
The idea is simple but powerful: every business has unique financial workflows — so why does every business get the same banking interface?
An e-commerce founder activates different tools than an agency owner.
A reseller activates different apps than a SaaS startup.
Instead of six disconnected tools, Incard wants to centralize and customize.
Why Smartfin leaned in
Thomas frames the investment decision around three pillars:
Market timing – Traditional banking UX hasn’t caught up with digital-native operators.
Product architecture – The blend of payments + banking + software is defensible.
Team intensity – Velocity and execution quality stood out.
Importantly, Smartfin isn’t a “payments-only” investor. Their portfolio leans software-heavy. Incard fit because it behaves like a software platform layered on financial rails — not just a card issuer.
On metrics, Thomas emphasizes a principle rather than a checklist:
At Series A, the question is whether capital unlocks growth — not whether growth exists.
In Incard’s case, licensing milestones (like securing a UK license) and geographic expansion are execution steps. The market demand is there. Capital accelerates the roadmap.
“Crowded” markets and why that’s fine
Fintech is competitive. That’s obvious.
But competition doesn’t invalidate opportunity.
The nuance is in positioning:
Many neobanks are national.
Many fintech tools handle one slice of the stack.
Few combine banking + payments + vertical software in a cohesive way.
Smartfin’s view: multiple large winners can exist in this space — and Incard has a credible path to being one of them.
How Incard impacts founders today
Two practical levers:
1️⃣ Cashback economics
Incard shares a significant portion of card revenue back to founders. For ad-heavy businesses spending on Meta, TikTok, or SaaS tools, even a few percentage points matter.
Some customers have earned back five-figure sums purely from spend optimization.
2️⃣ Spend Insights + consolidation
Through connected accounts and analytics modules, founders can:
analyze spend across banks
detect waste
track financial performance in real time
Theo makes a sharp point:
Saving £1 of waste is often more valuable than earning cashback on £1 of spend.
Time saved is the hidden upside. Finance becomes less administrative and more strategic.
After the £10M Series A
Theo describes the post-raise period as “very busy.”
But the real shift isn’t visibility — it’s expansion.
The roadmap now includes:
US expansion (second half of the year)
Broader European rollout
Expanding the App Store beyond e-commerce
Opening new vertical modules
The ambition is clear: build an international financial platform, not a single-market neobank.
Built for the next generation
One of the more striking parts of the conversation is tone.
Theo positions Incard as built for Gen Z entrepreneurs — not just in features, but in voice, speed, and product philosophy.
He calls them “the Marty Supreme of banking.”
The point isn’t branding for branding’s sake. It’s alignment. The founders building Incard were customers themselves for nearly a decade.
That cultural closeness matters.
AI-era org design: why small teams win
Incard operates with fewer than 30 people — unusually lean for a regulated fintech operating across multiple markets.
Theo credits automation and AI tools:
low-priority admin tasks automated
compliance workflows streamlined
focus shifted to senior, autonomous operators
Hiring philosophy:
highly selective
ownership-heavy
minimal politics
creativity over hierarchy
Thomas jokes after meetings he often thinks:
“I’d like to work here.”
That intensity is part of the thesis.
Who Incard is for
Incard is currently focused on:
D2C founders
ad-heavy digital businesses
high-growth operators spending heavily on platforms like Meta and TikTok
And yes — Theo makes a point of emphasizing something founders deeply care about:
They won’t freeze your account when volume spikes.
One-line takeaway
Incard is betting that the future of fintech isn’t another bank — it’s a customizable financial operating system for digital-native companies, built lean, built international, and built for founders who don’t want finance to slow them down.
