Exclusive video: Cubed CEO Elliott Limb on why fintechs fail

Held at the QEII Centre in the heart of Westminster, our annual conference, FinTech LIVE London 2023, proved to be a disruptive learning and networking experience. 

The two-day event gave leading lights from across the fintech industry an opportunity to showcase their latest strategies, projects and innovations, while attendees soaked up valuable insight and expertise.

Day two saw Elliot Limb, Founder and CEO at Cubed, offer his explanation as to why fintechs fail on Stage 1. 

Investigating the failure of fintechs

Limb began his keynote by providing the audience with some statistics on the progression of fintechs, telling them that 90% of startups fail within three years and only 2% of scaleups make it to Series D funding. 

"A lot of companies should fail even earlier," Limb said. "You can have a bad product, bad leadership team, bad product-market fit, really massive egos – they should just fail early, pivot, whatever you need to do to move on.

"Two per cent of scaleups making it to Series D is a bit of a problem and it's actually very easy to fix. I've taken three companies from pre-B [Series funding] through to F onwards.

"As long as you put everything in place from Series A-B – everybody else complains and says we're not a corporate, we don't need to do all the big work, forget the operations – but the earlier you do it, the more chance you have of success at that later stage."

However, Limb went on to lament the fact that 75% of venture investments fail.

"How can this be normal?," he asked. "That's what kept me awake at night and that's why I founded Cubed.

"The 90% can fail because [it is a] bad idea, friends and family get involved, people invest early. This is saying three-quarters of companies, where proper investors have seen a product, a team and a market that can drive success, fail.

"There's a lot of reasons this is okay because the game is set so that, if those 25% succeed that succeed are huge hypergrowth companies, the money gets paid back. But it's still breaking the hopes and dreams of entrepreneurs and founders."

To watch the session in full, simply follow the video link at the top of this story. 

Want to see more from FinTech LIVE London 2023? Stay tuned to our website for more content, which will be coming your way very soon. 

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For more insights from FinTech Magazine, read our latest edition here or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

You may also be interested in our sister site, InsurTech Digital, which you can also follow on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Please also take a look at the playlist for our latest hybrid event, FinTech LIVE London, to learn all about the latest trends in fintech. 

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