On this week's BWB Extra we get to know Ciaran Burke a little better. Ciaran is the co-founder of Swoop, a platform which helps small businesses secure finance without having to go grovelling to banks. We hear about how they managed to raise a whopping £5 million fund for the company, plus Swoop's action plan for going fully global .. all that plus more

Ciaran’s Recommendations:

Bank of Dave (film)

BWB is powered by Oury Clark.

Fancy hearing more about the c o and co-founder of Swoop, a platform which helps small businesses secure finance without having to go groveling to banks.

Welcome to this week's Bwb Extra where we get to know Kieran Burke a little better.

We hear about Kieran's journey, which led to him co-founding Swoop, how they managed to raise a whopping 5 million pounds for the company, plus sweeps action plan for going fully global.

All that plus more.

How Kiran did you end up doing what you're doing?

So it was through my co-founder, so, um, Andrea is her name, and before Swoop I was doing Hive, which was a LinkedIn for people in the creative industries in the uk whereby you would get matched based on your skillset.

So instead of a traditional cv, you might have a portfolio or lookbook or uh, a reel and.

Built it out to about 150,000 users, 4,000 businesses using it.

And we were like crowdsourcing production, like BBC three Channel four, people like that doing it.

And it was funded mainly through BFI and government.

Quango, kind of supported by Channel four, all these different organizations.

But we were doing quite well and we built it up quite a big thing.

And.

I was like, Ooh, might be, look down this equity route and see we can, we grow it outside of the, the base.

And so we got some funds interested, but I also got introduced to Andrea as, cause her background was, that's your co-founder?

Co-founder.

She was working for McLaren, the Formula One team and helping spin out companies.

There were financing, so they need a lot of cash in the engineering business, so looking at grants equity and, and debt.

And so she was helping me on the equity piece and.

Went and brought that to the board and had had some potential options to, to, to privatize it, but they wanted to keep it as kind of BFI funded, which is absolutely fine.

But through that, got to meet Andrea, kind of hear a bit more about the, the financing side.

And I had built high from the product perspective and I'd done done that before in, in my previous roles.

I was like, I know how we can make a bit of a platform play here by bringing some of the human skills and the technology together to.

Settle what her name is Swoop.

And where did the name sweep?

Oh man, it took so long.

Took so it's always the longest sweep.

We had so many bottles of tequila.

Yeah, so many shit names.

It's been like, and we were just abusive.

You like es God, that's so bad.

Did you keep changing her names?

Keep, keep changing.

Keep January.

It was like biz fly our you, you happy?

I like it.

Love it.

Absolutely love it.

Hair.

Swoop in swoop, you know?

Yeah, it's deadly.

I absolutely love it.

And, uh, Andrea's completely the person who got it, so it, nothing, no credit to me except for That's it, that's the word.

Well done.

You, you know what?

Also, if you're in a bit of a bad place and you're a bit miserable, there is nothing like, at my last firm, I was really miserable and I thought maybe I'll set up my own law firm.

I literally used to go to bed at night and spend night half an hour.

Thinking of law firm names Pip.

What was the best name you came up with?

Well, we were talking about it earlier.

Um, my, the name for my law firm was going to be Nil Menai Law.

Ah, God.

Do you know what this is?

I do indeed.

No dicks.

Cause I was so fucking fed up with at that point.

I love la I love because we were talking about it earlier, I asked, what is most misunderstood about your day job?

How you have to do such crap shit as well as the good shit.

Like obviously being a business owner is the best thing ever because you get such freedom to do things and you're moving around the place and you're chatting to people all the time.

But like you still have to clean the office up, sort the bins out.

Get like the energy bill paid.

The, the, yeah, just random shit that no one knows you're doing.

You're like, you're deleting something from Gmail administration.

You're resetting a apart password for J.

Like just load A, and then one of your employees is crying about something.

Exactly.

This is a crew question.

Are you making money at the moment?

You're raising money still.

So we did a series A last.

Uh, last year, uh, for about 5.6 million.

And so we, we kind of used that to kind of grow the team here.

And then we opened up an office in Toronto.

We've won open in Sydney.

Nice.

This year.

Nice choice.

Done Melbourne.

So this year we're, we're, we're trying to go big in America, so we're, we're, we're looking to go there.

It's been a, it's been a good, good year.

I mean, Jesus, lots of things go wrong, but generally the direction of top, oh, you're really expanding out worldwide.

That's amazing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um, and, and, and lots of it has been obviously growing the, the business, the platform, but we've also introduced a kind of a, a subscription offering, which has kind of been scalable where we give the tool to accountants and other introducers so they can upload all their clients on there to understand which of their clients need funding and help with that piece.

And that's really, really, Been awesome for us.

I mean, it sounds like from the, you, you're at a stage that maybe, well, you know, maybe you need more administrative people.

I mean, that's annoying.

How many employees have you got?

Uh, so we're approaching a hundred employees.

Okay, I'll stop there.

Out of interest, is there a lot of, where, where's your main office in London?

So, London, Liverpool, Birmingham, one in Dublin.

Sydney and Toronto, which is your biggest, um, London's probably still the biggest, but Liverpool's gone grown quite a bit.

Do, do you tend and you hire people from anywhere?

Whatever, any, anywhere.

Because, because obviously we grew quite a lot during Covid.

Uh, we, we, we, we launched in 2018, so a lot of it, the early form division, covid, so particularly with like engineering and tech talent.

Wanting to be agile.

So we, we, we have a hub, so there's some hubs in Cape Town and we've got a few guys in Sao Pa and Behar as well as in, in our core markets, uh, as, as well.

So yeah, lots of it's super international.

Lots of people from Morbridge, absolutely love.

Uh, so it's, it's, it's class and, and, and the people we have are fucking deadly and I love her to bets.

What would you say the biggest problem facing Swoop is?

Um, I suppose it's just the natural scaling side of things of trying to take on and grow all these people.

Like, so if we, if we go in the States this year, we're gonna be looking to take on another maybe 50 people.

So culturally, how'd you keep.

At all the same like you have at the, at the moment.

And cuz you're constantly trying to change like the, the, the products and the journeys.

It's just trying to stay on top of everything, I suppose is, is, is one of the great challenges.

And you are c o o, are you?

Yeah.

You said something you like worst job in the world.

You know, when you say, so I'm hearing it's like, huh.

See, gimme these.

Fuck do that.

It's fucking scary.

No, I think you need five.

Secretaries and a trip to Vegas, you've got 5.7 million.

Come on, you trips to Vegas.

That, that was, that.

That's all.

All gone.

What are you doing about climate change?

I know it's a bit aggressive, but we've all gotta fucking answer that question.

Yeah, I, I mean, probably not.

I could do a lot more cuz my carbon footprint is awful from all the flights.

Um, personally or as a company?

No, personally, my carbon footprint must be a disaster.

I have a sauna of fuck sake.

This is terrible idea.

Uh, I, one, one thing that's happening quite a lot.

There's a lot of lip service to it in the financing industry and even in the investment industry where businesses need to be more e s G, and there's not an actual genuine energy to it.

I don't think anyone knows what to do is my point.

That's I'm asking At a a small business level, it's much easier when it's at e S G for.

Macro investment because everyone has to public declare all their accounts and you can easily calculate it and, and stuff like that.

So what we're trying to do is try to understand is there ways to make the calculation better?

So what we're seeing some evolutions of, and it's not by any way, perfect practices E S G scoring.

So where.

Again, using things like open banking.

You can see your water bill, you can see your electricity bills, your usage and things like that.

And like, how can you optimize that or Im improve that.

So there, there, there are things in that area, but some of it's kind of clunky and heavy handed, uh, where there's like gigantic surveys.

I have a client in does it day rise.com from, uh, Netherlands.

They, but they do it in, uh, e-commerce and you, they, they will ethically work out whether products you're talking shit or not.

Yeah.

And then you get a score.

Have you thought about being a big.

Yeah, uh, we, we, we use this thing called EcoVadis.

So a lot of the banks make you go through something like a B Corp or an Ecova, and we do EcoVadis and we're best, where's EcoVadis from, I dunno where they're called from, but we're a silver.

That's Italian or something.

And, and, and you, you, you go through.

What are the levels though?

This is sounding very like, again, again, yeah.

Silver, gold, platinum.

Exactly.

Magic diamond.

I think all this kind of raid and badging is like, I don't feel, I feel a little bit uneasy at it.

But what I feel see really cool is actually some of the businesses that are doing really cool shit.

Like we've got one that are just like melting shit pain and like turning it into a whiskey glass or like, and we had one where they were taking the rubber from Formula One cars and turning it into sunglass frames.

It's like this toilet was made with old bottles.

It's like rock lads.

There are a few people, the fucking planet, all the seaweed off the beaches in the Mediterranean, of which there's.

Fuck tons.

Yeah.

And turn it into like iPhone cases.

Yeah.

And like glasses.

I think we need to make little robots to fix it all.

I, I, but yeah, I lo I love all that, but I, and like the battery storage stuff is like super exciting cuz like, I remember we went to, uh, to a place in northwest of Ireland, uh, after Christmas and my family, uh, to a place called, um, In, in Don Go and Mother of God, there's no reason for Ireland not to be the Saudi Arabia of the future.

The wind is absolutely astronomical.

So if we could just get that into a hydrogen power battery store, that we can just power that European grid for days on ahead.

The great thing about Britain and uh, Ireland with we are the Middle East.

Of water.

We wind, we are we Ireland has 13% of the European coastline.

13% of the European coastline.

Yeah, we've got the other bit.

Yeah.

Like we should be, we should fack all this.

You need the best.

This.

We should have never left Europe.

It was a terrible idea.

But now we have come with us Ireland.

Well boo.

But we wanna sell into the European grid cause they've got a grid.

And if you can sell into that, we obviously need to store it in the batteries.

But if you can fix that.

Hello we, your new RIA Qatar come to UK and Ireland.

And now a quick word from our sponsor,

RI Clark.

Got it.

Start back in 1935.

And while the world has changed a bit, it's more than just survived from complying with the F c A and all things by Nancy.

They can also speak fluently in the language of legalese.

Ri Clark was born and raised right here in the uk and now for 20 years they've been helping the.

Others get set up and on their way.

Ari Clark's Doors always open and happy to provide straight talking financial and legal advice since 1935.

Big shout out to Sean via Singh for a stellar jingle.

You can find him at Sean ver sing music on Instagram.

And at this point, let me quickly remind you to give us a nice review, please on Apple Podcast or follow us on Spotify so you'll never miss an episode.

Now back to the chat.

What are you most excited about for your business, for Sweet?

Uh, I'm really excited about going into the states and, and kind of, cuz ultimately what we're trying to do is not unique to any geography or region, like ultimately access to finance.

That bit I'm surprised about.

Can I say, when you said you'd expanded overseas, um, hang on.

Knowing all the debt things that's available and understanding the system and the, the levers and the s e i.

So that takes time man, you know, for, uh, it does, but like a lot of countries have.

Systems that you can plug into and access to finance is, oh, so the underlying thing is open banking, getting the data.

Yeah.

We're, we're just like the, the product levers, like, um, revenue affordability, sector age, and then you plug those different variables into the various different products.

But at the end of the day, Most economies are paired up by small businesses.

They employ the most amount of people.

They added most amount of G D P.

So if you can offer a service that whether you're in, uh, Tanzania or Albania or wherever, you can go and take their data and then tell them, look, these are your options, and.

That's really, really cool.

And, and there's nothing to stop when you do that anywhere.

Uh, and, and it's increasingly becoming more and more, uh, borderless.

Like we have loads of businesses, customers who franchise organizations and so they want their franchise operators to run around the world and open their places as much as possible.

So we go, give us your data and we'll share the world.

A bunch of lenders.

So we've got ones like F 45 gyms and we've opened them in Spain and Belgium, in Germany, in New Zealand, Australia, America, Canada.

Like, so once you get to understand that and the financier has become comfortable with it, it doesn't matter.

How do you approach opening internationally due due to how CEO locally you sending people?

What's your plan?

Yeah, I mean, like, again, we're a very young company, so we're, we're learning all the time.

How five years?

Yeah, we'll be five next year or this year, later this year.

Uh, and, and, and we opened an Australia drink.

She's done such a lot in five years.

Yeah.

It's been, you should see his cupboards at home though.

I mean, it's fucking house cheese.

Cheese jeans is gone.

Is gone.

It's a disaster.

Powered by cheese.

Yeah.

Uh, but like a big lesson learned like he opened in Australia during Covid and, um, you can't, you couldn't get into Scotti.

Morrison was not having anyone getting into that country sky.

So he was not having it.

Sky did a good job.

Not, uh, not at all.

Uh, so the number you, you were bringing people externally in great people, but because you couldn't make that connection, and also you've gotta.

Place that's 12 hours away.

Time zone wise, what we've learned is bring your core people and bring them into the markets and blend that way and, and, and, and the, and the culture and everything moves a lot more quickly.

And that's something we definitely learned from, from that foray.

What have you most fucked up in your life, man, please tell us.

Fuck.

Just feel like you can't, like I just at the top of this, a very boring bit at the top of the, the podcast we messed up on our, our website there, and it, we'll fix it and it cost it up.

Um, but always making silly judgements and things and you're like, ah, how about when, when you got most lucky?

When have you got most lucky?

Now?

Ah, we've got some, some pretty nice luck.

Uh, so there, there was a competition, uh, called the bcr, uh, basically rbs.

Had to put half a billion back into the kind of market because they didn't break the, the banks at the time, and this is their penalty.

And most of the, the money went to different banks, like startling back at a hundred.

Uh, Metro got 120, uh, Adam Bank got 50, but there was a, there was a strand for SMEs to look at, how could you make banking more competitive in the uk?

And we won, uh, that in July, 2019.

And that was, oh my God.

How much did they give you?

Uh, 5 million.

Wow.

Yeah.

It was, was that's a holiday, a holiday in the ey.

You won 5 million in a bid and you didn't, you didn't have one big party.

Some big party must You're doing that way because at the same time, like, I'm not encouraging, but this is not sensible idea, but you are totally encouraging.

Have a party.

It's a bit, but it's a bit, it's one party.

It's actually, it's a bit like grands though, in that like, although the money is allocated in, in certain ways, but it's allocated to grow your, your business and what you do, so that, that is amazing.

What's your passion outside of business sport?

I absolutely love it.

So, as I said, I'm playing football tonight.

Um, I love watching a big villa fan love, uh, rugby or tennis.

Why Sam Villa?

I know it's such a random thing.

Uh, when I was four or five, my cousin Rory supported them and I thought he was really cool, and so I decided to follow.

What's the best piece of advice you've been given?

Say yes.

It's he told you to say yes.

It's like the conservativeness of like, say yes.

I fucking thinking of like, oh, what could go wrong?

It's that mindset of like overanalyzing things and, and I hate seeing that when people are like coming at university or things like that.

It's like, whoa, there's nothing to be worried about here.

You just throw yourself into things and, and, and you see people like when they're like 18 and stuff and they're, they're really overthinking them because like, Maybe their parents are putting pressure on them to think, and this sort of saying, being a bit

fringy, like I was so lucky to have that kind of environment where they're like, just thinking about all these different steps and it's like, listen, you don't need to throw yourself straight into like an accounting course or fe ones, whatever it, it might be.

Take your time, enjoy it, like explore and stuff like that.

You an only child now I've got, uh, Wonderful siblings.

That's why cuz they're thinking it's okay.

His siblings will do the decent thing.

Yeah, but I, but it's also like, oh, go, go, go, go to this country.

Take that holiday word, try that random job or like, just give it a, give it a lash.

Like, why not?

And, and I've never had, sometimes you have that inner conservative voice and I'm very thankful I've not had that.

Any recommendations for the audience?

You know, things to read, things to listen to your sportman?

Yeah, I mean like, uh, well, something I watched in the plane that I loved on the way back there at the Bank of Dave, have you seen that on Netflix?

The Bank of Dave?

I've been wanting to watch it.

Is it great?

Absolutely early.

Obviously it's a guy.

I be Michael Dave, I be, he said, he said the first bank in the UK after 150 years.

True story, true story.

Uh, based on documentary, it's Afil, it's a dramatized film on Netflix and.

I, when I got off and landed, I went on time DB and I gave a 10 Outta 10.

Ah, I thought it was just so good.

Fantastic.

Okay, so that brings us to my favorite part of the show, the business versus Bullshit.

Quick, far, round.

D, more music please.

This is where we're gonna read, lost some key terms.

You're gonna tell them whether you think it is business or bullshit, or if you're on the fence about them.

You can say Biz shit only once, maybe twice.

Are you ready, Kiran?

Okay.

I'll try to be rapid this time.

Hot desking.

Bullshit.

Flexible working business going viral.

This just sounds grim.

But I would say business because if you listen to like how I built this or anything like that and some cool people, but if you break it down, some big PR story broke for them and it all went deadly.

So it can make good business.

I'm deadly in, in Irish is really good.

Really, really good.

Breakfast meetings.

Oh, bullshit.

Oh God.

High fives all rounds.

Uh, think tanks.

Full shit.

Like in a big bee dam.

What for money.

MBAs.

Oh, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.

Oh, I'm not sure I understand what you're saying about this stuff.

I, I'm like, I think education is the greatest thing ever and everyone should be go for education, but MBAs is the most over education thing, and you're just so filled with nonsense and you're not useful.

Tea, mountings, eh, a business.

Yeah.

Tirade.

Little straw.

Yeah.

No, no.

I think that was spot on.

Thank you very much.

Sorry.

Um, okay.

Uh, microdosing, that's with mushrooms.

Uh, bullshit.

Never tried it.

Never?

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, I got feel a fraud.

A fraud, yeah.

Asking favors.

Uh, business, uh, universal income.

Uh, again, I feel like I'm flaw giving a topic here where I'm not deeply known, such a complex topic.

I think I'd be dunno enough depth on that.

Working hours.

Uh, bullshit.

NFTs bullshit.

Although I bought one something fire to say.

Oh, it was pure.

Like my sister was like, um, is it a gorilla?

It's a lime.

Do I remember lime wire?

Kind of like broke people's laptops when they were, yeah.

Uh uh, it was like a disease.

You could give your laptop, but.

Give it would give you, it would give you music.

It would download music illegally or, and break it would just like in Yeah.

Infiltrate your computer.

Your, your parents would be like, what have you done?

Um, Bitcoin, uh, biz shit.

Is that saying in that like, uh, there's a lot to be said for digital currencies.

And it's paved the way, the bullshit bit is the speculation, and actually no one knows anything about it.

Yeah, but actually the idea of having a digital currency from a a, a tracking and trading point of view makes a ton of sense.

I think other digital currencies clearly are worth something.

Bitcoin is probably not business plans business.

Yeah, I know they gonna get a hard time cuz they're not sexy but like it's kind of useful to But your thoughts gonna be t sexy.

No, I think they get a hard time because they're entirely fictitious in lot time.

That's true.

But at least it gives you a structure to your shoot.

It's more like gimme a meeting and agenda.

Yeah.

The business plan in a way it is bullshit.

It's like I soul six hand trying to imagine what we should be in one go when the reality is is every little bit as.

Working it out, in, in, in, in.

Uh, anyway, we've done it.

Excellent.

That's the end of the quick, far round.

So quick, so rapid.

My producer is not gonna commit suicide like I thought he was.

So that was this week's episode of Bwb Extra and we'll be back with a new episode next Tuesday.