What were the key triggers behind the creation of Illuminate Financial?
Hugo: The fund was founded in 2014 by our Managing Partner, Mark Beeston. His career spans both large financial institutions and entrepreneurship, giving him unique insight into a structural gap in the ecosystem. After selling a startup he had founded, he returned to the corporate side and realized just how difficult it is for startups to access decision-makers within large financial organizations. These are the people with the budgets, but they’re rarely accessible.
Conversely, financial institutions don’t always have clear visibility into the startups that could address their technological needs. At the time, the most visible startups were typically B2C (neobanks or consumer-facing solutions) while B2B fintech was still underutilized.
Mark Beeston decided to create a model to bridge the gap between these two worlds. The aim was to build a fund backed by financial institutions, designed to help B2B startups gain access to strategic decision-makers quickly. We connect our portfolio companies directly with senior stakeholders within these large organizations to help accelerate their go-to-market strategies. That founding idea is what shaped the DNA of Illuminate Financial.
How is Illuminate Financial’s positioning truly differentiated in the competitive fintech VC landscape?
Hugo: Our model is built on two core pillars that clearly differentiate us.
The first is our strategic geographic presence. Illuminate Financial operates from London, New York, and Singapore, the world’s three leading financial hubs. This enables us to support our portfolio companies in their international expansion. We’re hands-on in helping them establish local operations: finding office space, hiring key talent, identifying leads and potential customers. The goal is to help them establish themselves quickly and efficiently in these priority markets. Being close to our Strategic Partners in these regions also allows us to maintain strong relationships and better understand their internal challenges and potential synergies with our portfolio.
The second pillar is our base of strategic partners. We currently have 11 leading financial institutions, including JP Morgan, Citi, Barclays, BNY, S&P Global, and Deutsche Börse Group. These are not passive backers, they play an active role in our investment strategy. We never deploy capital into a company unless there’s a clear prospect of collaboration with at least one of our Strategic Partners. While we remain fully independent in our decisions, we validate each opportunity against their needs to guarantee practical impact from the start.
This translates into a highly operational commitment: we facilitate on average over 100 commercial introductions per startup. These connections often result in tangible business opportunities, and in some cases, equity investments from our Strategic Partners into our portfolio companies. We closely track the outcomes, some startups have converted a significant portion of these leads into clients, proving the direct value we bring.
This approach translates into a unique operational commitment. Beyond introductions, we roll up our sleeves, whether it’s helping founders recruit senior leadership in Singapore or guiding early market entry.This hands-on support is made possible by the lean size of our team (22 people across three offices) allowing us to stay agile and responsive.
Finally, our close ties with Strategic Partners also shape our investment process. When reviewing a company, we systematically test our partners’ interest. If none of them express interest, we naturally question the deal’s relevance. When alignment is clear, we know we can create momentum for a startup from day one.
What is your investment thesis today, and how do you adapt it to the rapid changes in the financial sector?
Hugo: We’re an early-stage investor, from pre-seed to Series B. The objective is to identify strategic technologies early and give our Strategic Partners fast access to them. This makes us a catalyst for both the startups and our institutional partners.
Our thesis primarily focuses on three areas: B2B fintech, technology infrastructure, and challenges around data and AI. The common thread is the impact these solutions can have on financial institutions, which are now essentially data factories. Issues like observability, security, data flow quality, and process automation have become central.
To keep our thesis current, we’ve implemented a structured process of “deep dives.” Internally, we conduct a deep study each month on a specific vertical or technology: next-gen ERPs, observability tools, AI security platforms, and so on. These are informed by both market monitoring and direct feedback from our Strategic Partners who are the first users of the solutions we invest in. This helps us sharpen our conviction and approach founder meetings well-prepared.
We also share these insights publicly through articles and talks, which adds to our credibility in the ecosystem. And this discipline builds trust, with both founders and Strategic Partners, by showing that we don’t just follow trends, we aim to anticipate and structure them.
How do you evaluate the potential of a fintech project or startup before investing?
Hugo: We review several thousand projects a year, around 2,800 in 2024. Out of those, we made just 6 initial investments. That shows how selective our process is. About half of the submissions lead to conversations; the rest are either too advanced or outside our sector focus.
Beyond standard criteria team quality, product robustness, early traction… our main filter is whether we can genuinely add value. We don’t aim to be passive investors. Before entering any process, we must be convinced we can actively help: open doors, structure the go-to-market, or generate synergies with our Strategic Partners. That’s a dealbreaker for us.
We also test every opportunity for strategic relevance to the financial ecosystem. Even highly promising startups won’t make it through if we don’t see alignment with our network. Capital alone is not enough. A successful investment, for us, is about combining the startup’s strengths with the unique access and acceleration we bring. If we can’t accelerate a company’s growth, we don’t invest.
Which investments best illustrate Illuminate Financial’s impact?
Hugo: A few stand out as clear representations of our thesis and operating model.
Genesis, from our first fund, is a flagship case. The company specializes in microservices and saw rapid growth. We directly supported its commercial expansion by connecting them with several of their top 10 clients. That early success helped prove our go-to-market model right from the start.
In the crypto infrastructure space, Talos and Curv marked a turning point. These were our first moves into this universe, now a key axis of our portfolio. They helped us develop a thesis around Web3 technologies for financial markets.
We’ve also backed emerging leaders in Europe, including in France. Kiln is a particularly strong example: robust tech, fast execution, solid founding team. It reflects our commitment to supporting local champions with global ambition.
Lastly, BeZero is a great example of our early-stage involvement. We were their first institutional investor at pre-seed. Since then, they’ve raised a significant round with Temasek. This shows our ability to spot and help shape future leaders from the ground up.
These examples illustrate the diversity of our portfolio, our sectoral agility, and above all, our ability to catalyze rapid, targeted growth in close collaboration with our Strategic Partners network.
Your third fund closed at $235 million and marked a new chapter. What lessons have emerged two years later?
Hugo: Our third fund differed in several ways from the previous two, both in its design and deployment.
First, we broadened our sector scope. While the earlier funds focused heavily on capital markets, this third vehicle brought in themes like AI, cybersecurity, and tech infrastructure. We’ve backed startups such as Gladia, Vertesia, Reality Defender, and File.AI in Singapore, all of which reflect this diversification.
We also increased our footprint in France, with four local investments. That’s a significant concentration for us and shows our intent to better capture European innovation.
Another evolution: we now invest more often at the seed stage. With market pressure on Series A valuations, entering earlier allows us to size our tickets appropriately while staying true to our active investment model.
Early results are promising. Several portfolio companies have already raised follow-on rounds since our entry, confirming the strength of the portfolio. Our target is to make 20–25 investments from this fund, which lets us maintain a close, tailored approach for each startup.
Who are your Strategic Partners and what role do they play in your strategy?
Hugo: We currently have 11 Strategic Partners, all from the financial services sector. These include major players like JP Morgan, Barclays, and S&P Global. This sector focus is intentional, it shapes our thesis and enhances our value to startups.
Our Strategic Partners go beyond providing capital. They’re part of our investment process from the start—we always check for strategic interest from at least one of them before moving forward. That alignment from day one ensures there’s a clear market fit for the startup.
They’re also involved downstream. They sit on advisory committees with us, share their operational and regulatory needs, and help us fine-tune our sourcing. This ongoing dialogue helps us identify the most relevant, high-impact solutions.
The strength of this model is in the virtuous cycle it creates: our Strategic Partners gain early access to breakthrough technologies, and our startups benefit from accelerated go-to-market through targeted partnerships.
What tools or methods do you use to optimize sourcing, analysis, and portfolio support?
Hugo: We’ve built our organization around tech tools that let us handle a growing volume of opportunities without sacrificing selectivity. We use standard platforms like Affinity (CRM), PitchBook, Capital IQ, Notion and Tactyc by Carta for portfolio management. We also integrate AI tools like ChatGPT during exploratory analysis to accelerate our understanding of complex technologies and synthesise emerging market trends.
But the key lies in how we use these tools. Our custom CRM tracks all ecosystem interactions, cross-references signals from our Strategic Partners, and surfaces recurring high-potential themes.
We also run an internal “deep dive” program where team members regularly lead in-depth research on tech segments. These studies fuel our thinking and are often shared with Strategic Partners to validate market relevance.
What are Illuminate Financial’s short- and medium-term ambitions?
Hugo: We’re midway through deploying our third fund and remain highly active over the next 18–24 months. In the short term, we aim to deepen our presence in European tech ecosystems with strong potential. The idea is not to open new offices, but to reinforce local engagement from our current locations.
We remain focused on B2B fintech. However, new verticals are emerging within our thesis such as AI in compliance, tokenization, and modular data infrastructure.
In the medium term, we’re considering expanding our product range, potentially through specialized vehicles or co-investment structures in response to Strategic Partners demand. Nothing is finalized, but these avenues are under active exploration.
Our priority remains unchanged: to strengthen our differentiation through deep founder engagement, Strategic Partners alignment, and a forward-looking approach to financial sector transformation.
Illuminate Financial demonstrates that a venture fund can go beyond funding to become a true growth catalyst. With a demanding investment model, a top-tier Strategic Partners network, and strong operational involvement, the firm has built a unique footprint in the B2B fintech space. More than an investor, Illuminate is a long-term partner shaping the future of financial innovation.