Interview: Matt Smith on SteelEye’s $21M Series B funding

In early September, we announced the completion of our Series B funding round of $21M led by Ten Coves Capital. In this interview, SteelEye's CEO, Matt Smith, talks about the $21M Series B funding and what the capital will mean for the company.

What does this funding mean for SteelEye?

This funding is a game changer for us and is the perfect way to celebrate our fifth birthday – coming up on October 3rd.

When we started building our business, we knew we were on to something very exciting. As we’ve grown to a company of 100 people and over 130 clients, the belief that our platform has the potential to revolutionize the compliance function of regulated financial firms has never wavered.

Raising $21M from some of the highest profile and credible global investors is validation that we were right to set out on this journey back in 2017. We can now realize more of our ambitions - serve more customers in more markets, improve our solutions, continue to innovate, and create a workplace that attracts top talent.

Matt Smith, Duncan Stuart-Reid, Zenon Gray, and Mark Pflitsch celebrating the completion of SteelEye's Series B funding in the London office.

By this time next year, what do you plan to have achieved?

We are gearing up for an incredibly busy year ahead. International expansion is a key focus, with a particular emphasis on North America. We’ve got fantastic teams heading up our international offices, most recently hiring the RegTech veteran Brian Lynch to lead operations across the Americas. We have a strong focus on attracting top talent to help us grow in a scalable yet efficient manner.

By next year we will have scaled our operations so we can meet the increasing market for cloud-based compliance platforms and serve more clients. We will also have solutions that are even more intelligent, new technological innovations, a larger team, slicker customer service, and most importantly, lots of fun memories!

In your opinion, what has been your biggest challenge as you’ve moved from start-up to scale-up?

Maintaining company culture when headcount is growing so rapidly is most certainly a challenge.

We are investing heavily in training and development so that each of our team members can thrive professionally while working hard to retain the true SteelEye spirit of fun and good times.

Our people are what make SteelEye so special, and I am extremely grateful to every one of my team members for making the working day so enjoyable. As we grow, it’s essential that this spirit is kept alive.

Members of the SteelEye London team celebrating the fundraise.

What does this funding say about the current RegTech landscape?

Raising the highest amount of any European RegTech firm in 2022 to date, despite widespread concerns about funding drying up amid recession fears, demonstrates that there are still investment opportunities out there for credible businesses, harnessing long-term trends.

SteelEye was founded on the basis that there was a smarter and more accurate way of complying with the important regulations that were born out of the 2008 financial crisis.

The sector is under constant pressure to prove it has learned from past mistakes and this means more regulation and more complexity passing through outdated technology systems and fragmented processes at great expense and administrative pain.

RegTech companies like SteelEye are the solution to these problems, and it’s gratifying that VCs are taking note. If FinTech funding does come under strain in times ahead, I would hope RegTech remains a priority.

What is your one piece of advice for a start-up or scale-up founder looking for funding in the current environment?

Keep hyper-focused on the ‘why’. When building your pitch deck and meeting investors, keep the company mission at the forefront of everything.

The economic environment is undoubtedly set to get tougher, but funding opportunities will always be there for businesses that are capitalizing on long-term trends with solid operational foundations at their core. So, keep knocking on doors, don’t give up, and try to have fun along the way!

SteelEye's founders Matt Smith, David Haines, and Matt Storey.