When Nicola Jones (now van Gelder) introduced her husband Joe van Gelder to her university friend’s partner, Stephen Foster, the trio had no inkling it would change their lives.
Jones and her friend, who had started dating Foster, had met through cheerleading at the University of Nottingham.
However, the chat provided the spark that would lead to the launch of Powdr, one of Manchester’s fastest-emerging FinTechs.
Joe van Gelder, who has been has been at the Web Summit as part of GM Business Growth Hub’s ASCEND programme, recalled: “Nicola and Anna, who’s Steve’s wife, used to run a cheerleading academy together.
“We met through that and just got chatting. I sat down with a 60-page information memorandum and we hit it off. We were just giggling the whole way through. That’s how it started.”
In 2023, Powdr officially launched with van Gelder as CEO, his wife Jones as COO and Foster as CTO.
The team’s mission was to make professional-grade financial models accessible to every business through intuitive software.
£1m pre-seed
The company bootstrapped for its first 15 months before closing a £1m pre-seed round in early 2025, led by Haatch and supported by angels, including former colleagues and customers.
True to Powdr’s unconventional DNA, the round was raised without a traditional pitch deck and the whole process was completed within three months.
“We were a big company trapped in the body of a small company,” van Gelder tells BusinessCloud at Web Summit.
“We were break-even, but we needed to professionalise our marketing and accelerate development.”
That changes began in earnest this month with the launch of a new website and sharpened messaging.
“We’re two years old – four if you count the development time,” van Gelder says.
“We didn’t really know how to sell our product, and the website needed redoing. I built it, and then it was like: we have to professionalise this.”
Until now, most of Powdr’s business came from referrals through banks and private equity advisers familiar with the value of strong financial models.
But for the average SME, the benefits weren’t always clear.
“I’ve had to completely pivot how I talk about what we do,” he admits.
“The end client doesn’t always understand why they should have a financial model beyond unlocking a funding process.”
Partnering with banks
Today, Powdr has built close relationships with major lenders including NatWest, where its headquarters in Manchester are.
“We support the commercial and corporate teams,” van Gelder says.
“We also get referrals from within the bank – little silos with their own portfolios.
“We create a mathematical model that demonstrates a company’s strategy, then layer in the new debt over the top.
“That makes the process clearer for businesses and makes it easier for banks to assess risk. The banks also use our system internally to speed up their own analysis.”
The ambition is to make Powdr the modelling standard across the UK banking landscape.
“The rollout will be capital hungry,” van Gelder admits.
“There are worlds in which that’s debt funding rather than equity, but we’ll see what happens.”
Inclusive culture
Powdr’s team of 14 people has grown steadily, with a deliberate focus on structure and culture.
“We have clear roles as a management team,” van Gelder says.
“Nicola runs operations across the front and back office, Steve leads tech and I focus on the commercial side, but we muck in together.”
“Retention is high because the company’s growth path is visible to everyone.
“People can see where we’re going.
“We’ve created a culture where anyone can recommend how we do things and we support them in putting that into place.”
Before launching the company, van Gelder worked across banking, accountancy and consultancy, launching his first consultancy at the age of 28.
He explains: “I used to work in banking and receive financial models that were difficult to interpret.
“Then I retrained as an accountant, worked in an American consultancy and got parachuted into large PE-backed businesses to either save them or prepare them for a transaction.
“The problem with models is that they break easily once handed over to a finance team.
“That was the beginning of Powdr – to make my consultancy a product and fix a broken segment within funding and FinTech.”
Growing with ASCEND
Powdr joined GM Business Growth Hub’s ASCEND programme earlier this year, a move van Gelder calls ‘invaluable’.
“It’s really hard running a business,” he admits.
“Being around founders going through the same journey is invaluable. The mentoring has been fantastic.”
He credits mentor Susanna Lawson for helping him and Foster realise that they can step back from day-to-day operations to focus on bigger-picture strategy.
“She makes time no matter what,” he says.
“It’s back to that early energy of problem-solving and having fun – that’s what helps you evolve.”
Currently at Web Summit in Lisbon, van Gelder says the week has been a pivotal experience.
“At first I was overwhelmed,” he admits. “Then I had a meeting with Susanna and the next day was unbelievably productive.
“It just shows if you reflect and adjust, you can achieve so much more.”
Future growth
With early backing, a growing bank client base and a sharper brand, the business is evolving from bootstrap success story to scale-up contender.
“Our near-term goal is to hit break-even again,” says van Gelder.
“Then shoot past it into organic growth mode.
“We’re on that pathway back to profitability – and then beyond.”
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