Fund Apps

Andrew White had already built a compliance software business once—but it was on-premises, clunky, and required customers to manage the infrastructure themselves. After that experience, he had an epiphany: clients didn't want to own the cow; they wanted the milk. In 2010, he launched Fund Apps with a simple thesis: provide compliance monitoring as a service, not infrastructure. Instead of fund managers doing their own regulatory compliance across 95 countries, they'd send their data to Fund Apps and let experts handle it.

Fund Apps was born in a spare bedroom above a pub with zero external funding. Andrew built a team that combined technical expertise with regulatory knowledge—something most SaaS companies overlook. The founding insight was that regulatory compliance isn't just about software; it's about people who understand the rules. This blend of tech and expertise became the moat.

In a small, interconnected market like RegTech, word-of-mouth became the dominant channel. Andrew didn't blast emails or run aggressive campaigns. Instead, the market—which consists of about 2,000 potential customers across hedge funds, asset managers, and investment banks—naturally discovered Fund Apps through referrals. About 90% of sales came inbound over the last few years. Starting at $100k ACV and moving upward, pricing was based on complexity: assets under management, number of portfolios, and number of countries traded in. Customers paid what the solution was worth, not what Andrew needed to charge.

The counterintuitive move: Fund Apps stopped chasing expansion revenue. Unlike typical SaaS companies obsessing over upsells and account expansion, Fund Apps focused almost entirely on new logos. Of recent revenue growth, 91% came from new customers; only 8% came from existing customers subscribing to additional services. This worked because the market was small and underserved—it was easier to land new $100k-$1M+ customers than to squeeze existing ones. Net revenue retention sat at 100%, with only one customer lost in eight years. The company also kept Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) remarkably low—likely under $20k on $100k contracts—because inbound leads eliminated expensive marketing and sales spam.

At $10M ARR (up from $5M a year ago), Fund Apps is on a tear while remaining completely bootstrapped. The 46-person team spans the UK and remote locations, with just 4 sales reps and 2 SDRs driving the machine. Fund Apps services three of the world's top 10 hedge funds and monitors $6 trillion in assets daily. Andrew has no plans to raise capital—the unit economics are too good. Instead, he's focused on opening an APAC office and adding new service lines to deepen revenue per client in the coming years. When asked about acquisition interest, he smiled: not interested.