LemonEdge

Gareth Hewitt didn't set out to build a fintech company—he stumbled into the problem through two decades of experience. After working as a technical professional in financial services across four different companies, building partnership accounting systems from scratch each time, he recognized a pattern: "Each time, you know, we started from scratch, built it again and kind of iterated that design over the previous 20 years and got to grips with all of the problems in the industries and the complexities as times change." The pain was real and widespread—legacy systems that were 20 years old still powered back-office accounting at major private equity firms, venture capital funds, and other financial institutions. Rather than building another point solution, Gareth envisioned something bigger: a low-code development platform for financial services with integrated accounting that could address problems across the entire industry.

Timing, as they say, is everything. Gareth started coding in March 2020—"literally as soon as the world locked out"—fresh off a move back to London from New York. The irony wasn't lost on him: "Geez, okay. So 2020 and have you bootstrapped today or did you decide to raise capital?" For the first nine months, he and his co-founder Jamie bootstrapped from their bedrooms while the world was in lockdown. By the end of 2020, as they prepared to go to market, they raised $2.5M from a New York VC (Sidekick), alongside two strategic investors: Tico Mbernstein (who previously built Parse.com and Scribe.com) and Lauren, the founder of Investron, a competitor in private capital. Gareth had deliberately sought a co-founder without private equity experience—someone who could help the company expand beyond just PE into the broader financial services industry.

For months after raising capital in early 2021, the team built in relative stealth. Enterprise sales cycles are notoriously long—about nine months, Gareth noted. By Q4 2021, their patience paid off. Their first significant win was Black Swan, a major player in alternative assets. "We did a proof of concept with them. They were um, incredibly impressed with what we could do and so we saw the ability to extend that seed round to bring them on as a partner." Rather than just taking cash, Gareth focused on strategic value: Black Swan brought credibility, experience across asset classes, and a massive name in the industry. That partnership led to extending their seed round by another $4M, bringing total capital raised to $6.5M by year-end 2021. They sold between 10-20% of the company across both tranches.

By the time of this interview, LemonEdge had five paying customers with an average contract value of roughly $100,000 per year—not per-user SaaS pricing, but a subscription model tied to a matrix of factors: number of users, complexity of the fund, number of LPs, and number of transactions. "It's really about tying the software to the value that the company is getting," Gareth explained. The company's growth strategy was deliberately lean: only six engineers out of a 32-person team. When asked why not more engineers, Gareth revealed his philosophy: "I think that's because it's been my experience of my background is um developing these types of products um, is that I think We focused on hiring like really good developers We have a test that you know, we think is you know, really good and pretty much I would say 85 90 percent of people fail." He cited examples from previous companies where four or five top developers shipped more than competitors with 80 engineers. Quality over quantity.

With five customers paying and another five in the pipeline, LemonEdge was running at approximately $500,000 ARR at the time of this conversation. Gareth was bullish: "Can you can you break a million this year you think? Uh, we aim to do more than that." Growth would come from both expansion within existing customers—who wanted to do more with the platform—and new customer acquisition. Gareth and Jamie led much of the sales effort themselves, leveraging their combined networks in private capital and financial services more broadly. The team had doubled from 15 to 32 people in just three months, suggesting aggressive hiring plans. At 40 years old, with a wife and one child, Gareth was running on 4-6 hours of sleep per night—a typical founder grind. His one regret looking back: "start companies earlier."