untied.io— the “A” team is back together to simplify your tax returns

Way back in 1998 I co-founded a startup that created an internet payment system for kids. Way before our time really. Pre-PayPal days. That’s a long time ago in internet terms!

There were four of us: myself, Kevin, Richard and Paul. Richard and I have known each other since birth! Incredibly we managed to launch a company, work together and exit, and still remain friends.

Over the years since, every now and then, we’ve helped each other out in our respective endeavours and we’ve often chatted about problems we encounter and thrown business ideas around. But until now, nothing has stuck.

Last year, Kevin and I were talking about the nightmare of tax returns and how it should be simpler. We realised that with access to the source financial transactions we could automate much of it. We were aware of the Open Banking initiative which gives people the power to share their banking data with other institutions. We thought we could do something.

So in June 2018 we started work. Until now we’ve been bootstrapping. I built a platform that allows people to link to their bank accounts and retrieve their data. I taught myself React Native and built a cross platform mobile app that allows people to review their bank transactions, connect multiple accounts from different sources and generate their tax return by linking to their government gateway account.

untied.io was born and Richard agreed to join us as Chairman.

Fast forward six months to January 2019, we’ve been hard at work and last October we applied to Accenture’s London FinTech Accelerator programme. We made the first round and were pleased to be invited to pitch to a room full of finance industry executives. I am super proud to say that as a result of that we were selected to join the programme this year.

We are one of 20 start-ups selected from nearly 300 who applied to the London FinTech Lab. We’re in the Open Banking stream. The lab started on January 7th and already we’ve met hundreds of amazing people, connected with finance industry leaders, business mentors and the investor community. The opportunities open to us are awesome, our calendars are filling up and our heads are buzzing.

By shear coincidence, just before we joined the programme, Paul found himself looking for new opportunities. It didn’t take much to convince him to join us. The A team is back together!

Here’s one of our beta users just after she’d submitted her tax return via our app:

For more info or to sign up to the wait list and get access to our beta please head on over to www.untied.io