329. Meet the founder of the UK’s share tech platform w/ Ifty Nasir | Vestd

0:00Hey Amardeep, my name's Ifty, I'm the founder of Vested. Vested is a share tech platform based in the UK but now also pretty seriously playing out in India. We help people with everything to do with their equity, equity being the shares and the options in their business from the distribution to their teams through to investors. our belief is very much in the ownership effect and that is if you have a stake in a business your relationship with it changes and we want to make as many people have shares in the businesses

0:37Amardeep Parmar:that they help to to create and grow so you came in a couple of years ago and you've now supported us significantly since then so a massive thank you for that and you've been a big part of the community and have been able to grow but you've also had like so many exciting announcements on the vested side in what you've been doing. So people in here, the origin story can go back to the other podcast. But let's watch this last couple of years, right? Because what's changed since? What's the progress in it? There's a few big announcements that we made over the last few months, as you say. One was Pisces.

1:12Pisces is a private markets intermittent trading mechanism that the UK FCA and Treasury have launched. It's really interesting insofar as it's that ability for people to be able to trade their shares without having to go through all the rigmarole of being on a public market. They can have events, Pisces events, through the year, maybe one a year. They can have one a month, but it's just not that continual trading. So it allows people a space to think through the opportunities are looking at it is for secondary shares are you familiar of the difference between primary and

1:51Amardeep Parmar:secondary shares so you can explain it for the audience but obviously secondary means that people are able to sell between themselves like in like private investors and i don't think you mentioned there as well like obviously you're the first people to get approved for this right we are one of the the first people so there's uh four people at the moment that i'm aware of uh but i'm sure There are a number of others coming through at the moment. There's people at LSEG and Stock Exchange Group, JP Jenkins, great friends of ours, and AssetMatch, another set of friends of ours. So, yeah, it's an interesting arena insofar as those other players I talked about have got what's called an intermediated proposition.

2:37So they have to go through brokers, et cetera, Whereas for us, we've been able to get a direct disintermediated opportunity. And the reason for that for us was really important. Firstly, the reason why we even looked at Pisces is we have a lot of businesses that have been with us for five, ten years. At one stage, they were early stage companies. They have employees who have EMIs, Enterprise Management Incentive Schemes. they have investors who have SEIS, EIS investments into them and you know one of the challenges for all of these businesses or those people who are vested in them is that opportunity for liquidity I guess when people started these things on investments they may have thought you know three year four year horizons and then there's the opportunity to take some money off the table it's not quite that easy and if people are having to wait until there's some material investment event or a sale those things can take a long long time to come and so I think the the general understanding is that it's not just those you know that liquidity is needed to actually keep the whole system of investment and participation alive and real so if you think about it with SEIS if you're giving out tax advantaged investments to people who are willing to take higher risks whether it's SEIS you know you're putting 20 pence less than 20 pence on the table for risk similarly with EIS you're probably putting less than 40 pence on the table that money is then still blocked people are looking for the opportunity to recycle it to end and if you can't get it out, you won't have those high-risk players able to invest again.

4:35So Pisces unlocks that from my perspective.

4:39Amardeep Parmar:And also, the name you mentioned there, a small group of people who didn't approve for that, right? So going through that approval process obviously shows what you've built or invested, that you've got the trust in, you're able to be able to make that happen. And what does that mean for you as well, for all you invested as a business, to be able to have this feather in your cap? I think it's an opportunity. It's still something that's very nascent and there's a lot of education that will be required for people to see this fully as a vehicle. But for us, I guess we have the advantage of being fully regulated, directly regulated before, and obviously we've behaved well and never had any issues with the regulator.

5:21I think that went in good stead for us. But then the way in which we've engage with them and the companies that we are serving because most as I say most of the people are actually going to be supporting people much further down their journey whereas our ideal participants on Pisces for us are those who've been going for five to ten years they've got material they've reached sustainability and it's time for those early investors to maybe move out and allow a different type of investor into the end or at least the opportunity for that so yeah it is literally for secondary that's not for primaries um i think the the the potential for a platform of this nature to help on primaries i mean there are already some of the crowdfunding platforms as you know i think there's a um there's broad potential there as well but i think it's great.

6:22I think the potential for Pisces is phenomenal because it's not just a UK environment, the potential to bring other startups from around the world. And obviously, you know, we are now in a place like India as well. There's lots of broader opportunities that could come from this, but we won't go into the detail because it's all just hypothetical until we start making it work.

6:49Amardeep Parmar:And you mentioned India there as well. So since the last podcast too, you made an acquisition. So can you tell us about that? So we bought one of the founding players in the ecosystem within India. One of, I guess, four main players there at the time. Zen Equity, which had been acquired by Carter. And then Carter, I think, have got different views for what they want to do in India now. Capita, who'd bought Aesop's Direct. And then there's Equity List and Trica. Trica was actually one of the first of the four players in the space. And I guess they kicked off with a slightly different game plan, which was more of a reid hoffman blitz scaling approach to to the market um and you know so when uh times were good back in 2001 to sorry 20 2021 22 they were able to raise funds from the market they took it they built good market share they had about you know over a thousand um businesses on the platform but the model that they were using was more of a freemium proposition, so only maybe a quarter of those people were actually paying.

8:15So when the market went south, it became a bit more challenging, and that's the opportunity that we got. Speaking to Shanti, who was the founder, to see how we could help build a mutually beneficial future, bringing some of the capital that we have and some of the technology and bridge into India. And it's brilliant. It's a really solid platform. It's got a dozen unicorns within the portfolio there and lots of unicorns. India's full of entrepreneurial excitement.

8:57Amardeep Parmar:And what was going on that strategy for you as well? Because obviously, establishing the UK, and you mentioned SAIS and EIS, which you guys are one of the major players from the UK because that's something a lot of founders initially struggled with, right? Whereas the market in India is very different. So what's behind that strategy of now going for India? Okay. So the UK is a great market, but the challenge you have with any business, if you're focused in on just one arena, the macroeconomics, the geopolitics of it come into play. And when we started life, you will remember, going back to the FCA stuff, we had our financial services passport for Europe.

9:44We could have played the whole of Europe. We still wanted to, and there was a long belief that even up until that 2019 final decision on Brexit, We thought there was going to be a deal on the financial services front. Obviously, there wasn't. Very soon after that, we went into COVID. COVID gave us an opportunity to start thinking, okay, so although we love Europe, it felt a little bit more hostile as an arena to go and play into just at that point in time. Yes, we'd explored the potential of doing something through Dublin or some of the other geographies. but we thought, okay, Europe is great, but what else?

10:29You look around the place, there's not many geographies with a big enough term, a single language, because without the European advantage, going to multitudes of languages is difficult. So if you're going to go to one place, you need to have a single language, ideally a single legal system and a place where you have a chance to to win again going back to the art of war you you know you don't enter a battle that you know you can't win so um you know the geographies like russia china the us and for various reasons each of those had their challenges but for india it felt very safe obviously it's not the easiest place to do business there's a lot of challenges there but the big advantage from my perspective was firstly the language English is still the the language of commerce the scale of the ecosystem fastest growing economy and you know a massive entrepreneurial ecosystem as well the legal system is very similar to ours in the UK.

11:46Yeah, there were a lot of advantages and obviously having spent a lot of time in India both with BP and with SR, it was very familiar.

11:56Amardeep Parmar:So you mentioned the initial investment you got and they're able to do all the things you've been doing. But then there's another announcement quite recently too on the foresight side. Tell us about that. So, back end of last year, we started looking for, yeah, we knew we had a lot of opportunities because what we'd actually done both with the India stuff, with some of the stuff that we were progressing around Pisces, we could carry on jogging along under our own steam. We'd built a profitable business and, as I say, lots of growth engine opportunities. but for myself i was thinking the journey i'd had as an entrepreneur as a founder over the last decade i'd learned a lot but the challenge is i don't have another decade that i want to learn all the you know the the things i need to learn now for this next phase you know built a business that's over 100 employees team members it is it's brilliant but um we're going into a new phase there's lots of knowledge out there lots of experience that we don't have to learn the hard way so what I wanted to to find was a partner who could who firstly bought into what we were doing who saw what we're doing liked it saw what we'd built and liked it and wanted to be part of that journey that was the most important thing to me and then alongside that that they could then bring not just the cash because it wasn't just the cash.

13:31The cash allows you to move a little bit faster but we didn't need the cash. We literally didn't need it but what we have there is a bunch of folk who firstly as I said believed in us. They have a cohort of their own that's right down our ICP so that's brilliant and once we've been able to build that out and help support their portfolio companies we can see how we can take that to a much broader audience i mean even to your your portfolio companies as you build out your fund hammer yeah um yeah there's lots of stuff even when you just think about when they're applying into using things like essentials invested you can just make sure that all the cap table everything is just sorted so when you see the proposition you have a huge amount of confidence in what's being brought because there are so many situations that I'm sure you'll know where people come in with a lot of noise and different people owning bits of the company that you need never knew about when you started talking about investment potentially so foresight great partners from that perspective they've got people in our ICP, they have a huge amount of experience.

14:51All those 260 odd companies that are currently in their portfolio, all the others that they've helped, they've seen the problems that we will encounter and they will have at least ideas of how we can overcome some. So that's brilliant and very exciting. Obviously, it comes with a chunk of rigor as well, but that's also part of learning you know we could carry on in a laissez-faire reasonably well structured place because obviously you know built a business that is sustainable and the rest of it but at that next level that rigor is required because you also need to have sustainability beyond the individuals who are running key parts of the business it needs to be able to push down into the organization as well you said the next level there so what is the dream of this

15:46Amardeep Parmar:What's the ambition you're going for? What are you working towards? What do I work towards? I think there's an interesting opportunity. Firstly, just about the whole ability for equity inclusion across the board. But I do think that there's a particular opportunity for us in that Asia, India, Middle East, UK arena. You've got great ideas, safe environment for transaction, resources in terms of funding, etc. You create a little ecosystem to facilitate that. And that's great. And that's what I'd like us to be part of. it's not that we're going to be the only people in that space there's lots of people to that help create such ecosystems but I think there's a big opportunity hello hello I hope you've enjoyed the show so far I'm Amadeek Parma co-founder of BayHQ and the host of this show for those of you who don't know BayHQ is the community for high growth Asian heritage founders and investors in the UK.

17:01Amardeep Parmar:Over 7 ,500 people have attended our events. 200 people have been through our impact programs. And obviously there's been over 250 episodes of this podcast. If you want to join us and take part in the programs and come to the events, go to www.bahiehq.com forward slash join. We also just released our first ever book called Startups for Outsiders, which you can get on Amazon now. And the link is in the bio. Hope to see you soon at our event. Hope you enjoy the rest of the episode. And you said, obviously, it's been going for 10 years as an entrepreneur. You've learned those lessons along that way.

17:37Amardeep Parmar:What are some of the hardest ones you've learned? And where's the people who told you not to do it before and you ignored them and then made the mistake yourself anyway? There are many mistakes. I guess the biggest thing for me is having your appetite bigger than your ability to execute. And I guess it's that continual focusing. And you will do it as a founder. Somebody will tell you, you're covering too many bases or whatever, and you draw it in. but then the desire to broaden out continues. Going back to what I was saying about foresight, it's about making sure you maintain that discipline and bringing in the right people to help you on that is key.

18:32But, yeah, I think the biggest thing is thinking you can do more than you actually can and just making sure that you

18:45Amardeep Parmar:start things that you can finish. And as you know, this is a problem that we struggle with quite a lot too. And one of the challenges we've always had is that because what we do is quite broad and it affects no different people, there's things that we can do which are really valuable, but we can't do all of them at once. And it's so easy when you know it's a good idea, right? I think the hardest thing isn't saying no to the bad ideas. That's easy. But you've got to say no to the good ideas too so you can focus on what's the highest value idea, what's the idea that really makes a difference. I think it's that latter.

19:15It's not just the highest value. It's the thing that makes a difference because ultimately, if you make the right difference, the value should come.

19:23Amardeep Parmar:Yeah. And in that journey too, so you said you've now grown to over 100 employees. And how has that been too in terms of building out that team and what are you looking for in that team? How do you find the people that kind of fit bested culture? Yeah, well firstly I still interview every single person who joins the business because it is that philosophical connection and values-based connection that we drive for. We're a remote business as you know so being remote and having 120 people now, it's harder to make it as coherent as it was when it was 10 people or 20 people. So you have to be very intentional about how you make sure those interactions take place.

20:16Firstly, I think it's very difficult to go to a fixed location proposition now, given the flexibility that everybody loves, the modus operandi that we've built out but we do need to make sure we maintain a level of discipline as we carry on building up that remote is not about you know taking it easy remote is serious yes you get a lot more time as a an individual for some of the things that you want to do but at the same time you miss out on some of that into human interaction um that you get from being in an office and we try and maintain that through our retreats we have two retreats a year at the last retreat in may there was a conversation around how we might um actually have you know four gatherings they won't all be the same as they are now how do we create that additional connectivity that you know between times as well um but that that is something that i think is going to be one of the most biggest challenges to maintain and yet without being remote i don't think we've got the talent the capability the nature of people that we have because they all don't all just sit in clerkenwell or in uh old street you know the the people that we've got you know from as far in the uk up in uh edinburgh belfast obviously down the south coast and stuff but then also in India from Kashmir down to Bangalore up to Assam you know that's a big geography and there's talent and we want to be able to tap into that but as I say it comes with its challenges and it's about being deliberate in trying to manage and minimize them as you address them.

22:18Amardeep Parmar:And this phase now right so when you first started it and having a small team and growing up to where you are today. What is it that you try to focus on now? Where does your time mainly go? And how do you try to make sure you're using your own time the best you can? Right now, it's about making sure that the next stage of team are being brought in. So we're in the process of just recruiting a CFO. We're in the process of recruiting a CRO, making sure that the strategy is clear. so that it's one thing it being my head or two or three people's in the room but actually the organization needs to understand and own the strategy and make sure they can pick up their piece of it and help deliver it as part of the broader conversation so I'm strategy and people are going to be the key thing I think the vision is something that I feel I inherit from the journey that I've been on already and want to hold on to that.

23:17But yeah, that'll be the focus for the next few months.

23:21Amardeep Parmar:And what do you enjoy the most? What keeps you going like 10 years in, growing rapidly, you've done really well? What keeps you hungry? What keeps me hungry? Firstly, seeing more and more people feel part and have a part of the businesses that they're helping to create. I mean, even now, it's ridiculous the proportion of companies that share equity with their team. And by team, I don't just mean employees. It's everybody who's key to their success. And yeah, as I say, investors can work with companies through Vested, as well as NEDs, advisors, it's a whole chunk of folk. But because of the complexity associated with each of those different relationships, yet it's still a ridiculously small people a number of people use it and therefore you know people are helping companies really don't get to feel it as as much as they could do you have any idea of like how many companies have helped so far for invested well we know that and we know in terms of uh businesses we've served more than six seven thousand easily awesome so we're going to go to wrap up questions now because I know you've got to hear it as well so the first one is who are free Asians in Britain you think you're doing amazing work and you want to shout them out Amar and Gavir brilliant in terms of what they've built here at Bay HQ and I think a lot of Bill Moria he's starting to step out and broaden his visibility in the in the UK community and start leaning on some of this India, UK trade.

25:11Amardeep Parmar:And obviously, I know one of them is amazing, of the one you mentioned. So thank you so much. And thank you so much for your support as well, right? Because I think sometimes people don't necessarily know about this back journey of AAHQ and when we had moments where times were really tough and then the relationship we had with you and then you were able to support us, especially in that difficult moment and sometimes people turn away at the wrong times, right? And then if people want to find out more about you, more about Vested, where should they go to they can go to hello at vested they can check us out vested.com online and they can drop me a line at ifty at vested and is there anything that vested is looking for right now or you're looking for for any help yeah in terms of help i guess we're continually looking for for great people uh people who share our philosophy and approach and are keen to join an exciting remote business.

26:03So a lot of people like offices in town, but there are a lot of people out there who actually could benefit from a remote environment. So thanks so much for coming on again. It's been great to have you here. Thank you. Have you got any final words? I just, I think the main one is, I think you guys have built an amazing platform. I truly believe that it's got legs beyond the commercial and community-oriented stuff that you've got. You've brought a lot of great people together. I think that has potential to build friends and you're more than just social communities, communities that can actually make big differences.