Barney Hussey-Yeo

Barney explains how the company is helping people to build a new type of relationship with money.

What led you to found Cleo?

After grad school, I went to work for a well-known fintech as a data scientist. I saw first-hand just how broken financial services were for the people who relied upon them.

Literally every person that came onto our platform had been pushed a huge amount of credit by their bank, yet received no support in managing their money.

I’ll let you decide if that lack of support was intentional or not, but it was clear the game wasn’t designed for their benefit.

The thesis behind Cleo is that the world needed a new type of relationship with money. One that was helpful, proactive, and aligned to their personal needs first and foremost.

What has been the most rewarding part of the journey so far?

We’re achieving what we set out to do. Our users love Cleo, they talk about her as if she were a friend. In their first month, more than 80% of users feel more optimistic about their long-term financial future. It’s an incredible feeling and we’ve got so much more on our roadmap to deliver.

I also want to say the team and culture we’ve built is fantastic. Cleo is a high-energy and good vibes place to work. From the far too frequent late-night karaoke to the annual off-sites in Europe, we always have a great time together. 

What challenges have you faced along the way, and how have you overcome them?

We’ve carefully navigated a huge shift in the fintech landscape. 

During the zero-interest-rate decade, growth at all costs and scaling questionable unit economics was the raison d’être.

Shifting to profitability whilst still managing to double our growth each year has been the largest and most substantial challenge we’ve overcome.

Today we’re on our way to becoming a $100m ARR company. It didn’t happen overnight but the hard yards have paid off.