VerticalStack is led by a senior team that has spent decades building, scaling, and selling payments and software businesses, running acquiring portfolios, launching embedded payments products, architecting regulated platforms, and executing M&A across the UK, US, and Irish payments markets. That foundation in payments is what positions the team to build the wider financial infrastructure layer.
Experience reflects the collective background of the VerticalStack senior team and advisers.
Collectively, the team has held senior roles across many of the most established names in payments and financial technology. That experience spans merchant acquiring, ISO and PayFac operations, embedded payments, gateway infrastructure, and the regulated platforms beneath them.
Verifone
The senior team and advisers behind VerticalStack, and the experience each of them brings.
Three-time payments founder with over 35 years in merchant acquiring and ISO operations. Built and exited three ISOs from minimal capital, returning roughly 1,680% to founding investors on one and over 200x on personal capital invested in another.
A 30-year payments leader and former acquiring chief executive who led a business to a near billion-dollar exit and oversaw more than $25bn in annual processing volume across 137,000-plus US SMB merchants, bringing regulatory relationships and M&A expertise.
A board-level CFO and fintech co-founder (ACMA, MBA) with over 15 years across venture-backed technology, digital banking, and regulated financial services. Has personally raised £6.7m-plus in early-stage capital and supported £45m of institutional Series A and B rounds, while building investor-grade, audit-ready finance functions from inception across the UK, Jersey, and Singapore. Regulatory depth spans a PRA and FCA bank-licence pre-application and ICAAP/ILAAP on a £1.5bn balance sheet, supported by PLC director and non-executive board experience.
A commercial product executive with 20-plus years in payments who has architected a cloud-native US payment platform and driven measurable results, including a 140% improvement in merchant margin, 27% year-on-year merchant revenue growth, and an 80% reduction in compliance-platform operating cost.
A technology entrepreneur, investor, and the architect behind one of the UK’s fastest-growing FinTech success stories. Starting with nothing more than a disruptive idea and a bootstrapped budget, he built an industry-defining tech ecosystem from the ground up, scaling it into a global powerhouse that now handles over £50 billion in annual transaction volume.
30-plus years in card payments and acquiring, having built an ISO partner book from zero to £1.4bn in volume and £28m in revenue, onboarded 30-plus ISO partners and integrated five PayFacs, while managing P&Ls above £40m and leading ISV deal execution across each acquired business.
BSc (Hons) Computer Science, UCD, with 25 years in payments spanning eCommerce, POS, mobile, and alternative payments, from concept and solution design through to rollout. Founder of Timberlane Technologies, with clients including Fiserv, Elavon, and Trust Payments, and deep expertise in microservices across the AWS and GCP stacks, delivering the Managed and Sponsored PayFac build.
Founder and retired CEO of Vastly, formerly Company.com, and founder of more than 25 companies across fintech, payments, and B2B services. Led or co-led 19 M&A engagements and over 50 asset purchases, generating more than $2.1bn in enterprise value for shareholders, and grew a start-up past $100m in revenue before its $325m sale to Sage Software.
Chief Product Officer with 30-plus years in product, commercial, and technology roles across fintech and commerce, including Verifone, Mastercard, First Data, and Trust Payments. Board-level experience with a European financial services provider, and creator of a multi-day innovation and emerging-technology programme for the payments and banking industries.
Owns the FCA authorisation pathway and financial-crime framework, working alongside specialist regulatory counsel.
Decades of hands-on experience running ISO and acquiring portfolios, managing sponsor-bank and processor relationships, and launching Payment Facilitator and embedded-payments products.
Senior product leadership that has built and scaled payments and software platforms, including cloud-native architecture, embedded payments, and merchant-facing technology.
A long record of founding, scaling, and selling businesses, executing acquisitions, and raising capital, the exact skill set a buy-and-build payments roll-up depends on.
Direct experience of regulated payments operations and the financial-crime, safeguarding, and authorisation requirements an FCA-authorised platform must meet, supported by specialist external advisers.
The recent consolidation of UK ISO and merchant-services businesses has freed an unusual concentration of senior payments operators. VerticalStack has brought that talent together at exactly the point in the cycle when high-quality vertical SaaS businesses are reachable through off-market acquisition. The team is the foundation of the thesis.
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