Episode 16 - Anne-Sybill Pradelles from Formance
In this episode, I sit down with Anne-Sybill Predelles, co-founder of Formance.
Guests
Show notes
In this episode, I sit down with Anne-Sybill Predelles, co-founder of Formance.
Anne-Sybill has a very interesting profile, coming from a financial background through experiences at Credit Suisse and Axa Venture partners, she then went deep dive on the startup ecosystem, working in cybersecurity startups before discovering her passion for the fintech industry.
Formance enables Platforms and Fintech companies to build modern financial applications composing payments, banking, lending, investing, and insurance through complex fund flows. After going through the program at Y Combinator, they raised a $21 million series A.
With her, we will deep dive on the experience of launching a fintech startup from scratch, the funding environment in Europe, but also the feeling of going through Y Combinator and how to raise a round in less than 3 months.
In this episode
Anne-Sybille Pradelles explains how Formance builds open-source financial infrastructure, starting with a ledger that companies used to build in-house. She describes scaling the cybersecurity startup Alsid before joining, how open source shortens sales cycles and builds trust, and how Formance raised its Series A in two months once revenue had grown tenfold. She compares pricing across regions and sees vertical SaaS platforms seeking their own payment licences as a key trend.
Chapters
- 0:00Introduction and Formance
- 1:58From HEC to scaling Alsid
- 4:35Where the idea came from
- 7:50Replacing an in-house ledger
- 11:08Trust, security and staying a software provider
- 14:33Open source and shorter sales cycles
- 18:16Y Combinator and the founder community
- 22:19Raising the Series A in two months
- 28:40The fintech market now
- 32:00US vs Europe: pricing and mindset
- 35:29Hiring a US go-to-market team
- 39:00Trends: vertical SaaS and PSP commoditisation
Key facts
Formance builds open-source financial infrastructure, starting with a ledger for complex money movements; it was in Y Combinator's Summer 2021 batch.
Formance was started in April 2021 by Clément as Numary, and he was accepted into Y Combinator as a solo founder.
Before Formance, Anne-Sybille was the first employee at cybersecurity startup Alsid, which grew to about 120 people and 10 million in ARR before being sold four years later.
Airbnb, Uber and Square all had to build their own ledgers and published papers about it between about 2015 and 2018.
Formance's ledger is under the MIT licence, can be self-hosted, and Formance stays a pure software provider rather than a regulated one.
Formance's sales cycles run from about three months up to twelve, thanks to a product-led, open-source motion.
Formance raised a seed round of about 4 million at the end of 2021.
In 2024 Formance multiplied its revenue by ten in 11 months and passed 1 million in ARR in October.
Formance raised a 21 million Series A from PayPal Ventures and Portage at the end of 2024, in a process of about two months.
A product priced at 100 in Europe sells for 200–300 in the US and 70–80 in Asia and the Middle East; over 40% of Formance's ARR comes from North America.
Anne-Sybille is moving to New York, and Formance plans to hire more than 20 people by the end of the year.
Large vertical SaaS platforms are seeking banking partnerships and e-money licences to improve their payment economics, and payment processors are becoming commoditised.
She sees no difference in ambition between US and European founders around her.
Questions and answers
Why does open source help sell infrastructure?
Customers can inspect, modify and self-host the code, which builds trust and shortens sales cycles.
How did Formance raise its Series A so fast?
It waited for product-market fit and big logos, prepared everything in advance and ran a tight process with a clear deadline.
Why are prices higher in the US?
Buyers compare the product with the cost of hiring engineers to build and maintain a ledger in-house.