In conversation with Patrick Stäuble 

Read time: 3 Minutes

Patrick Stäuble, Founder and CEO of Teylor, joined our Club Stage for a discussion on “State of Lending: What’s Scaling Now?”. Following his stage appearance, he stayed on to answer additional questions. 

You've raised hundreds of millions, acquired companies, and expanded across Europe. What is Teylor today, and what is your main focus for this year?

Patrick Stäuble: We are a company focused on making sure that small businesses get financing faster and easier. We founded Teylor because we believed the entire market was going to develop in a way where borrowers, banks, and private debt investors all want easier access – and we want to be the company that pushes this market forward.

Originally, we started by facilitating loans directly to small businesses. And then, over time, we developed new loan products, acquired competitors, integrated them, and started working closely with banks, licensing our technology to them so they could serve their clients in a more digital way.

My focus for this year is mainly on two things:

On the one hand, we did a lot of acquisitions last year, so it's about finalising and integrating those. 

And the second part is about growth. There is a really unique opportunity in the market right now, as there’s not a lot of players doing what we do. I want to take advantage of every minute of head start that we have to grow the business as quickly as possible.

Looking at recent press about Teylor, there has been a lot about the international expansion and new markets. How is that going? Is there anything you would do differently if you were starting again?

Stäuble: It's going very well. At the end of the day, Teylor is a European company, and we want to be present everywhere in Europe. The regulation, the laws and the market are all becoming more pan-European and more international. And that's the way you have to go. 

As an entrepreneur today, you must think not in terms of one country, but in terms of Europe and the scale that brings. And that's really our ambition.

The only thing I would do differently is going international faster. The cool thing about being in multiple markets is that if one is going slower, another is doing well. It gives you a hedge to diversify across different markets.

Knowing what I know now, I would have done it even earlier.

It was recently reported that if Teylor were to IPO, you'd pick Wall Street. Is that still the case? And if so, what would it take to make companies like Teylor stay and list in Europe?

Stäuble: I think the biggest thing Europe could do is open access to capital. If you look at US capital markets, there is so much more money flowing into equities, private equity, and private markets. In Europe, that's just not the case, whether from pension funds, insurance companies, or government funding – a lot of it simply isn't flowing into equity and capital markets.

The easier Europe makes it for retail and institutional investors to deploy capital and incentivises them to deploy it into building businesses here, the more businesses will stay. We still have a lot of fragmentation in Europe, which makes this more difficult – but that’s the best way. 

Thinking just from a purely capitalistic perspective: If you're going to get double the valuation by listing in the US, why would you stay in Europe? 

You need more capital in Europe. That's the big driver.

And the classic AI question: how are you using it at Teylor, and do you think it will change the fintech market in the next five years?

Stäuble: We already use it in a lot of different ways. The most impactful short-term area we've seen is creating AI agents to automate various processes throughout the company. But that's just the beginning.

Looking three to five years ahead, I think we are going to be a much leaner company than we would have been without AI. Today, with all the tools that people have available, you can do with 100 people what before required a thousand. The ability to do much more with much less is going to change the landscape of how fintechs operate. I really want us to take full advantage of everything AI brings.