Breaking into Britain: how Modular Finance turned ambition into a UK success story

Every ambitious business reaches a crossroads. Growth within a home market begins to plateau, and the question shifts from how to grow to where. For Swedish fintech company Modular Finance, that answer was clear – and it was closer than most might think.

The United Kingdom is not simply another market. It is one of the world's most significant financial services hubs, home to a capital market of extraordinary scale and global reach. For any company whose mission touches finance, ignoring this is nothing but a missed opportunity. Modular Finance did not ignore it. And the story of how they made the move holds real lessons for any organisation considering the same step.

A mission that demanded a bigger stage

Modular Finance exists to improve transparency in capital markets. They work with listed companies and banking institutions, giving them a front-row seat to the information flows that underpin investment decisions. That mission shapes everything, including the geography.

General Manager Matt Sayer explains how the choice of the UK was not incidental. "The UK is a key market due to the size of the capital market here, as well as its importance as a global financial services hub." When your product exists to make markets more transparent, you go where the markets are largest.

Preparation began in 2023, with the team building the groundwork before formally launching commercial operations. Commercial roles were hired and the operation began in earnest at the start of 2024. Today, Modular Finance has a London headquarters and a team of six full-time UK employees – supported by a significant portion of their Stockholm operation working across both markets simultaneously.

The thing no plan can fully prepare you for

Ask most founders what made their expansion work and they will mention product-market fit, competitive positioning, or go-to-market strategy. Matt Sayer mentions all of those too. But when pressed to identify the single most important factor, his answer is more human than operational.

"If I had to choose one, it's having an entrepreneurial mindset in the founding UK team."

That mindset mattered because reality rarely matches the plan. The customer profiles Modular Finance expected to be their earliest adopters turned out to be different from those who actually engaged first. The products they anticipated leading with shifted. The finer details of their go-to-market approach evolved considerably, even as the broader structure held. "Being able to adapt and push hard on the early wins rather than stick too rigidly to a process was key."

Freedom to behave like a start-up

One of the most distinctive aspects of Modular Finance's UK operation is the degree of autonomy it was given. Rather than embedding the new market into the existing Swedish structure, the leadership made a deliberate choice to let the UK team operate with real independence. "What really helped us here was the freedom to run the UK as if it were a start-up, which is a little bit different to our more established business in Sweden that rightly has more set processes."

It was a cultural inheritance from the company's founders, Petter Hedborg and Måns Flodberg, who were directly involved in the UK launch. They instilled the entrepreneurial mindset that had helped them build the beginnings of Modular Finance over a decade ago. Experience, in this sense, was used to inspire.

Getting the team right, at the right time

Expansion is ultimately a people question. Modular Finance were deliberate about the pace at which they built their sales function. They began with only two full sales roles, choosing to understand what worked before scaling. That full team is now working at an exceptional pace. Matt reflects honestly on whether it could have been built sooner, but draws a candid conclusion: "Perhaps we would have been adding fuel to an incomplete engine at that time."

It is a useful metaphor for any expanding business. Hiring ahead of understanding is expensive in money, time, and morale. Getting the product and market dynamics clear first gives your people something real to accelerate.

Why the UK welcomes Swedish businesses

For Swedish companies weighing up international moves, Matt offers a direct reassurance. "Sweden is seen very positively here in terms of culture and business, therefore there is no mental barrier to overcome for potential customers." The UK is receptive, and geography makes it a natural step for any Nordic business looking beyond the region.

That said, the cultural differences in the sales cycle are real and worth taking seriously. Modular Finance's response has been pragmatic: keep many functions running from Sweden, but invest in local, customer-facing presence on the ground in the UK. That local investment in customer-facing roles is a deliberate and considered choice.

And at the heart of it all, the fundamentals of good business travel well. "Businesses here are willing to switch to a new provider if the product solves a real problem." No market, including the UK, is truly closed to a genuinely useful solution.

What leaders can take from this

Modular Finance's UK journey is more than an expansion case study. It is a lesson in organisational leadership under uncertainty. Their founders gave the UK team a mandate to move fast, make mistakes, learn from them, and adapt. "It's better to try something and potentially make a mistake – that you then learn from – rather than over think every decision and move too slowly."

This philosophy sits at the heart of how change actually happens inside organisations. Rigid adherence to process in an unfamiliar environment is not discipline – it is fragility. The teams that thrive in new markets, new challenges, and new conditions are those given the trust and the tools to respond to what they find.

For any organisation considering a similar leap – into a new market, a new structure, or a new way of working – the Modular Finance story offers something more valuable than a roadmap. It offers a mindset