RESEARCH BRIEFING 01 · EMBEDDED FINANCE
BY EDUARDO MARTÍNEZ GARCÍA & MICHAEL GALVIN
From Consumer Neobanks to Corporate B2B Ecosystems: Why Distribution Wins
Executive Thesis: The first wave of European fintech focused on standalone B2C neobanks competing at high customer acquisition cost (CAC). The second wave—pioneered through our work on Project LUM and Toqio—recognizes that mid-sized corporations, wholesalers, and vertical SaaS platforms already own trusted SME relationships and transaction data.
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When a beverage distributor, pharmaceutical wholesaler, or fleet operator serves 50,000 SME merchants, it sits at the center of daily cashflow, inventory invoices, and working capital needs. Yet historically, launching a branded merchant account, commercial expense card, or instant invoice-financing facility required 24 months of core banking software development and direct regulatory licensing.
By introducing a configurable orchestration layer between regulated Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) providers and corporate distribution channels, enterprises can deploy embedded financial ecosystems in under 16 weeks—turning payment processing from a cost line into a high-retention recurring revenue stream.
RESEARCH BRIEFING 02 · VENTURE ARCHITECTURE
OLIVO VENTURES METHODOLOGY
Bridging the Gap Between Strategic Advisory Slide Decks and Venture Capital
Executive Thesis: Why do 70% of corporate innovation initiatives stall between board approval and market launch? Because strategy consultancies stop at the business case, software agencies build specifications without commercial ownership, and VCs only fund post-traction spin-outs.
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At Group Olivo, we structured our firm around four simultaneous inputs: People (experienced founders who have built and exited before), IP (pre-built software modules and regulatory templates), Partners (pre-integrated banking, legal, and commercial distribution partners), and Financial Resources (seed capital and institutional VC syndication). Combining these four elements inside discrete 16-week projects eliminates handoff friction and compresses concept-to-execution timelines by more than half.
RESEARCH BRIEFING 03 · SAAS EXIT CASE STUDY
GENIAC → GRANT THORNTON
Lessons From Scaling Geniac and Executing a Strategic Sale to Grant Thornton
Executive Thesis: How unifying fragmented SME back-office services (accounting, HR, legal, and corporate compliance) created a category-defining UK SaaS platform—and how strategic acquirers evaluate B2B technology platforms.
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Small and medium-sized businesses rarely fail because of their core craft; they stall because administrative complexity—payroll, statutory filings, employment contracts, and management accounts—consumes founder bandwidth. Geniac solved this by pairing a unified SaaS workflow engine with expert professional support.
For Grant Thornton, acquiring Geniac provided an immediate digital platform to serve thousands of high-growth UK SMEs. For founders, the lesson is clear: design your data model, compliance workflows, and enterprise integration hooks from Day 1 so a global strategic buyer can plug its distribution engine straight into your platform.
RESEARCH BRIEFING 04 · MOBILE & LEDGER IP
com.olivomobile.dev
Inside Project LUM & com.olivomobile.dev: Engineering White-Label SME Banking
Executive Thesis: A technical look at how Group Olivo engineered a multi-tenant mobile and web banking core capable of supporting multiple brands, currencies, and BaaS rails from a single codebase.
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Building a single-brand fintech app is straightforward; building a white-label mobile and web engine (`com.olivomobile.dev`) where each corporate partner has custom theming, role-based approval hierarchies, KYB document intake, and regional BaaS routing requires strict separation between presentation, orchestration, and ledger settlement. This modular architecture remains one of Group Olivo’s core technical differentiators.
RESEARCH BRIEFING 05 · CROSS-BORDER SCALE
LONDON ↔ MADRID
The London–Madrid Venture Corridor: Capitalizing on Dual-Hub Arbitrage
Executive Thesis: Why pairing a UK parent/holding presence in London with an engineering and R&D center in Madrid creates an unmatched capital-efficiency and talent advantage for European B2B startups.
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Through Olivo Ventures Limited (#12039793 in London) and Toqio Fintech S.L. (NIF B84576669 in Madrid), we have operated across the UK–Spain corridor for over a decade. London offers unmatched access to Series A/B fintech funds (such as AlbionVC) and global professional services networks, while Madrid provides exceptional software engineering depth, IE University talent pipelines, and non-dilutive R&D backing through CDTI.
RESEARCH BRIEFING 06 · CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
UK COMPANIES ACT & EU R&D
Structuring Venture Studio Spin-Outs: IP Custody, PSC Governance & Series A Readiness
Executive Thesis: Institutional VCs frequently walk away from studio-built or corporate-incubated startups due to messy cap tables or ambiguous IP assignments. Here is how Group Olivo structures clean, bankable spin-outs.
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From day one of a venture build, IP assignment, Corporate PSC notifications (under the UK Companies Act 2006), inter-company service agreements, and founder vesting schedules must be documented to institutional Series A standards. Our legal and corporate finance playbooks ensure that when AlbionVC, Seaya, or Speedinvest open the data room, every statutory filing and code commit has unambiguous provenance.
