By Bhairav Patel – CTO, Teybridge Capital Europe
When I first embarked on my entrepreneurial journey back in 2017, many people said that once you start your own business, you become unemployable – being in charge of your own thing means you’ll never again be able to take on the shackles of permanent employment.
For many years, I agreed with that sentiment. Though starting and running your own business has its ups and downs, it is hard to relinquish that freedom, where you ultimately own not only your successes but all of your failures. It is truly an experience that not many are built for, and that is why so many fail.
What, then, of an entrepreneur who has built a business that invests in start-ups, and is then acquired by one of the start-ups it has invested in? Are you shackled as soon as you join that company?
Well, no. In this instance, it’s more like watching your sibling grow up, become a professional sportsman, and then you join the entourage to help them become the best… the only shackles you wear are the ones you put on yourself if your mindset isn’t right.
Atom CTO was formed because the five people who originally created the company saw that there was a desperate need for good tech advice for early-stage start-ups and growing SMEs. We’d travelled the world and saw that companies were consistently given poor advice that cost far too much money, and we wanted to rectify the situation.
We knew that with a good tech team, you can create a solid foundation for any business that will help it grow and become profitable more quickly. Poor tech sucks the life out of a company; great tech breathes life in.
A Shared History That Made the Future Obvious
As Atom grew, we naturally gravitated towards the entrepreneurs and businesses we believed in most. For us, that included the Teybridge team. Long before any conversations about joining forces, our teams had already spent more than a decade working side by side, building technology for scaling companies, solving similar challenges, and sharing the same ambition to help SMEs grow and thrive.
That history meant that when Teybridge set out to create the BRIDGE platform, we weren’t just a supplier; we were fully aligned partners in the vision. BRIDGE was shaped collaboratively: their deep understanding of SME finance and our expertise in building scalable tech created a platform that reflected the best of both worlds.
So when the opportunity arose for Atom to formally join Teybridge, it felt less like a leap and more like the natural next step. Teybridge already had the momentum, the leadership, and the track record of backing entrepreneurs in a way that genuinely makes a difference. Bringing Atom into the fold simply meant they could strengthen that even further by having all the technology capability in-house- the same capability that had been powering their growth from the start.
Joining Teybridge was made easier because of that shared history. But as any entrepreneur knows, choosing to step into a larger organisation is not a decision you take lightly. You only do it when you truly believe in the people leading the business and in the future you’re building together. In this case, Teybridge made that belief easy. Their commitment to SMEs mirrors our own, and their vision for the future of SME finance is one we’ve been aligned with for years.
What Comes Next
What excites me most is what this means for the future. With Teybridge Tech, we’re not only strengthening and expanding the BRIDGE platform, but opening the door for more SMEs, brokers, advisers, and even financial institutions to benefit from technology that is built to accelerate growth, not slow it down.
Our tagline at Teybridge is Momentum Matters. And through this acquisition, we’re not just maintaining momentum — we’re amplifying it. Full steam ahead.
