Digital Transformation for startups and SMEs
AI is reshaping how startups and SMEs operate faster than most back offices can keep up. SimpleInsight helps you adopt the technology that matters, without losing control of your numbers along the way.
Why are we here?
SimpleInsight has a mission to encourage startups and small and medium sized enterprises within the technology, financial technology and digitally creative industries to adopt emerging technology, from a finance back office perspective.
We are equally committed to supporting female, black and LGBTQ+ founders who remain some of the most under-funded and under-supported people in the startup ecosystem.
The challenge
Digital transformation in an AI-driven world
Startups and SMEs are being asked to move faster than ever, while the tools, platforms and customer expectations around them are reshaped by AI every few months. For most businesses, the back office hasn't kept pace with the front office.
- Finance and operations still run on manual processes and spreadsheets, while the rest of the business moves at AI speed.
- Systems don't talk to each other, so decisions get made on data that's already out of date by the time it's reported.
- Leadership gets a monthly view of performance that arrives weeks too late to act on.
- AI tools get adopted piecemeal, with no plan for how they fit together or who's accountable for them.
- Scaling the back office is treated as a cost to control, until it becomes the thing holding growth back.
None of this gets solved by hiring more people to do the same manual work, faster. It gets solved by rebuilding how the back office works.
Our approach
Most accountants work at a distance: a portal, a monthly call, a set of reports delivered after the fact. A Forward Deployed Accountant works inside your business instead, embedded alongside your team and connected directly to your systems and data.
1
Embed
Time spent inside the business, learning the real workflows, systems and pinch points before changing anything.
2
Connect
Back-office systems and data sources wired into one place, so reporting isn't rebuilt by hand every month.
3
Operate
Working as an embedded part of the team day to day, not a traditional once-a-month visiting accountant.
4
Evolve
Tooling and cadence adjusted as the business grows, including where AI can safely take on more of the manual work.
Who we can help
We help startups and SMEs built by all people. We especially love to help the following groups in the startup ecosystem. One approach behind everyone: a Forward Deployed Accountant, embedded in your business instead of working at a distance.
Female founders
Women founders continue to find difficulty in raising capital in the tech ecosystem. Some of the key findings from the Invest in Women Taskforce’s “Manifesto 2026: Driving Lasting Change” report:
22%
of senior investment roles in UK venture capital are held by women, and just 14% of angel investors are women.
49%
of investment flowed to women-founded teams when women angels took part in the round, compared with just 19% when no women angels were involved.
8%
of UK university spinouts in 2023 had all-women founding teams, while more than 75% were all-male.
Source: Invest in Women Taskforce, Manifesto 2026: Driving Lasting Change.
We would like to hear from women tech founders from all over the UK. SimpleInsight is here to support as many female tech founders in the ecosystem as possible, to help prove that the above findings don’t have a place in our future society, and that change and investment must happen at a faster rate.
Read the Invest in Women Taskforce manifesto →
Black founders
Black founders in the UK continue to be significantly underrepresented in venture capital, and the gap widens at every later funding stage. Some of the latest findings from Extend Ventures’ ongoing research, as reported by TechCrunch and CNBC:
0.95%
of UK VC funding value reached Black founders in 2023, down from a 1.13% peak in 2021, despite Black people making up 2.5% of the UK population.
80
Black founders have raised UK VC funding in total since 2009, up from just 38 as recently as 2019.
13
Black women raised any VC funding in the UK between 2019 and 2023, compared with over 3,700 white men in the same period.
Source: Extend Ventures data, as reported by TechCrunch (Dec 2023) and CNBC (Jan 2025). Latest confirmed figures are for 2023.
Being a black tech founder can sometimes be a lonely journey, but understand that SimpleInsight will forever support the change needed to improve the level of funding received by black tech founders. We are here to support you and your business.
We want to hear from black tech founders from all over the UK and be part of a tech ecosystem that knows diversity is profitable and invests in its future.
Read Extend Ventures reports →
LGBTQ+ founders
Many LGBTQ+ founders still weigh up whether to disclose their identity to investors at all, and a funding gap follows those who do. Some of the key findings from Proud Ventures’ 2023 survey of the UK startup ecosystem, the first of its kind to dissect how VCs actually respond to LGBTQ+ founders:
75%
of LGBTQ+ founders, and 79% of LGBTQ+ investors, conceal their sexual orientation or gender identity within the UK startup ecosystem.
54%
of investors didn’t know whether they had any LGBTQ+-led companies in their portfolio at all — before any question of funding is even considered.
26%
of investors were taking steps on LGBTQ+ inclusion specifically, even though 80% said they were acting on diversity more broadly.
Source: Proud Ventures’ 2023 UK LGBTQ+ Founder Report, supported by Founders Factory and Investec Wealth, as reported by CNBC (Feb 2023), tech.eu (Feb 2023) and ITPro.
At SimpleInsight, we are here to support the startups of the LGBTQ+ community. Discrimination in all forms is unacceptable, and this report has a harrowing message when intersectionality is considered and VC responses are dissected.
If you are from the LGBTQ+ community please feel free to get in touch. We would love to help you scale your business and we will reserve a safe space for you.
Read the LGBTQ+ Founder Report →
Diversity & inclusion
SimpleInsight supports and enjoys working with people from all different backgrounds. There are real advantages to building a company and a service with a diverse workforce: higher staff engagement and stronger performance, a better ability to respond to globalisation with strategy drawn from different perspectives, a stronger brand and reputation as a socially responsible, ethical business, and a better ability to attract talent and close skill gaps.
35%
more likely to have above-average financial returns, for companies in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity (McKinsey & Company).
19%
higher revenue from innovation at companies with more diverse management teams (Boston Consulting Group).
75%
of the global workforce was projected to be made up of millennials by 2025 (The Guardian; cited on the original site, now a historical prediction).
- Higher staff engagement leading to stronger employee performance.
- A better ability to react to globalisation, with strategy drawn from differing backgrounds (World Economic Forum).
- Improved brand and reputation as a socially responsible, ethical company.
- An ability to attract talent and close skill gaps within an organisation and industry.
- Improved financial performance, in line with McKinsey's research.
We recognise the protected characteristics set out in UK law, including age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, religion and belief, and sexual orientation, and we're committed to a workplace and client relationships that reflect that.
Trusted by mission-aligned partners
We at BlockRocket fully support SimpleInsight and its vision to help underrepresented founders build robust startups in tech. Having been involved in creating innovative projects ourselves, we understand the value of creating diverse teams in the tech ecosystem. SimpleInsight is a mix of accountancy and digital transformation, a unique blend of the ability to advise on the use of cloud platforms and emerging technology to give startups and SMEs a competitive advantage when it comes to scaling.
— BlockRocket