Richard Dana is the co-founder and CEO of Tembo, a family-focused digital mortgage broker.
The London-headquartered company’s platform advises buyers who are failing traditional affordability tests to work out how to buy their first home. It also provides lending services to increase deposit sizes, including equity loans.
Tembo was born out of the Founders Factory accelerator programme and founded by Dana, Eddie Ross and Geoff Wright in April 2020 at the height of the pandemic.
In August 2021 the startup raised $3.5m (£2.5m) in a seed funding round led by Aviva and Fair by Design. The startup is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and as of September 2021 has helped 10,000 families to get a mortgage.
In this week’s Founder in Five Q&A, the Tembo founder shares his funding advice, explains why he gets frustrated by “overly glamorised” startups, and why he’s excited by the potential of hydrogen power....