Stoa

Stoa is a London cash-management platform built on a simple premise: most people and small businesses earn little or nothing on the cash sitting in their accounts. In the UK alone, the company points to more than £600bn held in low- or zero-interest consumer accounts and a further £250bn in SME reserves — money that, in its view, could be working harder for the people who hold it.

Rather than competing on headline interest rates, Stoa lets customers lock money into fixed-term deposits it calls Stoa Pots and take their return upfront, as perks and benefits from partner brands. Deposits sit with regulated banking partners and eligible funds are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Once a customer links their account through open banking, Stoa reads spending and saving patterns to tailor the offers on show, and its architecture is designed so banks and merchants can embed Stoa Pots directly into their own products. Alongside the deposit product, the company is building Saving Score, which it describes as a savings-behaviour index intended to sit beside the credit score.

The platform is live in the UK for both consumers and businesses, with early partnership talks under way in the United States, where Stoa plans to focus on SMEs. The founding team draws on experience from firms including Octopus Investments, Starling Bank, Nationwide and Lloyds, and John Mountain, a Starling Bank co-founder and its former chief executive, has joined as an advisor. In July 2026 Stoa raised £1.8m in pre-seed funding to support that expansion.