> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://entrepreneurplus.co.uk/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # EP + Weekly: The Biggest UK Startup Stories This Week - URL: https://entrepreneurplus.co.uk/ep-weekly-the-biggest-uk-startup-stories-this-week-5/ - Published: 2026-08-21T13:30:32.000Z - Updated: 2026-08-21T13:30:32.000Z - Description: Zopa went wide. OakNorth went narrow. Both built billion-pound banks by betting on completely different customers. One chased scale, the other stayed ruthlessly focused. So which strategy actually made more money? - Author: Sharoni Banerjee - Tags: Ecosystem Intel --- Two founders looked at the same problem. ***"How do you actually build a profitable bank in Britain?"*** They walked away with opposite answers, but both ended up worth billions. Here's how that's even possible. Back in 2005, a company called **Zopa** did something nobody had tried before, it let ordinary people lend money to other ordinary people, cut the bank out of the middle entirely, and called it peer-to-peer lending. It was clever, it was new, and for sixteen years, it was the whole business. Then in 2021, **Zopa** killed it. Now why would you kill the one idea that made you famous? Because, by then, Zopa had a banking license and much bigger plans, it didn't want to be a clever lending platform anymore, now it actually wanted to be the place people kept their entire financial life, so all their savings, loans, credit cards, and eventually a current account called Biscuit. So it let go of the very thing that made it different and went after everyone instead. Bold move, but did it work? By 2025, Zopa had 1.7 million customers, £377.1 million in revenue, and £65 million in profit, its third straight profitable year. So yes, going wide worked. But here's where it gets interesting. This week, we found another player in UK digital banking answering the exact same question, and landing on the opposite answer entirely. OakNorth never tried to be for everyone. From day one, it went after just one type of customer that nobody else wanted to bother with : growing businesses too big for a personal loan and too small for a corporate bank to even notice they exist. It's the same underserved segment that SME lending in the UK has long struggled to serve. Not flashy, not consumer-facing, and just one tiny gap in the market, worked relentlessly, for a decade. That kind of disciplined business banking is rare, and it's exactly what made OakNorth different. *So how did that go really?* By 2025, that narrow bet had produced £605.9 million in revenue and £222.5 million in profit, which was more than three times what Zopa made, with a fraction of the customers. One bank went wide, one bank went narrow, but both are worth billions. *So which one got it right?* Honestly, we think that's the wrong question to ask. **Zopa** proved you can win by trying to serve everyone, if you're patient enough to earn their trust first, and **OakNorth**, on the other hand, proved you can win harder by picking one type of customer and refusing to be distracted from them. Neither founder made any mistake, they just believed in different things compounding over time. Read the full story of [*how Zopa makes money*](https://entrepreneurplus.co.uk/how-does-zopa-make-money-now-the-peer-to-peer-pioneer-that-became-a-bank/) now and [*how OakNorth makes money.*](https://entrepreneurplus.co.uk/how-does-oaknorth-make-money-winning-where-big-banks-wont-lend/) --- ### Also on EP+ this week: → There's a quiet [*network of women* ](https://entrepreneurplus.co.uk/inside-femtech-investment-uk-the-founders-betting-everything-on-valeries-next-chapter/)in Britain deciding, one introduction at a time, which female founders actually get funded in UK venture capital, in a scene that still hands most of its money to men. → Ever wondered how easily your own [*company name*](https://entrepreneurplus.co.uk/how-to-trademark-a-name-and-protect-ip-in-the-uk/) could be taken from you? Most founders find out the hard way, when someone else registers it first. → Nobody thinks about who's really sitting across the table during a raise, until[ *VC due diligence* ](https://entrepreneurplus.co.uk/vc-due-diligence-checklist-what-uk-investors-check-before-they-invest/)forces them to find out. → [*UK semiconductors*](https://entrepreneurplus.co.uk/inside-the-uk-semiconductor-industry-in-2026/) never make the headlines AI does, but they're quietly the reason half of AI's headlines are even possible. → Founders rarely talk about their own[ *mental health*](https://entrepreneurplus.co.uk/10-founder-mental-health-resources-you-can-actually-access-in-the-uk/) until it's already a crisis, so this week we went looking for the support that's actually free and actually works. → Still picturing [*UK food tech*](https://entrepreneurplus.co.uk/uk-food-technology-in-2026-whos-actually-making-money/) as meal kits and delivery apps? Well it isn't anymore, and the money backing it agrees. --- ### The wider ecosystem answered the same question this week too, just at a much bigger scale ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/05/a4/05a4a052-18ab-4836-8924-ec8b322c371c/content/images/2026/08/startup_ecosystem.png) UK Startup Ecosystem Signals Here's a strange one. ***Fractile*** doesn't have a product on the market yet, but what it does have is one deal, with Anthropic, which is worth $250 million. That single commitment was enough to take the company from a $1 billion valuation to $6.5 billion in three months. Now compare that to what's happening in UK femtech, no single company broke out this week and stole the headlines, instead, deal activity is up 194% over the past decade, and the average deal has more than doubled in size too. It's a clear sign that femtech investment in the UK is maturing well beyond one breakout headline. The whole sector just kept accumulating quietly, one modest round at a time. And if you zoom all the way out? The UK's active business population just hit a record 5.66 million companies, with app-based startups the fastest-growing category of all, up 40% in a year. It's another marker of just how deep the UK startup ecosystem now runs. Thousands of founders, none of them making headlines individually, but all betting small and often. Notice the pattern yet? One company staked everything on a single deal, an entire sector, and an entire country's worth of founders are winning by making many smaller bets instead. Zopa and OakNorth, it turns out, are just that same choice playing out much closer to home. --- ### One pattern we noticed Nobody in this week's stories hedged their bet. Zopa didn't try to keep a foot in peer-to-peer lending while quietly becoming a bank on the side, it actually dropped the old model completely and never looked back. OakNorth didn't chase public deposits to grow faster once it had momentum; it stayed narrow, on purpose, for a decade. That patience is unusual for any UK digital bank chasing growth. Fractile isn't spreading its risk across ten smaller customers before its first chip even ships. It's going all in on one. Makes you really wonder: is that discipline, or is it just what commitment looks like once you're far enough away from the decision to admire it? --- ### One number **£222.5 million** \- OakNorth's 2025 profit, more than three times Zopa's £65 million, earned with a fraction of the customers. --- ### Question of the week *Do you think the smartest businesses win by trying to serve everyone or by focusing on one type of customer completely?* Email us at ***editorial@entrepreneurplus.co.uk*** and tell us, we read every single answer, and yours might end up in next week's brief. --- **Sources:* Zopa figures from Zopa Bank's 2025 results and FFNews. OakNorth figures from OakNorth's 2025 Annual Report. Fractile figures from Bloomberg, via Dealroom and Tech Funding News. UK femtech figures from Mills & Reeve research, via Digital Health and FemTech World. UK business population figures from the NatWest/Beauhurst New Startup Index.*