Startup founders can sometimes be adamant that they are the first to do something, or come up against a certain problem. After more than two decades working in tech across a variety of companies, however, Richard Kimber has probably seen it all.
Now cofounder and CEO of artificial intelligence startup Daisee, Kimber started out with a psychology degree at university before studying for an MBA and taking on strategy roles in finance. It was the mid-90s, the internet had just arrived, and Kimber was particularly keen to explore how the internet was disrupting stockbroking.
Working at Macquarie Bank at the time, Kimber began researching how US stockbrokers were using the internet with a view to helping the bank too leverage the internet; the end result was the creation of an internet trading facility for the bank.
Kimber then replicated the experience at HSBC, building an online stockbroking firm within the business that was sold to Merrill Lynch within two years.
Of course, even with the might and resources of a big bank, navigating the ways of the internet in the mid-90s and early 2000s wasn’t easy.
“There was a lot of work on it. There were quite a few barriers to just picking the US model and and translating it here, with the major one at that stage being browser encryption.