Pillar
Fintech providing credit products for immigrants and migrants in new countries.
Cover Block
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Name | Pillar (legal entity: Affinitech Ltd, t/a Pillar) |
| Tagline | Credit products for immigrants and migrants in new countries |
| Headquarters | London, United Kingdom |
| Founded | 2021 |
| Stage | Pre-Seed (acquired June 2025 by LemFi) |
| Business Model | B2C |
| Industry | Fintech (consumer credit) |
| Technology Type | Software (Non-AI) |
| Geography | Western Europe |
| Growth Profile | Venture Scale |
| Founding Team | Co-Founders (2): Ashutosh Bhatt, Adam Lewis |
| Funding Label | Pre-seed |
| Total Disclosed | ~$16.9M (£13M) [TechCrunch, April 2022] |
Links
- LinkedIn (founder profile): https://uk.linkedin.com/in/ashutoshbhatt
- Careers (Ashby): https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/pillar
- Acquirer announcement: https://blog.lemfi.com/product-update/lemfi-acquires-pillar-to-launch-credit-cards-for-immigrants
The Short Version
Pillar is a London-based consumer fintech that built credit underwriting infrastructure for immigrants who arrive in a new country with no domestic credit file. In June 2025, it was acquired by cross-border payments company LemFi to power that company's push into immigrant credit cards [LemFi, June 2025] [Fintech Global, June 2025]. The company was founded in 2021 by Ashutosh Bhatt and Adam Lewis, both alumni of Revolut. Their thesis was that an immigrant's foreign credit history and real-time financial behavior can be re-scored to extend credit products from day one in a new market [EU-Startups, April 2022]. Its single disclosed financing was a £13 million ($16.9 million) pre-seed in April 2022 led by Global Founders Capital and Backed VC [TechCrunch, April 2022] [UK Tech News, April 2022]. The product was structured as an underwriting and credit-product platform rather than a single card, positioning Pillar as a B2B2C rail as well as a direct-to-consumer brand. The acquisition by LemFi, a remittance platform serving diaspora customers across the UK, EU, US, and Canada, gives Pillar a built-in distribution channel of millions of immigrant users [Startups Magazine, June 2025]. For investors tracking the immigrant financial-services category, the next 12 to 18 months will turn on whether the combined entity can convert remittance senders into credit-card holders at attractive unit economics, and whether UK and EU regulators continue to permit alternative-data underwriting for thin-file applicants [Ashurst, June 2025].
Data Accuracy: GREEN -- Confirmed by TechCrunch, EU-Startups, LemFi, Fintech Global, and Ashurst.
Taxonomy Snapshot
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Stage | Pre-Seed (acquired June 2025) |
| Business Model | B2C with B2B2C credit infrastructure |
| Industry / Vertical | Fintech, consumer credit, migrant financial services |
| Technology Type | Software (Non-AI) |
| Geography | Western Europe (UK HQ) |
| Growth Profile | Venture Scale |
| Founding Team | Two co-founders, both ex-Revolut |
| Funding | $16.9M total disclosed across one round |
The Company in Brief
Pillar was incorporated in the United Kingdom in 2021 under the legal name Affinitech Ltd, trading as Pillar, and is headquartered in London [UK Tech News, April 2022]. The founding insight came from Ashutosh Bhatt and Adam Lewis, both of whom worked at Revolut and saw firsthand how millions of internationally mobile customers were unable to access mainstream credit in their new home country despite years of strong financial behavior elsewhere. The company's premise was that an applicant's home-country credit history, combined with open-banking transaction data in the new market, was sufficient to underwrite credit products such as credit cards and personal loans without requiring the customer to spend a year or more building a domestic file from scratch [EU-Startups, April 2022].
The company's first and only publicly disclosed round closed in April 2022: a £13 million ($16.9 million) pre-seed led by Global Founders Capital and Backed VC [TechCrunch, April 2022]. Pillar spent the subsequent three years building underwriting technology, hiring engineering and risk talent in London, and working toward an "all-in-one credit platform" architecture [How to Lend Money to Strangers].
In June 2025, Pillar was acquired by LemFi, a global cross-border payments platform that serves immigrant communities [LemFi, June 2025] [Fintech Global, June 2025]. The transaction was advised by law firm Ashurst [Ashurst, June 2025]. The acquirer indicated that Pillar's technology would be used to launch credit cards for LemFi's existing immigrant user base, beginning in the UK and expanding into LemFi's other markets [LemFi, June 2025].
Data Accuracy: GREEN -- Confirmed by TechCrunch, UK Tech News, EU-Startups, LemFi, Fintech Global, and Ashurst.
What They Have Built
Pillar's product was an underwriting and credit-product platform aimed at people who have recently moved countries and therefore present as "thin-file" or "no-file" applicants in domestic bureau systems [EU-Startups, April 2022]. The company described its technology as the rails for delivering "a variety of credit products" in the customer's new location, with credit cards as the lead use case post-acquisition [LemFi, June 2025]. Underwriting drew on a combination of home-country credit history, open-banking transaction data, and identity and KYC signals collected at onboarding.
The company's positioning is best understood as infrastructure rather than a single consumer brand. Founder commentary in industry interviews framed Pillar as building a platform that could ultimately power multiple credit products and be embedded inside other consumer fintech experiences [How to Lend Money to Strangers]. That framing is consistent with the LemFi rationale at acquisition, which contemplated embedding Pillar's underwriting inside LemFi's existing remittance app [LemFi, June 2025] [Startups Magazine, June 2025].
On the technology stack itself, the company is categorized as Software (Non-AI), indicating that the underwriting work appears to rely on conventional credit-risk modeling and rules-based decisioning.
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Product description corroborated by EU-Startups and LemFi acquisition materials; deeper architectural detail is not publicly documented.
Market Research and Opportunity
The market for immigrant credit access is structurally large because cross-border migration is rising and incumbent credit infrastructure does not travel with the customer. The United Kingdom alone receives several hundred thousand long-term migrants per year, and the broader Western European and North American immigrant populations represent tens of millions of working-age adults who arrive without a usable domestic credit file.
Demand drivers center on three trends. First, post-pandemic immigration into the UK, Canada, and the US has rebounded sharply. Second, open-banking regulation in the UK and EU has made it technically and legally feasible to underwrite using real-time transaction data. Third, the success of cross-border remittance platforms such as LemFi, Wise, and Remitly has demonstrated that immigrant cohorts are reachable through dedicated digital channels [Fintech Global, June 2025].
Adjacent and substitute markets include secured credit cards, credit-builder loans, remittance platforms, and neobanking for migrants. Pillar's positioning sat at the intersection of the underwriting-infrastructure adjacency and the migrant-vertical neobank adjacency [LemFi, June 2025].
Regulatory forces are the dominant variable. Consumer-credit licensing in the UK is overseen by the Financial Conduct Authority, and any cross-border use of foreign credit data must satisfy GDPR and bureau-licensing terms.
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Pillar pre-seed round | $16.9M (£13M) |
| Pillar pre-seed (EUR) | €15.6M |
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Funding figures confirmed by two independent outlets; broader market sizing is not cited from a named third-party report.
Who Else Is Fighting for This
Pillar operated in a category where the competitive set is best understood as three concentric rings. The innermost ring is dedicated immigrant-credit specialists. The middle ring is migrant-focused neobanks and remittance platforms that could plausibly add credit, including LemFi, Wise, Remitly, and Majority. The outermost ring is incumbent banks and mainstream challengers (Revolut, Monzo, Starling, Chase UK) that serve all customers including immigrants.
Where Pillar had a defensible edge during its independent period was in underwriting models and data partnerships built specifically around home-country-to-host-country credit translation, and a founding team with direct Revolut operating experience [EU-Startups, April 2022]. The acquisition by LemFi resolves the distribution exposure directly. LemFi already owns the customer relationship at the moment money is being moved across borders [LemFi, June 2025].
Data Accuracy: ORANGE -- No competitors named in the captured sources; competitive context is analyst-assembled.
Opportunity
The size of the prize, if the LemFi-Pillar combination executes, is to become the default credit brand for the global immigrant customer in the corridors LemFi already serves. The category-defining outcome is that LemFi-Pillar becomes the first profitable, multi-product financial brand built natively around the immigrant journey, starting with remittance, extending into credit cards using Pillar's underwriting, and plausibly broadening into auto, deposit, and small-business credit over time [LemFi, June 2025] [EU-Startups, April 2022].
| Scenario | What happens |
|---|---|
| UK card scale-up | Combined entity launches a Pillar-underwritten credit card to LemFi's UK remittance base |
| Corridor-by-corridor expansion | Card and credit-builder products roll out into LemFi's other live markets (EU, US, Canada) |
| Embedded credit infrastructure | Pillar's underwriting platform is opened up to other migrant-serving fintechs and neobanks |
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Acquisition rationale and product direction confirmed by LemFi, Fintech Global, Startups Magazine, and Ashurst; scenario sizing is analyst-constructed.
Sources
- [TechCrunch, April 2022] Immigrant credit fintech Pillar raises $16.9M pre-seed led by Global Founders Capital and Backed VC | https://techcrunch.com/2022/04/21/fintech-startup-pillar-raises-16-9m-pre-seed-led-by-global-founders-capital-and-backed-vc/
- [EU-Startups, April 2022] UK-based Pillar picks up €15.6 million to tackle credit access problem for migrants | https://www.eu-startups.com/2022/04/uk-based-pillar-picks-up-e15-6-million-to-tackle-credit-access-problem-for-migrants/
- [UK Tech News, April 2022] Affinitech (t/a Pillar) secures £13 million Pre-Seed investment led by Global Founders Capital and Backed VC | https://www.uktechnews.info/2022/04/21/affinitech-t-a-pillar-secures-13-million-pre-seed-investment-led-by-global-founders-capital-and-backed-vc/
- [LemFi, June 2025] We Have Acquired Credit Fintech, Pillar | https://blog.lemfi.com/product-update/lemfi-acquires-pillar-to-launch-credit-cards-for-immigrants
- [Fintech Global, June 2025] LemFi acquires Pillar to expand immigrant credit access | https://fintech.global/2025/06/16/lemfi-acquires-pillar-to-expand-immigrant-credit-access/
- [Startups Magazine, June 2025] LemFi acquires London fintech Pillar | https://startupsmagazine.co.uk/article-lemfi-acquires-london-fintech-pillar
- [Ashurst, June 2025] Ashurst advises on sale of the UK based fintech Pillar Labs to the global payments platform LemFi | https://www.ashurst.com/en/who-we-are/our-news-work-market-recognition/ashurst-advises-on-sale-of-uk-based-fintech-pillar-labs-to-the-global-payments-platform-lemfi/
- [Fintech.am] LemFi Acquires Pillar to Expand Credit Services for Immigrants | https://www.fintech.am/lemfi/?lang=en
- [LinkedIn, Retrieved 2026] Ashutosh Bhatt - Founder, Pillar (Acquired by LemFi) | https://uk.linkedin.com/in/ashutoshbhatt
- [The Org, Retrieved 2026] Ashutosh Bhatt - Founder / CEO at Pillar | https://theorg.com/org/hellopillar/org-chart/ashutosh-bhatt
- [AshbyHQ, Retrieved 2026] Pillar Jobs | https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/pillar
- [CB Insights, Retrieved 2026] Backed VC Portfolio Investments, Funds, Exits | https://www.cbinsights.com/investor/backed
- [How to Lend Money to Strangers] Building an all-in-one credit platform, with Ash Bhatt | https://www.howtolendmoneytostrangers.show/episodes/episode-43
Articles about Pillar
- Pillar Is Building a Credit File for Every Immigrant Who Lands in London — The Revolut alumni-led startup raised $16.9M pre-seed in 2022 and sold to LemFi in 2025 to put credit cards in migrant wallets.