In June 2022 the Financial Conduct Authority's published list of penalised people included the chief executive of a company that had spent a decade telling customers to stop paying hidden fees. Kristo Kaarmann had reportedly failed to pay 720,000 pounds of tax for the 2017-18 year.
That is not where the story starts, but it is the part few tell. Kaarmann had been a management consultant at Deloitte. Taavet Hinrikus had been among the first employees at Skype. Both were Estonians living in London, and both had the same irritation.
Both were Estonians living in London, and both had the same irritation.
Hinrikus was paid in euros by Skype in Estonia and needed pounds in London. Banks charged at least 5 percent to move money, and most of that was buried in the exchange rate. According to the account on Wise's own history, the banks tried hard to make that hard to understand. The two worked out a trick between themselves: one sent euros to the other's Estonian account, the other sent pounds into Hinrikus's British one, both at the real rate. No bank margin. No fee worth the name.
Wise was founded in 2011. A 1.3 million dollar seed round was followed in 2013 by 6 million dollars led by Valar Ventures. A 280 million dollar round in 2017 pushed it toward a 3.5 billion dollar valuation by 2019 and 5 billion in 2020.
The cost of the company's honesty brand came into view in 2021. In July Wise went public through a direct listing in London, valued at 11 billion dollars. The same year Hinrikus stepped down as chair, replaced by David Wells. And the tax default surfaced: the FCA's list ran for 12 months from September 2021, and the story became public in June 2022. A founder who built a company on transparency now had a very public flaw of his own.
The business kept growing anyway. In the year to March 2026 Wise reported net revenue of 2.5 billion dollars, up 19 percent, and income before tax of about 660 million. Primary trading moved to Nasdaq in May 2026, with London kept as a secondary listing. Kaarmann held a reported 1.134 billion pounds on the 2023 Sunday Times Rich List, Hinrikus 861 million.
What should a first-time founder take from this? The most durable companies are built on a grievance everyone shares. But a founder who sells trust gets judged by a stricter standard, and the personal record counts as part of the product.