Henry Willis
For venture capitalist Henry Willis, working in the foreign exchange (FX) markets has been a lifelong journey. At the early age of just 19 years old, Henry got his start in the foreign exchange markets trading FX options and eventually expanded into trading other derivative products that include CFDs, swaps, options, spread betting, futures, and forward contracts.
His career began at Barclays Global Capital where he worked on the metals trading both precious and base metals. He then parted ways to found his own CFD trading company, Asser Willis, which he eventually sold to Alexander David PLC at the age of 23.
Wanting to provide more clarity to and transparency within the foreign exchange market, 5 years ago Henry Willis decided to launch Swift Fox to help not only UK-based importers but importers around the globe save money and time when paying their international suppliers. Swift Fox typically represents import companies, large shipping companies and travel operators by handling currency exchanges and any cross-border payments needed to pay suppliers and any other cost of sale which is denominated in foreign currency.
When founding Swift Fox, Henry Willis envisioned it to be so much more than just an FX broker firm; rather, Swift Fox is a FinTech company that helps demystify the currency exchange process and save you money along the way. With a comprehensive online payment platform that simplifies the exchange process down to three easy steps, it’s no surprise that Swift Fox has won numerous awards for its work and secured more than $60 million in seed funding. One seed investor was Google Ventures with $25 million, making Swift Fox the first FinTech company Google has ever invested in outside of the United States. Swift Fox’s technology now powers more than 25,000 trades per day from 5 global locations in London, Hong Kong, Barcelona, Dubai, and Melbourne.
Most recently, Henry joined Saltwater Ventures, a venture capital firm that looks to invest in cutting edge and innovative technology. To date, he has invested in multiple exciting companies, including Dugout, an exclusive, behind-the-scenes content platform for football fans, and Wakelet, an app that allows its users to curate and organize various forms of content from all across the internet.
The biggest lesson that Henry Willis has learned during his career is to take full responsibility for every result he produces. Henry says, “Too many entrepreneurs rely on so-called professionals to guide them, and my experience is that they are anything but professional!” Throughout his career Henry has taken the time to learn as much as he can in order to be as knowledgeable of an entrepreneur as possible. As a result, Henry doesn’t have to worry about relying on “professionals” to advise him, and his clients gain from all of his hard work.
When Henry is not at work, he enjoys spending time with his family.
