Tom Blomfield
Member of Technical Staff at Anthropic, on leave from Y Combinator
Tom Blomfield co-founded the payments company GoCardless (Y Combinator Summer 2011) and the UK bank Monzo, which he led as CEO from 2015 to 2020. He became a Y Combinator visiting partner in 2021 and a general partner in 2023. In July 2026 he joined Anthropic's compute team as a member of technical staff, taking a leave of absence from Y Combinator.
- Fintech
- Startups
Monzo
Y Combinator
Anthropic
- Now
- Member of Technical Staff, Anthropic1
- Based in
- San Francisco, California1
- Co-founded
- GoCardless and Monzo2
- Honour
- OBE, 20192
In their words
Specialties: Start-ups, Technology, Business Consulting
1
Experience
- Member of Technical StaffJul 2026 – now
Works on the compute team alongside Anthropic co-founder and chief compute officer Tom Brown.7
- CTO, founding teamUntil Feb 2015
Left with three other senior managers to start a rival bank.4
- VP Growth2013 – 2014
Based in New York.1
- Co-founder1Jan 2011 – Sep 2013
- Associate Consultant1Sep 2008 – Jan 2011
- Co-founder and CTO12004 – 2006
Education
Master's degree in law, first class (corporate finance, corporate insolvency, European business regulation, international financial law)1
Diplôme en droit, European law1
BA in Jurisprudence, first class1
Recognition
Honour · United Kingdom2
Milestones
- Started an eBay-style marketplace for students at Oxford through the Oxford Entrepreneurs scheme; it spread to about 50 UK universities8
- GoCardless joins Y Combinator's Summer 2011 batch3
- Leaves Starling's founding team with three other senior managers4
- Monzo, then called Mondo, is founded8
- Monzo receives a UK banking licence with restrictions9
- Mondo renames itself Monzo after a challenge to its trade mark10
- Monzo becomes a full bank8
- Steps down as Monzo's UK CEO to become president; TS Anil takes over as UK CEO5
- Announces he is leaving Monzo at the end of the month6
- Moves from visiting partner to general partner at Y Combinator1
- Builds and launches the RecipeNinja app in about 20 hours with an AI coding tool12
- Joins Anthropic's compute team, on leave from Y Combinator7