Social Impact as Startup Fuel: A Tech Startup Story with Serene

Season 2, Episode 10 of the Tech Startup Stories Podcast features Savannah Price, CEO and founder of Serene, with host Natalie Binns.

In this episode, Savannah shares how a family crisis became the foundation for an AI platform that's changing how financial institutions support vulnerable customers, why regulatory requirements opened doors that social impact alone couldn't, and what it really takes to navigate the emotional extremes of building a startup.

Listen to the Podcast
Available on Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

Some founders discover their mission through market research. Savannah Price found hers in bank statements. When her siblings struggled with mental health challenges, the family faced a problem many will recognise, by the time they knew something was wrong, it was already a crisis. Traditional signs were too subjective, conversations too difficult to initiate. But buried in the mundane details of everyday spending, there were patterns. Changes in where money was going, how frequently, and in what amounts told a story that words couldn't.

What began as a makeshift early warning system for one family evolved into Serene, an AI platform that helps banks, lenders, and essential services identify and support vulnerable customers before small struggles become major problems.

The judo move that opened the door

Savannah is refreshingly honest about what it takes to sell social impact in a numbers-driven industry. Doing good doesn't open doors on its own. What changed the conversation was timing and regulation. When she launched Serene, new UK regulations required financial institutions to identify vulnerable customers, understand the scale of vulnerability within their customer base, and prove to regulators that they were delivering equal outcomes for those customers.

That regulatory requirement became what Savannah calls her "judo move." It gave her a reason to be in the room, but what kept her there was the evidence she brought with her. Serene's data showed that 40% to 60% of a firm's customers had one or more characteristics of vulnerability. This was a mass market concern and rather than being a cost centre or compliance checkbox, the platform became a revenue growth tool, helping firms include customers who would typically be excluded by traditional credit scores or affordability assessments.

By flagging issues preemptively, Serene also minimises downstream losses, helping firms intervene before customers fall into problem debt, become victims of scams, or simply disengage and churn. The result is a business model that speaks to both the balance sheet and the human being behind it.

From climate science to show jumping to fintech

Savannah's path to fintech is anything but typical. With a background in climate science and geochemistry, she always assumed she'd end up in health tech or clean tech. Instead, she spent six years as a professional show jumper, buying and selling young horses and competing at the top level. When COVID brought competitions to a halt, she found herself with unexpected time and a nagging sense that she wanted to make a tangible impact at scale.

She used the lockdown to complete an MBA, filling in the gaps she felt from never having worked in a big corporation. It gave her the fundamentals she'd been running on intuition without. When restrictions were lifted, she went full steam ahead, first launching a mental health company, then pivoting into what Serene is today.

The emotional whiplash that no one warns you about

Ask any founder how hard it is to build a company and they'll nod knowingly. But Savannah goes further. She admits that nothing truly prepares you for the relentlessness, the extremes. One week you're convinced you're going to the moon. Next, you're crawling on the floor wondering how you'll make payroll or whether you've got the energy to keep going.

What makes it manageable, she says, is purpose. Not the kind that looks good on a pitch deck, but the kind that gets you out of bed when everything else feels impossible. For Savannah, that purpose is rooted in lived experience. She's open about her family's journey, and the vulnerability that comes with sharing those stories has been transformative. It turns out almost everyone she speaks with has their own story, either personal or within their close circle, about vulnerability and its impact on finances. That shared humanity has become one of her most powerful tools for building trust and opening conversations.

The co-founder breakup and what came next

Serene's journey hasn't been without bumps. Savannah experienced a co-founder breakup early on, a painful moment that taught her not to rush into partnerships. Co-founding, she says, is a bit like marriage. It requires alignment on direction, values, conflict style, and how far you want to take the company. Her current co-founder, Ehsan Faridifar, is Serene's Chief Data Scientist. His background in debt purchasing and alternative credit scoring complements Savannah's unconventional path, and their shared belief that data science becomes art when you're creating something truly new has become a cornerstone of how they work together.

Fundraising, growth, and the reality of being a female founder

Savannah bootstrapped Serene before raising a seed round from VCs and securing NatWest as both a client and strategic investor. She closed the round in less than four months, which by any standard is fast. But the process revealed something unexpected. Despite actively targeting female angel groups and female-led VCs, she ended up with two women on her cap table and eighteen men.

She doesn't believe gender should come into play when you're building a strong business and telling a compelling story, but the numbers speak to the broader environment female founders are navigating. Her advice for the next fundraise is simple: come from a position of strength, not desperation. The more you need the money, the faster people run in the opposite direction.

Building a team that can move fast

Serene is a team of six, deliberately kept lean. Savannah prioritised hiring senior people with deep expertise in specific verticals but who were also comfortable being generalists, jumping between roles and wearing multiple hats. Most of the core team came through investor introductions or inbound interest from people they'd worked with on the other side of the table.

As the company grows, she's committed to more structured, inclusive hiring, making sure roles are visible in the right places and that the process is merit-based. But for now, trust and autonomy are the operating principles. Everyone knows what's happening, everyone owns their function, and when someone's underwater, the team steps in.

Advice from the frontlines

Savannah's guidance for aspiring founders is grounded in hard-won experience. Find your purpose, the internal engine that will keep you moving when external motivation runs dry. Be authentic, not trendy. The founder identity has become fashionable in ways that can skew the reality of what it takes. If you're true to yourself, you'll attract the right people and the right opportunities.

And if you feel a compulsion to build something, just do it. Fail quickly, learn from it, and use those lessons as data points. For Savannah, there's been no shortage of failures or moments spent picking herself up off the floor. But each one made the next step clearer. Fearlessness, she says, isn't about not being afraid. It's about moving forward anyway.

Listen to the Podcast
Available on Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

Connect with Savannah Price and learn more about Serene.