Project needs
Tangible is a fintech platform helping hardware startups like robotics, energy, deep tech, etc. access asset-backed debt financing. These companies are building the physical infrastructure of the future, but equity funding alone can't get them to scale. Debt financing can, but the process is opaque, inaccessible, and historically reserved for companies with multi-million pound facilities and expensive legal teams.
Tangible's mission is to change that. Their Prepare product guides hardware founders through everything they need to get "lender-ready", by organising their data, structuring their policies and generating the materials that lenders actually want to see.
Pain points
For borrowers:
Asset-backed financing is a completely foreign language to most hardware founders who come from VC-backed backgrounds
No clear starting point — companies don't know what data to collect, what format lenders expect or what "ready" even looks like
Most arrive with limited or no operational data, making it hard to demonstrate creditworthiness
The process historically involved expensive lawyers, months of back-and-forth and fees that made smaller facilities economically unviable
For the industry:
The entire deal-making workflow lived across hundreds of email chains, spreadsheets, and phone calls. There was no dedicated home for this kind of work
Lenders speak a completely different language to borrowers. Translating between the two required deep expertise that most startups simply didn't have access to
My role and what I delivered
I joined as the founding product designer with a blank canvas. The Prepare product didn't exist, they were using MUI for a Reporting product that was being halted to follow this new opportunity, no established flows or product vision in place. I ran discovery, helped shaped strategy and designed the vision + product end-to-end.
Discovery & strategy Conducted in-depth research sessions with co-founders to deeply understand the asset-backed financing lifecycle — from funding assessment through to term sheet generation. Facilitated product strategy workshops to define the MVP scope, prioritise features, and align the team on what "Prepare" needed to be.
UX design Designed the full borrower journey from onboarding through to producing lender-ready outputs. A core challenge was designing for data maturity as users arrive at very different stages, from projections-only to live operational data. I created flows that make the product valuable at every stage.
Design system Built the component library from scratch, leading a migration from MUI to shadcn/ui to better serve the team's technical direction and design quality ambitions.
Prototyping Created interactive prototypes for founder walkthroughs and investor demos, bringing the product vision to life before engineering was fully resourced.
What it unlocked
Enabled Tangible to move from a fully manual, consultancy-style service to a scalable self-serve product — a key milestone for the business
Reduced the time it takes for a borrower to go from "I need funding" to having lender-ready materials
Gave the commercial team a credible, demo-able product to bring to new customers and investors
Laid the design and systems foundation for Tangible's 2025 roadmap, including one-click term sheet generation and near self-serve onboarding
