They decided to look at problems in the world of finance, and identified that electronic payment systems could be improved. “We realised that all these payment systems were a bit broken,” says Hiroki.

As the three men continued to work on their idea, in 2011 they landed a spot on a prestigious start-up support programme in Silicon Valley called Y Combinator. Hundreds of young entrepreneurs around the world apply to join the three-month long scheme each year, but only a small percentage are chosen.

Hiroki says it introduces you to some famous names, and their unvarnished advice. “You would have these weekly dinners where you would get the likes of Mark Zuckerberg, or one of the Airbnb founders, telling you first-hand what their journeys were like.

“They were very open – you didn’t get the PR version of it.”

Deciding to focus the business on helping small firms collect direct debit payments more easily, GoCardless was born, and the three co-founders returned to the UK with an initial $1.5m in funding from Silicon Valley investors. Hiroki says this was the moment he knew that the business was real.

Investing heavily in staff, with 90% of them being tech hires, Hiroki says they were fortunate when it came to getting their first customers.

“One of the big lucky breaks we had early on is that we got introduced to Duane Jackson, who was the CEO and founder of Kashflow, an accounting platform,” says Hiroki.

“He had 25,000 small businesses doing accounting through this platform, and he was looking for exactly the solution we were providing.”