Rishi Khosla OBE is a British entrepreneur and investor best known as the co-founder and chief executive of OakNorth, the digital bank built around the financing needs of growing businesses. Founded in 2015 with longtime business partner Joel Perlman, OakNorth targets a segment often overlooked by traditional lenders: established companies too large for straightforward small-business loans but too small to attract major corporate banking teams. That focus helps explain why Khosla attracts interest beyond financial technology circles. He did not enter banking to launch another app or savings product. His idea grew out of a problem he experienced while running a completely different business. His career offers an unusually direct connection between a founder’s frustration as a borrower and the business model of the bank he eventually created.
Khosla and Perlman started Copal Partners, a financial research and analytics business, in 2002. Over the following decade, they developed the company into an international operation employing around 3,000 people across 11 markets. Moody’s Corporation acquired the remaining shares of the business, then known as Copal Amba, in 2014. Yet during Copal’s expansion, its founders hit an unexpected obstacle: despite a profitable operation and established clients, they struggled to get a bank loan. Khosla later explained that the financing request wasn’t large enough to justify the costs banks incurred in assessing the company and structuring the deal. That experience exposed a gap in commercial lending that would become central to OakNorth’s strategy. Instead of treating ambitious medium-sized firms as miniature corporations or oversized small businesses, OakNorth developed tailored lending for their particular financial needs. Its approach combines relationship-led banking with detailed credit analysis, seeking to make business borrowing more responsive without abandoning risk controls.
A decade after OakNorth’s launch, Khosla was still steering its expansion beyond Britain. The bank’s 2025 annual results, published in March 2026, reported £223 million in pre-tax profit and said that 40% of new loan originations came from the United States. Across its first ten years, OakNorth reported more than £15.1 billion in lending to the lower mid-market. Khosla’s interests also extend beyond banking: his public professional biography notes early-stage investments in businesses including PayPal, while his work with the Rishi and Milan Khosla Foundation supports causes such as medical research, early childhood development, and female empowerment. He received an OBE in 2019 for services to business. OakNorth also backs a mentoring program connected with the London School of Economics, reflecting his interest in helping younger entrepreneurs. Together, these activities show why his story is about more than founding a profitable bank: he has continued to apply the lessons of building, financing and scaling businesses to the next generation of founders.
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