Ed Barrow is the CEO and co-founder at Cloud Capital, a platform that aims to turn cloud cost chaos into clarity for financial leaders.
The first of its kind, Cloud Capital is a fintech platform purpose-built for cloud infrastructure, designed to help CFOs forecast, manage, and de-risk cloud spend.
The AI-powered platform provides end-to-end visibility, unlocks savings without engineering effort and eliminates financial exposure of long-term cloud commitments.
The firm is headquartered in the US but Barrow – along with co-founders Spencer Pingry and Zack Liscio, support high-growth companies across North America and Europe and have a recent fundraise to celebrate and build upon.
In this week’s Founder in Five Q&A, Barrow talks about the things he wishes he’d done differently, how a data scientist was the most important early hire he made and a simple activity he adds to his routine to prevent burnout.
Are there any learnings or things you wish you’d done differently in the early stages of launching your company (or previous companies)?
Ed Barrow: At Cloud Capital, we spent six months doing real market research before writing a single line of code. I wish I’d done that in earlier ventures – getting out of the building always beats building the wrong thing too soon.
Which role was the most important early hire you made at Cloud Capital?
EB: Our first data science hire. It shaped everything. From very early, we wanted to put data and AI at the core – not as a bolt-on, but asT the engine behind how we forecast, automate, and de-risk decisions. That hire helped turn a vision into a system.
What advice would you give to a first-time founder (at start-up or scale-up stage)?
EB: Stay close to the problem, not the product. Talk to customers constantly. And do not wait for things to be perfect – momentum beats perfection at every stage.
As a founder and CEO, how do you prevent burnout?
EB: I walk. It sounds simple, but getting outside with no phone, no distractions, and no agenda is the fastest way I’ve found to reset. I always come back with more clarity than when I left.
Excluding your sector, which nascent technology holds the most promise?
EB: AI in creativity and education. We are just scratching the surface of how generative tools can help people learn, explore, and express ideas in new ways. It is not about replacing teachers or artists – it is about giving more people access to those capabilities, faster and earlier.
Founder in Five – a UKTN Q&A series with the entrepreneurs behind the UK’s innovative startups, scaleups, unicorns and public tech companies – is published every Friday.
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