Founder Feature: Going all-in to scale an international fintech startup
Vidhi Kumar, co-founder at Cardboard, shares her journey from a corporate career in India to scaling a fast-growing fintech start-up in Oslo.
Building a fintech startup in Oslo may seem to be an accidental career path for Vidhi Kumar who was on the corporate track in India before relocating to Norway. But in hindsight, her journey was meant to be.
Originally from Mumbai, India, Vidhi enrolled in engineering as many of her peers did. When her father asked why engineering, she realized she didn’t have a good answer, except that it also was what he had studied. But he encouraged Vidhi to pursue her own passions. She took his advice to heart and switched to advertising and then moved into marketing. After graduating, she quickly was recruited by L'Oréal and later landed a position at Ashok Leyland, one of India’s oldest automotive companies.
As Vidhi’s corporate career was taking off, her husband’s job took him to Switzerland while she continued working in India. Making long-distance work was challenging, especially with a small child. “We realized that we had to pick a country,” she explains.
The stars aligned when her husband’s company acquired a Norwegian firm, and they were offered an opportunity to move to Oslo. They agreed to give it a try based on the positive experiences they’d heard about work-life balance and being a great place to raise kids.
Rebuilding a career in Oslo
Vidhi was adamant to keep her career on track. Her first weeks in Norway, however, introduced some unexpected challenges. She didn’t have a bank account, credit card, or a driver’s license. “It was the most frustrating period of my life,” she recalls.
Determined to find her footing, she began interviewing for sales and marketing roles at large Norwegian firms. Despite positive feedback, she faced a common barrier: her language skills. “At first, many assumed I worked in tech because I’m from India, but then they told me: ‘Come back when you learn Norwegian.’ I understood—it’s fair. If you want to sell locally, you need to know the language.”
She shifted her focus from corporates to startups that were looking to scale internationally. Within two months of moving to Norway, she was hired by a cryptocurrency and financial services venture and eventually became COO. She got to know the local landscape — what sectors thrive, what works, and what people are building.
From there, Vidhi became CMO at the agritech startup Farmable and helped grow the customer base to over 35,000 users across nine countries.
“ I've really enjoyed working with start-ups and SMEs. They’re more willing to try new things than big companies—making it easier to pitch, test, and pivot quickly. ”
Recognizing opportunities
Vidhi got to know Cardboard as a prospective user when she was looking for ways to streamline operations. She met Lars Syse Christiansen, the startup’s chairman, who happened to be on the hunt for a co-founder who understood the pain points firsthand and also had experience in go-to-market strategies.
Vidhi joined the team as co-founder, and now she is working on building digital products from the bottom-up. The company recently raised €1.9 million to transform SaaS subscription management.
“It is really fun working with very dedicated, brilliant engineers in the chaotic go-to market space where there are no structures, and you have to build everything from scratch,” she explains.
For Vidhi, Cardboard represents a full-circle moment, as she never thought she would follow her father’s footsteps in engineering or her mother’s in finance. But in fact that’s what happened.
“Here I am, right in the middle of the Venn diagram,” she jokes, now firmly rooted in fintech.
Her advice to aspiring entrepreneurs? Vidhi urges people to think big – to build the companies that don’t exist yet that will power the next generation of sustainable businesses. “You may miss some holidays, but if you're passionate, it’s worth it.
Snapshot:
Founder: Vidhi Kumar
Country of origin: India
Company: Cardboard
Year founded: 2023
What the company does: Transforms how businesses manage and pay for their Software as a Service (SaaS) subscriptions
Sector: Fintech
Number of employees: 7
Markets served: Europe with plans to expand globally
