Gastfreund offers hotels, rehabilitation facilities and restaurants an all-in-one operations platform which digitalises communication and all operational tasks. The company has offices in Kempten, Berlin and Belgrade and has been active since 2013. More than 100 employees ensure smooth processes when dealing with guests and patients for over 6,500 customers.
Securing a cash buffer for growth initiatives until break-even
Gastfreund has been leveraging debt financing since 2019 to bolster its capital structure. Now, Gastfreund CEO Daniel Schulze and his team were looking for a financing partner for working capital financing in order to secure sufficient liquidity for their growth initiatives.
"Over the past 18 months, we’ve come very close to breaking even. Our goal now is to solidify and expand our profitability," explains Daniel Schulze, CEO of Gastfreund.
To achieve this, the Kempten-based company wants to invest even more in sales and tech. According to Daniel, debt financing is the ideal complement to achieve this.
However, the SaaS company faced one challenge: traditional debt instruments were not suitable for their use case. "Our financing amount of €500,000 was too large for some providers and too small for others. We were looking for the right sweet spot," says Daniel.
Daniel and his team researched alternatives that had to fulfill three main criteria:
- A high degree of flexibility to adapt to Gastfreund’s needs.
- Avoiding further dilution
- Financing that matches their ticket size.
Flexible funding that adapts to the needs of Gastfreund
re:cap's funding addressed all three criteria. Gastfreund gained access to a flexible option that can adapt to their needs. For Daniel, it’s important to react flexibly, although the medium-term goal is solid profitability: "re:cap's financing equips us perfectly for this," says the Gastfreund CEO.
"Another important point that goes beyond mere financing was that I and my team were made more aware of certain financial metrics", says Daniel.
To do this, Gastfreund leverages re:cap Insights, re:cap's cash management software, to access essential metrics for its reporting. This sharpens the company's focus on KPIs like profitability, liquidity, and unit economics.
In this way, re:cap not only provides pure funding, but also leads to "discipline in reporting, better cash flow management, and optimized cost control on our side," says Daniel.
