HeyCater is a catering platform founded in 2015 that brings companies and catering providers together. Whether it's a summer party, daily lunch, or meeting catering: companies receive offers from over 500 catering providers and then choose the right one. That's how heycater! has grown to more than 2,000 customers and organizes over half a million meals every year.
Further growth on the road to profitability
Growth or profitability? That was the question that Janick Lienau, CFO and COO of heycater!, and his team asked themselves. "We were in a position to switch to profitability," explains Janick, "but that would have ruled out further investment."
For heycater! it was important not to give away further growth potential. The German catering market is already worth more than €10 billion. "Topics such as sustainability, hybrid work, digitalization, and health awareness play into our hands. We want to build the most modern caterer in Europe – and we're only just getting started. To realize our ideas, we needed additional capital," explains Janick.
Avoid dilution and grow with debt
The company decided in favor of external financing to invest in growth measures. The focus was on key account acquisition within large sales partnerships and the expansion of the heycater! platform. At the same time, it was important not to lose sight of the path towards profitability.
Predictable revenue, a low churn rate, and good customer relationships – debt was an option for heycater! when considering fresh funding. Janick and his team analyzed various instruments, including venture debt and other alternative forms of financing.
"Especially if you take a positive view of the company's development, debt capital is a much more favorable form of financing for founding teams to avoid dilution," says Janick.
Financing that gives flexibility in achieving business goals
Three aspects played a major role in heycater!'s decision for re:cap:
- The flexibility of the financing line: heycater! is able to obtain additional financing or repay the capital more quickly, depending on how the business develops
- A smooth and competent sales and due diligence process
- A trusting relationship between borrower and lender
"With the financing from re:cap, we have achieved exactly the business objectives that we formulated at the beginning: we have continued to grow and are closing our first full quarter with positive EBITDA in Q2 2024," explains Janick.
But heycater! was not only able to achieve its goals at the company level with the re:cap financing. Looking back, relying on debt instead of equity was the right decision for Janick and the founding team: "Equity can be very expensive. The fact that we have now managed to achieve these results with debt capital can also have a positive impact in the long term."
