Marcau Partners

crowd dev was founded by Jonathan Reimer and Joan Reyero who share a passion for communities and the open source approach, and want to help developer-first companies transform the power of their developer communities into growth The company is headquartered in Bonn, Germany

trumpet is transforming the whole B2B sales cycle from cold outreach to close It allows salespeople to create personalised sales microsites to wow their prospects from the first touchpoint and book more demos which then transform into a collaborative workspace

trumpet was founded by exited DesignMyNight founders, Andrew Webster and Nick Telson along with ex-sales team lead at Hotjar, Rory Sadler The team is headquartered in the UK

Mistho offers an open payroll API that enables consumers to easily access and share their salary and employment information with third parties such as banks, insurance companies, lenders and others at the click of a button

Mistho is based in Berlin, Germany and was founded in 2021 by Maximilian Czymoch and Shervin Panahi

Saporo is a cybersecurity company that is improving cyber resistance by prioritizing and reducing user access risk Their technology enables any organisation to model and measure its resistance towards attacks It allows them to make better-informed decisions regarding risk management without having to think like an attacker

Saporo is based in Lausanne, Switzerland and was founded in 2021 by Olivier Eyries, Guillaume Eyries and Éric Blavier

Omocom is the provider of digital short-term microinsurance products These are directly integrated into the customer journey of diverse platforms (“embedded insurance”) and are tailored to the needs of the end customers Due to a highly integrated and flexible technology, Omocom can use the data to calculate risk and premiums accurately at the individual level – in real time

Omocom was founded in 2017 by Ola Lowden Landström and Tobias Mård The team is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden

Regimen offers holistic health and self care for the most intimate and stigmatized health issues of the male population Their first product is the world’s first CE-certified holistic, effective digital therapy for erection problems, built with some of the leading experts from all over the world

Regimen was founded in 2019 by Max Kersting, Wilko Kunert and Prof Dr Wolf Beecken The company is based in San Jose (CA), USA

Chairish is a curated online marketplace for the best of vintage and used furniture We make it fun and easy for design lovers to buy and sell vintage and used furniture and, home decor to one another The Chairish iPhone app provides on-the-go access to great finds at great prices, anytime and anywhere

Chairish was founded in 2013 by Andy Denmark, Anna Brockway and Gregg Brockway The company is based in San Francisco, USA

Emitwise’s unique AI technology empowers companies to automatically measure, report and reduce their carbon footprint across their operations and supply chain, future-proofing businesses for a zero-carbon world The Emitwise carbon accounting technology helps companies become sustainability leaders and reap the business benefits, by aligning their business with global climate targets, maximizing operational efficiencies, and mitigating carbon risk

Emitwise was founded in 2019 by Benjamin Peddie, Eduardo Gómez and Mauro Cozzi The team is headquartered in the UK

Carvolution redefines mobility and offers an alternative to buying and leasing a car with its car subscription formula Customers simply select their car online and pay a monthly fixed price that includes all costs except for petrol They can change their car flexibly, return it or keep it indefinitely A global and disruptive solution with full service from a single source

As a pioneer in the subscription market, Carvolution has secured the pole position Carvolution is based in Bannwil in Oberaargau and was founded in 2018 It currently has 44 employees

Top insights into our industry

Rough sea for consumer startups — how to cope with it! Part 2

Rough sea for consumer startups — how to cope with it! Part 2

Written by Marcau’s David Hug and Andrea Annese, with the collaboration of Luca Michas and Rudi Skogman In Part 1 of this article, we tried to analyze the current consumer market and how startups operating in this space need to rethink their strategies in the face of a situation we have not been used to in the last 10 years

It has become apparent that, while inflation rates have skyrocketed and the cost of basic services like food and transportation have reached record highs, consumers are increasingly looking for cheaper alternatives and changing their brand preferences more frequently than before On the flipside, consumer-facing startups find themselves in a peculiar situation where they need to explore new acquisition strategies, rethink revenue models, and improve user experience due to increased CAC in traditional channels and new customer habits

In Part 2, we will explore the experiences navigating the current market conditions of two startups founders from our Ringier Digital Ventures Portfolio Luca Michas from Yamo and Rudi Skogman from Blok will share their insights on the challenges they have faced, as well as their strategies for adapting to changing consumer habits and to the uncertain economic environment

How has the current market affected Yamo and Blok’s customers’ behavior?“Consumers are reconciling their financial caution with their consumption and spending impulse by being much more selective about their brand and product preferences” This is the opening answer from Luca, which also hints how some segments like baby and kids food are more resilient to uncertain economic situations On the other hand, this is not the case for the private residential real-estate as confirmed by Rudi: “The rising interest rates drive people to postpone decisions and make them unsure of their own financial future At the same time the prices of their own homes have come down in the past 12 months leaving less money to buy a new apartment even if the prices are lower in general[…]The change after the start of the war in March was almost instant” The constant variable in their words is that there is less wallet space for luxuries as people are more cautious in high-ticket purchases in each category

How has the current market affected your company instead? Based on what KPI did you notice these changes? Did you change your KPI scorecard accordingly?According to both founders there is a big problem in acquiring new customers, both in terms of acquisition cost and in conversion rates For Yamo, “big advertising platforms like Google, Facebook [are] increasing their media prices”, which caused an increase in CAC to “almost all e-commerce businesses” For Blok’s proptech market instead, “we’ve noticed that our own conversion started going down dramatically” reflecting “market statistics that show that the housing market volumes [in Finland] are down 50–60% YoY” Consequently both founders are focusing on monitoring the conversion value chain, from CPM, CPC and CVR More generally, Rudi points out the importance of balancing revenues and costs to withstand this peculiar circumstance

What measures have you taken to meet the challenges? Very interestingly both companies have acted on their revenue streams, pursuing long term diversification strategies and aiming at increasing retention and LTV Rudi : “We’ve done 2 things specifically — Cut costs […] and diversify our revenue streams, making sure we’re not dependent solely on one place for all our revenue This is still work in progress but has helped us already tremendously as we’ve been able to grow revenues from a new product in a new stream from 0 to 600k ARR in a matter of months ” Luca: “ […] we focused a lot on retention and LTV From a product point of view, we are working on improving the quality and our service even more with different measures But we also adapted the D2C business model itself, offering more attractive pricing for customers who want to commit to a 3 or 5 box plan We are creating a win-win situation both for the customer and for us The customer profits from cheaper product prices, and we secure higher customer lifetime revenues with the first purchase ” Looking ahead to 2023, what environment are you expecting? And how are you preparing for it?When thinking about the immediate future, uncertainty is often the first thing that comes to mind With so many macro factors at play, such as the reactions of central banks to rising interest rates and ongoing international conflicts, it is difficult to make reliable predictions It is thus not surprising that both Luca and Rudi are focusing on their core business, strengthening current revenue streams, and rekindling partnerships, while approaching the immediate future with caution