Fastbill’s Exit to Canada Based Unicorn FreshBooks

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The founder of Fastbill talks about his learnings

The Enabler

This interview was made possible by Hessen Trade and Invest with their brand Invest-in-Hessen. You can learn more about them here (https://www.invest-in-hessen.com/). We also run a dedicated sub-podcast with all interviews and news in cooperation with them. Find it all here: https://anchor.fm/techstartupsgermany

We started serveral early SaaS Platforms and Fastbill was one of them. We just solved our problems at the time. René Maudrich, MD Germany FreshBooks

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We have been one of the SaaS pioneers here in Germany. René Maudrich, MD Germany FreshBooks

The Founder

In this interview, we talk to one of the most experienced fintech founders in the greater Frankfurt area. René Maudrich (https://www.linkedin.com/in/renemaudrich/) is the CEO and founder of Frankfurt-based accounting and invoicing fintech Fastbill. They have been bought by Toronto, Canada-based, fintech unicorn Freshbooks (https://www.freshbooks.com/). He now holds the position of managing director of FreshBooks Germany.

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We became a top 3 provider in GSA (Germany, Switzerland and Austria), but we also have clients in 13 other countries. René Maudrich, MD Germany FreshBooks

The Startup

Fastbill (https://www.fastbill.com/) was one of the early fintech startups, that have been around, before fintech was a thing. They help small companies and freelancers with their invoicing and accounting. They are a top 3 provider for this kind of software in Germany. You can learn more about them here:

Also, Mario (https://www.linkedin.com/in/mahachemer/), the CTO of Fastbill has been a frequent guest. Mario is also part of the frequent crew of our annual fintech review. You can learn more about the company, him, and René in our interviews linked below.

We bootstrapped for six years before we took VC money. That was a bit too late. I would recommend it later. René Maudrich, MD Germany FreshBooks

The Exit

FreshBooks already knew Fastbill from events. FreshBooks was interested in purchasing a stake in Fastbill with their next investment round. During the conversation, they decided on an outright takeover. FreshBooks now owns all equity in Fastbill and the core team with René, Mario and Benjamin stay on board. All former Fastbill shareholders are now FreshBooks shareholders.

The Fastbill team is not permitted to speak about the transaction price. We can make estimates about the price range:

In 2019 they had approx. 2.5 mn Euros revenue (according to estimates in several databases). Assuming a growth to 3 or even 5 mn Euros annualized revenue in 2021 one can estimate the range of the transaction volume with normal multiples from 45 mn Euros at the low end to 110 mn € at the higher end, adding an “earn-out clause” of approx. 10% over the next few years.

Find all links, show notes and further readings here: https://www.startuprad.io/blog/fastbills-exit-to-canada-based-unicorn-freshbooks/