“No one wanted to buy our idea at the beginning” – Recap founder Paul Becker in the FFWD podcast | FinancialFWD

The financial platform Recap has now given companies more than 100 million euros in funding – without any defects, as the founder Paul Becker emphasizes. Investors recently valued the fintech at a high double-digit million. Initially there was a different idea behind Berlin’s fintech offer. Founder Paul Becker explains in the podcast how Recap stands out from the competition and what the Fintech Finanzguru app has to do with Recap’s new plans.

Another fintech startup? For Paul Becker that might be the first choice today as well. “Maybe I’m too much of a genius – but I’ve never been a person who followed the trend of the market,” says the head of the Berlin funding startup Recap. And this despite difficult times for the world of fintech.

This is not the norm in a startup situation. Series founders like Philipp Schröder have shown in recent years how successful you can be by betting on business trends. Schröder got involved early on with the electric car manufacturer Tesla, then joined the energy startup Sonnen and then he built a financial platform for private investorsbefore the founding of a solar startup in 2021. The company is now considered a unicorn – a startup with a billion dollar valuation.

Recap scrapes the triple-digit million valuation

Becker and his company Recap are not yet working in such areas, but in retrospect he and his co-founder Jonas Tebbe have also shown good timing. Companies can use the platform to analyze their financial situation, for example to get recommendations for better cash flow management.

This was already the plan at the beginning of the establishment of the company in 2021, says Becker in the podcast. “However, at the time no one wanted to buy the idea from us without us proving that it worked. ​​” So the company started with a financing offer. Companies were able to get short-term financing through Recap, which they pay back based on their sales. In return – and to better assess underlying risks – Recap obtained extensive financial data from companies. The fintech, in turn, was able to use this to develop a corresponding software offering. The fact that American rival Pipe got a lot of attention at the time also helped, says Becker.

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He now believes that his offer has been sufficiently validated by the market. Recap has provided loans worth 100 million euros to companies since its launch. There have been no failures so far, emphasizes Becker. This is one of the reasons why investors invested another 13.5 million euros in the fintech last June – at a rumored valuation of around 60 million euros. “There was even a little more,” as the founder emphasizes in the podcast.

“Financial guru for the B2B world”

Since then, the financing startup has shifted its focus back to financial analysis for companies. This means that companies can use Recap software without a loan and pay for it every month. In addition, Recap acts as a broker by bringing companies together with financial partners on its platform. “This makes our business model stronger,” says Becker, whose company, like many fintechs, has suffered from rising interest rates.

In the next step, Recap wants to further expand the analytics on its platform. The fintech recently expanded its offering to include a function that provides companies with predictions about their future business development based on their historical data. Individual sales categories can now be created automatically, which provides more options for reporting, for example. There are other activities to follow. The financial guru model is Fintech, which is already successful with a similar offer to consumers. Becker says: “So far we haven’t found anything that represents this professionally for the B2B sector – so we decided to build it ourselves.

Paul Becker talks about what future product plans will look like and how he thinks about new competitors in the market in the Finance Forward podcast.

In the FinanceFWD podcast, Becker discusses…

… the mood in the fintech market
…fundraising background
… the current business model of v0n Recap
… new competitors like Roundtable

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