Aryel Revenue, Valuation & Funding (2024)

[00:00] Hey, folks. My guest today is Mattia Salvi. He's the co founder and CEO of aryel, the Italian startup that offers a SaaS AR marketing platform to customers. He's been helping companies in their digital transformation and innovation activities since 2015. Mattia, you ready to take us to the top? [00:13] >> Yeah. I'm ready and thanks for this opportunity, Nathan. [00:16] You bet. Okay. So how are companies using AR in their marketing? [00:20] >> Yeah. Aryel is a software as a service platform that helps brands and creative agencies to easily launch engaging augmented reality marketing campaigns in the snap without the needs of for coding skills or downloading apps. Our focus is AR marketing and we merge augmented reality with the marketing side with a no code platform that enable marketers to deliver these type of engaging experiences on the entire customer journey. And the platform is built with the vision also to [00:57] >> enable them to track data in order to understand if this campaign help them to get a better ROI on, for example, their ecommerce or print media support and on their gamification gamification channel. [01:15] Understood. So Pirates of the Caribbean, when they're launching, if they wanna create a Snapchat filter with like, you know, a pirate hat or something, they would use you to create that. [01:24] >> Yeah. [01:25] Very cool. Okay. Help me understand what are these brands paying you on average per month to use the technology? [01:31] >> Aryel is built as a freemium software as a service model. So it is possible to start with a free plan where you can start to have an initial approach with augmented reality. So this type of account is totally for hobby and for personal users. With €29 per month, it possible as to start with a commercial plan? And yeah, with the different that you can buy inside of the platform, it is possible to boost your account, for [02:14] >> example, with white label, custom branding, or you can connect your custom domain and for example, unlock advanced reports. [02:24] So Mattia, what's the average customer paying you per month? Paid customers? [02:29] >> The average price is $150 per month. [02:35] Okay, interesting. Very cool. Give me the backstory here. When did you launch the business? [02:40] >> We started on March 2020. [02:43] 2020. Okay. Very cool. And how did you guys get the first customer? Do you remember who it was? [02:50] >> Sorry. Sorry, Nathan. [02:51] How did you get your first customer? [02:54] >> The first customer when we launched in 2020, we started with a landing page in order to validate the market. So in this scenario, our goal was to [03:09] >> tell a story to our possible leads where what is Aryel, what is our goal and which is a possible price for this as a service. So in this opportunity, we gain different leads and we create a small community where [03:25] Now, Mattia, how did how did I mean, everything you've just described, anyone can do, but how do people get to the landing page? [03:30] >> Yeah. On the landing page. [03:33] How do they find it? [03:35] >> Yeah. We we spend about $1,000 on Google and Facebook in order to make some lead generation. [03:43] Interesting. And do you still spend money on ads today? [03:46] >> Yeah. Of course. [03:48] How much last month did you spend on ads? [03:51] >> $10,000. [03:52] Okay. And how many customers? Like, many free users do you get with that spend? [03:56] >> At the moment, we have five more than 5,000 users on our platform where more than 50% is paid today. [04:07] Wow. That's a huge ratio. So five thousand free users, but 2,500 are paying. [04:13] >> Sorry. At the 15 the five thousand five thousand five five thousand thousand thousand user on the platform and the 15% is paid. [04:21] Yeah. 50%? [04:25] >> No. 15%. [04:27] 15%. Okay. Got it. So you've got you've got about 750 paying customers today. Yeah. Is that right? [04:35] >> Yeah. Exactly. [04:37] And then at that $150 average price you just told me, that means you guys are doing about a $110,000 a month in revenue? [04:44] >> It depends because we have on we have different type of targets on the customer. We have, for example, freelancer and the small medium and the smaller web agencies that use a very starting plan that comes for 150 per month as average price. But of course, we have also big customers like enterprises or companies that have a more powerful plan with aryel in order to [05:16] Yeah, Mattia, I understand that. That's why I was asking about the average price that was earlier, right? So are you saying that you're doing more than a $100,000 a month in revenue or less? [05:25] >> More, more, more. [05:26] Oh, you're doing more. Okay, More than so what are you guys at right now? About a 150, $160,000 a month? [05:32] >> Yeah. Per month, the average is $250. [05:38] Oh, I see. Got it. Got it. It. Got it. So if I take $250 a month times seven fifty customers, that's more like $180,000 a month. That's more accurate. That's incredible. You've gone from nothing. You just launched last year to a pretty healthy monthly recurring revenue. Right? Did you have any revenue exactly one year ago? [05:55] >> Yeah. We will close the 2020 the 2021 with $300,000 of revenue. [06:07] Okay. So you finished last year with 300,000 in revenue? [06:10] >> Yeah. This year we will finish. [06:14] I guess I don't understand. If you're doing $180,000 a month in revenue, why would you only do 300,000 total revenue all year this year if you're doing 100 No. And 80 [06:25] >> Probably that was a misunderstanding. Sorry, Nathan. The average price for each user is €180 per month. Our MRR today is about €20,000 per month. [06:46] I see. So 25,000 US dollars. You have seven fifty paying customers? [06:52] >> Yeah, because in this paid customer, we also consider, for example, customer that comes from a lifetime deal, we run different [07:03] Lifetime deals. Those are useless in SaaS. How many how many people are paying monthly SaaS fees? [07:10] >> At the moment, we have about 250. [07:15] 250. Okay. That makes much more sense. So Yeah. Yeah. You're doing you're doing $25,000 a month today in revenue. What were you doing exactly one year ago? [07:24] >> One year ago, we'll close the 2020. We [07:28] No. No. Mattia, in in December of last year, how much revenue [07:32] >> December did last year, $5,000. [07:35] Okay. So you've gone from 5,000 a month to 25,000 a month over the past 12 That's great growth. Have you done that all bootstrapped or did you raise capital? [07:46] >> Basically, we are a totally bootstrapped company. We closed the first seed round of $700,000 in November. [08:02] Sorry. How much? $700,000. $700,000 in November. And that was your that was your pre seed round? [08:12] >> The seed round. [08:14] Seed round. Okay. And most people are selling, you know, somewhere between 10 to 20% of their business in their seed round. Were you guys in that range? [08:21] >> Sorry, Nathan. [08:22] Most people, when you raise equity, you're selling I mean, when you raise capital, you're selling equity. Right? Most people are selling 10 to 20%. [08:32] >> Raise totally via SAFE. So at the moment [08:36] Well, there's a cap. There's a cap usually. There's a 5,000,000 cap? [08:41] >> We have a floor of $2,500,000 floor and 8,000,000 of cap. [08:49] What do you mean 2.5 floor? [08:52] >> Because a safe works as a floor and the cap. The floor is the lower valuation and the cap is the higher valuation. Our higher valuation is 8,000,000 today. [09:04] I sorry. I've seen a lot of SAFE's. I rarely see a minimum. You do just see a cap of of and your and it looks like your cap was 8,000,000. How how does the 2,500,000 floor work? [09:13] >> Probably, I don't know if this financial instrument in Italy is different, but you need to specify a range between I see. The comparable item. [09:26] Interesting. Maybe someone in the audience knows more about that. [09:28] >> Oh, the cap is 8,000,000. [09:30] Yeah. Yeah. Cap is 8,000,000. Okay. That's great. And and so so you're not you say you're bootstrapped. You're not bootstrapped. You've now raised you've you're on the venture path now. [09:38] >> Yeah. At the moment, yeah, but until September until sorry. October 2021, we we was totally bootstrapped. [09:46] And did you said we. Do you have a cofounder? [09:49] >> Yeah. We have four co founder Luca and Leonardo was the first guys who started this project with me. They are two software engineers. [10:01] Did you three just split it? Did you split the equity equally? [10:05] >> I have more equity. I have the free 34% of aryel. [10:14] Yep. And [10:15] >> then there is Luca and Leonardo. They have both 28%. And in the next month also Vincenzo, who is product, head of product, comes into Aryel with 5%. [10:29] With five. Okay. So 34 to you, 28% to Luca and Leonardo, and then 5% to Vincenzo. [10:34] >> Yeah. And then we have a smaller percentage reserved for partners and other guys of the team. [10:42] For employees. What is the team today? How many people? [10:45] >> 15 people. One five. Yeah. 15 people. We [10:49] have How many engineers? [10:51] Five engineers. [10:53] Okay. And any sales reps or no? [10:55] >> Yeah. At the moment, we have three sales. [10:58] Pay two sales? [11:00] >> Three sales. [11:01] Three. Very cool. Talk to me a little bit more about how you're driving growth. Obviously, you're spending money on Facebook ads. What's it cost you to get a new $150 a month customer? [11:10] >> The cost of them? [11:11] The cost to get a new customer. [11:15] >> It's quite it's quite different today to measure the customer acquisition cost. I can tell you that at the moment on Google, our cost per lead is about $10 per lead. [11:27] Okay, and you need about six leads because you convert 15% to paid. So you spend about $60 in a new paid account, something like that. [11:34] >> Yeah. [11:35] Interesting. Very cool. Great story here, Mattia. Let's wrap up with the famous five. Number one, favorite book. [11:41] >> Favorite book. [11:44] >> Favorite book. I don't know the exact title in [11:53] >> English, in Italy. The the name of the book is Cashvertising. [11:57] >> Okay. [11:58] Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying? [12:02] A CEO you're studying. [12:07] Is there a CEO or a founder that you're following? [12:11] >> A CEO, yeah, I love Elon Musk. [12:14] Number three, what's your favorite online tool? [12:18] >> Online tool, Miro. [12:19] Miro. Alright. Number four, how many hours of sleep do you get every night? [12:27] >> How many? [12:28] Do you sleep? Hours. [12:30] >> Yeah. Six hours. [12:33] Six. Okay. And what's your situation? Married? Single? Kids? [12:37] >> Yeah. I'm in I have a girl. [12:42] Not married? No kids? How old are you? [12:45] >> I'm 25. [12:46] >> 25. [12:47] Last question. Something you wish you knew when you were 20. [12:51] >> In your 20? [12:53] Something you wish you knew when you were 20. [13:00] >> Sorry, Nathan. It's not I I don't understand. [13:03] So when you were 20 years old? Yeah. What's something that you wish you knew? [13:08] >> Yeah. I I wish to to create a company like an aryel probably. [13:14] Guys, there you have it, aryel.io. If your consumer brand or any brand wanna create a VR experience or AR experience for marketing, check them out. They were doing $5,000 a month in revenue a year ago, now doing $25,000 a month in revenue. They just raised $700,000 and their seed round at an $8,000,000 cap with their team of 15 and over two fifty customers. Mattia, thanks for taking us to the top. [13:34] >> Thanks again, Nathan, and I hope to speak to you soon. [13:38] One more thing before you go. We have a brand new show every Thursday at 1PM Central. It's called Shark Tank for SaaS. We call it deal or bust. One founder comes on, three hungry buyers, they try and do a deal live and the founder shares back end dashboards, their expenses, their revenue, ARPU CAC, LTV, you name it, they share it and the buyers try and make a deal live. It is fun to watch every Thursday 1PM [14:03] Central. Additionally, remember these recorded Founder interviews go live. We release them here on YouTube every day at 2PM Central. To make sure you don't miss any of that, make sure you click the subscribe button below here on YouTube, the big red button, and then click the little bell notification to make sure you get notifications when we do go live. 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