Fatura Simples Revenue, Valuation & Funding (2022)

[00:00] Hey, folks. My guest today is Felipe Bagetti. He is passionate about people and business growth. That's why he created Fatura Simples. He's a countryside city guy from Brazil and has no fear of taking risk, has a background in technology, and his experience of living abroad helps him to be an empathetic leader. The company today, again, faturasimples.com.br, is a recurring billing automation platform for business growth. Felipe, are you ready to take us to the top? [00:25] >> Yeah. Sure. Let's go. [00:27] So recurring billing for who? What kind of customers are you selling to? [00:32] >> Yeah, right now we are focused on the health sector on, [00:39] >> how can I say this in English is some kind of health assistance plan for low income people? So there are a lot of health clinics for low income people in Brazil that create this kind of plans. So you pay a subscription fee monthly, usually, and you gain a lot of benefits. So these clinics will take care of your health. So we are focusing on these, these kind of customers right now. [01:13] So are you selling to the clinic or to the patient? [01:16] >> To the clinic. [01:17] I see. How many clinics are paying you today? [01:23] >> I'd say about, 30, around this. But, let me say one more thing. This is what we are, focusing right now because we started, with a more generic, positioning. So we have a lot of, SaaS businesses using our subscription, platform so they can automate these processes. But and a lot of other kinds of customers, but this is our focus right now. [01:56] And in in December, so last month, how much total transaction volume did you process? [02:04] >> About 6,000,000. [02:06] Okay. Across 30 customers? [02:09] >> No. Across our whole base that we intermediate the the money because we have some money, some sorry. We have some customers that don't use, these two of the of intermediating money. They plug their own processors. [02:31] I see. So 6,000,000. So how many customers total for the 6,000,000 of GMV? [02:42] >> I'd say about a 100. [02:44] A 100. [02:45] >> Wow. Okay. A 110, something like that. [02:49] Okay. Felipe, talk money to me. How do you guys make money? [02:53] >> Oh, we take a a transaction fee. And so you if you make a transaction, we would we will take about it it varies, really, but about 1 Brazilian real to 3 reais 20. [03:14] And so what percent is that? [03:17] >> It depends, but I'd say it's like half. [03:21] Okay. So on 6,000,000 of total GMV in December last month, if you take [03:30] >> about You are trying to calculate. Right? Just [03:32] ask Not not not try not not trying. I am. 6,000,000 times point 5%. You guys did about 30,000 US dollars in revenue last month? [03:45] >> Just shy of that. Yeah. [03:48] Oh, what's going on there, YouTube? Good to see you guys. Now imagine this. You love watching these interviews with founders, but imagine if we took all of the valuation data out from over 2,807 interviews I've done manually. Saves you a lot of time. Well, we've done this. We've built it into the beautiful interface inside of Founderpath. Check this out. I'll show you how you can access this in a second, but you log in, you connect your [04:11] Stripe account, you see your valuation real time. You can see what it changed over the past eighty eight days and even set goals for valuation this year. Now the secret evaluation is there's many different ways to value a SaaS business. So the reason you're gonna see three or four different valuations inside of your Founderpath dashboard, this is all free by the way, is because depending on who's doing the buying of your SaaS company, you're gonna get [04:36] a different valuation. A VC is gonna pay a different valuation, private equity firm is different. If you're gonna do a minority sale, that's different. And if you sell the whole business, that's a different valuation. You can see all those when I hover over here. Right? So the teal is what a VC would pay. Yellow is what private equity and red is if you sold the whole thing outright. Now what's cool about this is this is not [04:58] built off random data. Again, you guys hear these interviews on YouTube. All these datas are built from real time valuation data points founders share with us on the show. So traction, 1,200,000 seed round, 3.7 raise. They sold 22% of their business. Go in here and filter by the event. Maybe you only wanna see companies that have sold the whole business. Well, here are a bunch that have been acquired the valuation and the multiple. Maybe you're going [05:23] out right now and you're raising your seed round. Well, go in here and look at all this recent seed deals that went down, what they raised, what valuation they raised at, and what percent that they sold. There's never been a larger dataset of SaaS valuations than what you can get now inside of Founderpath. And we're thrilled to bring it to you. Alright. We're gonna go back to the YouTube video here in a second, but if you [05:45] wanna check this tool out, if you wanna jump in and sign up, you can check it out for free to get your valuation at this link. This link, founderpath.com/products/valuations. Or if you go to founderpath.com and hover over products, click on get your valuation here, and go ahead and sign up to give it a whirl. Again, all that valuation data live right inside the platform. I hope to see you there. Alright. Let's jump back into the interview. [06:12] What's the future plan? Are you trying to work with more SaaS companies or are you only focusing on clinics moving forward? [06:20] >> We are focusing on clinics and the tangent, like the, the similar kinds of, of operations. Because, you see, SaaS companies don't we we don't have we don't really have [06:37] >> differential, a competitive differential. Does that really make sense? [06:43] It does. You don't have competitive differentiation. Who does mostly recurring billing for SaaS companies in Sao Paulo? Who are your competitors there? [06:52] >> Oh, yeah. We have a there is a company called Vindi. [07:00] >> Yugu, there is another one. Superlógica, Asaas. There are a bunch of them. So that's the problem. You see? There is a there is a bunch of them doing the same thing. So the the fee, each one, has the ability to take. [07:18] >> The the the space is competitive, so there is not much margin there. So we are going in another direction. [07:26] That's a really I think it's a super smart move. When did you launch the company? [07:31] >> Oh, we started at 2013 as a software studio. And, along the the years, we developed Fatura Simples as a side product, I'd say. But we since the beginning, we wanted to make the shifts and we did. The beta of Fatura Simples was launched at late fourteen And along the next years, we started the shifts. And I'd say three, three to four years now, it's like 100% our focus. [08:15] So Fatura, you launched as a studio in 2013. You worked on many side projects. By 2016, Fatura was really your main focus and you've been focused on Fatura full time for the last four years. [08:30] >> Yeah. That's pretty much it. [08:32] Okay. Very cool. And you keep saying we. How many co founders do you have? [08:37] >> I have a just one partner. Yeah. [08:40] Okay. And have you guys bootstrapped so far? Did you decide to raise? [08:45] >> We we did not really decided to raise until two years no. Three years ago, we we were going bootstrapped like all the way because the the ecosystem in Brazil was not very good, but it it changed a lot. So we started raising. And, last year, we raised approximately a $250,000 check. [09:22] >> I'd say around that because we raised it in Brazilian real, so I don't remember the the [09:33] >> the dollar price at the time. [09:34] That was your seed. That was your seed round. [09:37] >> Yeah. I'd say seed or pre-seed. I don't really know. [09:43] How much Felipe, how much equity did you sell? Was it a 5,000,000 cap on a note? [09:51] >> Sorry. What did you ask? [09:53] How much equity did you sell for $250,000? [09:57] >> Oh, yeah. You are pretty straightforward. [10:02] Damn America. Damn Americans. You know? This is American podcast hosts. [10:06] >> Yeah. We sold 20%. 20. [10:12] So this is about a million dollar pre money valuation and a million 2 post. [10:20] It's a lot of conversions for you, but I think that's right. [10:23] >> Yeah. Yeah. About that. [10:26] Do you regret it, or was it the right move? [10:28] >> Oh, it was the right move for us at the time. We have a lot of synergies with our investor, like, not really exchanging clients or something like that, but future wise. And, we needed a a shakeup, I'd say. So it was good. [10:55] If you're doing about [10:56] >> It has been good. Has been good. [10:59] >> Yeah. [11:00] If you're doing about $27,000 per month today in revenue, what were you doing exactly a year ago? Do you remember? [11:07] >> Yeah. About half. [11:10] So this is good grow this is your fastest growing twelve months over the past six years. Right? [11:18] >> In total volume, yes. But percentage wise, not really because, you know, when you are really small. [11:24] Well, yeah. Yeah. A a dollar to $6 is, you know, 600%. Yeah. What drove the growth from 14,000 a month to 27,000 a month? Is it the focus on clinics and health? [11:42] >> Not exactly this, but kind of because we started, there, there is a fun thing about this business model is that if our our clients grow, we also grow. So we make one sale and this guy is generating us, I I let's say, a $100 monthly and he grows 10 x, he starts generating 10 x more money for us. Mhmm. And, some some clients grew in the last year, and it drove our our revenue up. And, this [12:22] >> new new segment, these clinics, they operate in a much higher volume than a SaaS business, for example. If you have a SaaS business that had, let's say, 2,000 customers, it's a big SaaS business. If you if you have a clinic that has 2,000 customers, it's it's just validated the the business, you know, it's starting to grow. So [12:56] >> the the fee that we take is not percentage. You you asked you asked me if how how much it was. I'd say about half percent, but we take a a fixed fee. Like, it does not change if you transact 100 or 1,000. We take the same fee. So for us, the volume of customers that our client has is really important. [13:25] Mhmm. Understood. And help me understand your team today. How many folks are full time? [13:31] >> How many what? [13:33] How many employees? [13:34] >> Oh, yeah. [13:35] >> We have about 17 employees plus us, two founders. [13:43] How many of you guys are engineers? [13:46] >> Just just one. [13:47] You? [13:48] >> Just no. Just my founder. Just my my cofounder. [13:54] So building I [13:55] >> I I am also or I was, but I don't I don't code for Fatura Simples. I'm just in the business side. [14:05] Building payments rails and code is very difficult. How did one person build it? Or are you guys sitting? Are you using someone else's technology to facilitate the payment? You're white labeling. [14:17] >> We are white labeling, but we had at some point our own infrastructure. Yeah. Some kind something like that. But, [14:31] >> yeah, it's it's hard, and there is a lot of regulations. So we we killed our own infra and started white labeling. Yeah. [14:45] Who are you white labeling now? [14:48] >> Zoop, Z-O-O-P. [14:52] Are they good? [14:57] >> Yeah. [14:59] >> There there ain't much there ain't many, options in Brazil for what we want. So, yes, I'd recommend them, but I also want something that some things that they don't have yet. But, you know, it's part of the game. [15:18] Yep. Very cool story, Felipe. Let's wrap up here with your famous five. Number one, what's your favorite book? [15:27] >> Oh, that's a hard one. [15:31] >> Let me see. I'd say right now that [15:36] >> Can't Hurt Me from David Goggins — top five. I'm not sure how is my my favorite one, but for sure, this is top five. Oh, sorry. There is another one I'd like to mention. [15:51] >> I don't really know if there is English version, but there is a guy in Brazil called David [15:59] >> that he crossed the Atlantic in a rowing boat alone, and he has a lot of other cool stories. And he has a book that he talks about his life and planning that that is called [16:17] >> It's there is no time to waste. [16:23] Great. Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying? [16:32] >> Just one. I I wouldn't wouldn't say automation, really. [16:38] Okay. Number three, what's your favorite online tool for building your business? [16:48] >> I'd say Jira. [16:49] Number Just management. [16:51] How many hours of sleep do you get every night? [16:55] >> Seven. [16:56] And what's your situation, Felipe? Married, single, kids? [17:01] >> Single. [17:02] Okay. And how old are you? 30. 30. Last question. What's something you wish you knew when you were 20? [17:14] >> I wish I I knew that discipline and commitment and consistency goes a lot far than I thought. [17:25] Guys, there you have it. [17:27] >> Faturasimples.com.br — say it for me, Felipe. Go. [17:34] Fatura what? [17:36] >> Fatura Simples. [17:38] He says it so much better than I do. Faturasimples.com.br. They launched back in, call it, 2013 as a venture studio. Eventually realized, wow, this payments gateway they're building for clinics is really taking off. In 2018, they focused full time on that, raised a seed round last year, $250,000 at a million dollar valuation. Sold 20% today, over a 100 customers, they did $6,000,000 in GMV in December. They make about half a percent of that. Doing about $27,000 a month [18:03] in revenue today, up from $14,000 a month just a year ago. Healthy growth rate, 17 people on the team with one engineer as they look to continue to scale. Felipe, thanks for taking us to the top. [18:14] >> Thank you, Nathan. [18:16] 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. 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