Venly Revenue, Valuation & Funding (2024)

[00:00] Hey, folks. My guest today is Gerbert von Don Bettehay. After finishing his master's, he started his career as a business analyst and project manager working on IT projects. When Ethereum launched, he was convinced about the possibilities of the technology to disrupt old models and create new businesses. So he started his own business with some colleagues around this new technology. He's now building venly.io to help make the blockchain more user friendly. Gerbert, you ready to take us [00:22] to the top? [00:23] >> Yeah. Sure. Alright. [00:25] Tell me who you're selling this to and how you guys make money. What's the revenue model? [00:30] >> So we're basically a SaaS company, so building applications on top of blockchain is pretty difficult. It's a very difficult technology, and making user friendly applications on top of blockchain is even more difficult. So we actually make it more easy for development studios, games, for example, to build user friendly games on top of blockchain without any knowledge of blockchain. [00:57] Interesting. And what are companies paying on average per month to use your technology? [01:02] >> It depends. We have multiple product slides. So we have web wallets. We have an NFT API to mint NFTs. We have an NFT marketplace place and a Shopify plugin to create NFTs, and they all follow a different pricing model. So based on the products that they choose to use, they have different pricing. [01:23] Well, which one is the the thing that's close to a SaaS product? [01:28] >> Well, they are all with a monthly billing. For example, the wallets, we have a widget version where people actually create a venly wallet using social logins. It starts with a free tier, so it's very easy to use for software developers to get started. If they're successful, very successful. And up to five hundred monthly active users, it's free to use, and then it starts at $49 a month. [01:51] I see. How many paying customers do you have today across all of your product lines? [01:56] >> We have about 50 paying cost customers. [01:58] Five zero? [02:00] >> Yes. [02:00] Nice. Take me back to the first customer. Who was it, and do you remember how you got them? [02:06] >> Yes. The first customer was a gaming studio from Cyprus, and I had a call with the CEO, and he was immediately sold by the product. So for gaming studios, easy customer onboarding is very important, so they wanna focus on gameplay. So after ten minutes of of talking to him, he said, yes. We're gonna take it. [02:29] Very cool. Okay. So that was your first customer. Now what year was that? [02:35] >> That was 2018. [02:36] 2018. You've now since grown. So help me understand. Have you bootstrapped the business, or did you decide to raise capital? [02:44] >> We closed our seed round in April this year. [02:47] Okay. And how much did you raise? [02:50] >> About €2,000,000. So it will be about $2,400,000. [02:55] Mhmm. And why did you need this capital? [03:00] >> To grow, to scale the team, [03:02] to Well, what specifically, though? [03:05] >> Well, the product was already live. We wanted to build out the product a bit, so we need to scale a little bit the product team, but mainly to build out a sales team. [03:14] Mhmm. Okay. But and so how many people on the team today, and how many are sales? [03:20] >> So we were four people in April when we closed the seed round. Now we are 14 people. Mainly, the marketing team has been scaled, and the development team, we are still looking for good business developers. [03:33] How many people on the engineering team? [03:37] >> Six. [03:38] Six. Okay. Pretty good. Yes. And then and then the rest are sort of marketing, sales, management? [03:45] >> Yeah. Indeed. Yes. Mainly marketing and management, and and we we are looking actively looking for good business developers. [03:53] I see. Now when you raise the 2,400,000 seed, obviously, most people in their seed, they're selling 15 to 20% of the business. How much did you decide to sell in your seed round? [04:02] >> It will be similar to that. Yes. [04:05] Okay. About 20%? [04:06] >> Yes. [04:07] Okay. So you guys what? You raised it, like, a $10,000,000 to $11,000,000 valuation, something like that? [04:14] >> The post money valuation was $7,000,000. [04:18] 7,000,000? Yes. [04:19] >> Mhmm. 7,000,000. [04:20] Okay. Very cool. So so you sold about you sold more than you sold about twenty five twenty five, almost 30% of the business. [04:27] >> 12 yeah. 25, 26, maybe. Something like that. [04:31] Do you tell me about the partners you chose to raise from. [04:36] >> So we have High-Tech Gruenderfonds, which is a very large German investor. So they have very good connections. The they took the lead, and Frank really believed in the company from the first time he met Tim, our CEO, and he helped us close the seed rounds. Then we have TheoHA Capital. It's a very new Belgian blockchain VC, but they are well connected in the blockchain space. There is Block Rocket, which is accelerator in Germany around blockchain technology. [05:12] >> Then there's imec. Imec is one of the top incubators. So they already invested earlier before the seed, and they did a follow-on investment during the seed. And then there's an angel investor as well who trained the seed. [05:30] So you brought on a lot of folks. That sounds like a good group of people. What was revenue when you guys raised the capital? Do you remember? [05:36] >> I think it's it was around 5 k MRR. [05:41] 5,000 a month? [05:42] >> 6 k. Yeah. Yep. [05:43] And what what will you be at by the end of this year, do you think? [05:48] >> Currently, we have just about 40, so we'll hope to end the year around 50 to 60 k. [05:55] So you're you're at 14,000 right now? [05:58] >> 40. Four zero. [06:00] Four zero. Oh, that's in that's a ton of growth. So you went from 5,000 a month eight months ago to 40,000 a month now today. Is that right? [06:07] >> Yes. Correct. And we grow b to c, we grew from around 100,000 users to 500,000. [06:15] Visitors? [06:17] >> B to c users, yes, who use our web a lot. [06:21] Interesting. Okay. So that's driving a lot of the growth of the recurring revenue? [06:26] >> Not really because we only monetize b to b. [06:29] I see. How are people finding you? [06:33] >> So we we have customers like, for example, The Sandbox. It's the largest blockchain gaming studio that creates a metaverse, and they use our social logins to onboard new people to their application. So people logging in through The Sandbox, through their social logins, they create a venly account. So they sign up through through actually our customers, and they can use the same wallet to sign up through or to to play multiple games from multiple customers. So it's [07:01] >> one account that that they can use over multiple blockchain games. [07:04] Mhmm. But you mentioned you have 50 customers right now. So they must pay, like, 800 or to a thousand dollars a month on average. Right? [07:12] >> Yes. Something like that. [07:14] Interesting. And what enables you to charge them more or less? What are you upselling? [07:21] >> So the more users they have, the higher the price goes, and then we can upsell multiple services. For example, if they just use the web wallets, we can start upselling the NFT management solution, for example, or the NFT analytics. [07:38] Very interesting. And did you guys decide do you have any co founders, or did you launch it by yourself, 100%? [07:44] >> No. We are with four founders. Four? So we yes. [07:49] Did you split it evenly? [07:52] >> Yes. So we started it all together. We were actually all IT consultants on one certain IT company, and then Ethereum we launched, and we all believed in Ethereum and decided to to start a company together. [08:04] Wow. What a story. Okay. So 25%. Do you regret that? Do you regret splitting it evenly? [08:11] >> No. I think it's the best, and it's fair, and everybody is equally involved in the the project and the business. So it was a good decision. [08:19] Mhmm. Mhmm. Very cool. Alright. Let's wrap up here with the famous five, Gerbert. Number one, what's your favorite book? [08:26] >> Lord of the Rings. [08:28] Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying? [08:34] >> No. Not really. [08:35] Number [08:35] >> three I've learned a lot of doing. [08:38] Well, that's good. What's your favorite online tool for building venly? [08:44] >> HubSpot. [08:46] Number four. How many hours of sleep do you eat every night? [08:50] >> Seven. [08:51] Okay. That's pretty good. And what's your situation? Married, single, kids? [08:57] >> Kids. Yes. Living together. [08:59] Very cool. Okay. How many kiddos? [09:04] >> 86. [09:07] You you have 86 kids? [09:10] >> No. I I thought you said kilos. Sorry. No. I have two kids, and my wife also has a daughter. So we do I see. [09:17] See. Sorry. I should have been I shouldn't have said kids. I'm like, wait. What? 86 kids. Holy cow. Okay. You you have two kids. [09:23] >> That would be incredible. Yeah. I have two, and my wife also has a daughter. So we have three kids in total. [09:29] I see. Okay. And how old are you? [09:32] >> I have to count. I'm 42. 40? 43. Yes. [09:38] 42. Happy early birthday. Last question, Gerbert. What is something you wish you knew when you were 20? [09:47] >> That it would be so much fun to build out a a company with good cofounders. [09:53] Guys, there you have it. Venly, building a tool to help make blockchain more accessible. They went from 5,000 a month in revenue now to 40,000 a month in revenue over the past eight months. They raised their seed round just recently, raising 2,400,000 at a 7,000,000 valuation. 50 customers, 14 on the team, and six engineers, and Gerbert is hiring. He wants more engineers. So reach out. In the meantime, Gerbert, thanks for taking us to the top. [10:16] >> Yeah. Thanks a lot. And we're also hiring business developers, so they're also very welcome to join us. [10:22] Guys, check it out at venly.io. Thanks, Gerbert. [10:26] >> Thanks a lot. Enjoy the evening. [10:29] 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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In the meantime, I'm hanging out with you here on YouTube. I'll be in the comments for the next thirty minutes. Feel free to let me know what you thought about this episode and if you enjoyed it, click the thumbs up. We get a lot of haters that are mad at how aggressive I am on these shows, but I do it so that we can all learn. We have to counter those people. We [11:58] got to push them away. Click the thumbs up below to counter them and know that I appreciate your guys'support. Alright, I'll be in the comments. See you.