Levenue acquires Cake and secures €8m in Series A from Truffle Capital

By Gloria Methri

Levenue, the European revenue-based financing marketplace has announced its €8 million in Series A funding in a round led by Truffle Capital, with participation from Freshmen Fund.

Levenue is redefining how subscription-based companies are financed. Instead of offering capital in return for shares that dilutes founders’ control of their business, subscription-based companies can use the forecasted cash flow of their existing subscriptions as collateral for financing.

Further benefits to company founders include the speed of financing. It takes just 48 hours to assess companies for funding, with funds typically received within three days of being launched onto the revenue-based financing marketplace. Underwriting decisions are also based exclusively on qualitative data – such as revenue growth and accounting data – eliminating any potential bias in the financial assessment.

To enhance the underwriting process, Levenue has acquired Cake, a company known for its open banking and data enrichment technology. By enriching every line of a company’s banking data, with the goal of building a reality-based replica of its P&L, Levenue will be able to create more accurate risk profiles and offer faster financing decisions.

The funding round was led by Truffle Capital, who will offer its deep FinTech expertise and network to support Levenue as it scales its operations across the European Union, including launching in France in Q1 2024, and as it strengthens its product development.

Benjamin Rieder, CEO & Co-Founder at Levenue said, “We have established Levenue as a platform where entrepreneurs and investors can connect, fostering the growth of innovative subscription-based businesses. Having facilitated over 300 million EUR in financing in just two years, we have proven that there is a significant demand for such a marketplace on both sides. The acquisition of Cake was driven by our continuous commitment to enhancing our offerings and improving transparency for our users.”

Patrick lord, Senior Partner of the Truffle Capital Fintech practice said, “Founders of subscription-based SMEs need new solutions to fuel their growth. The complexity, founder distraction, and sheer time and effort needed to finance companies via traditional means can harm the business, and sometimes kill it.  We believe strongly in Levenue’s mission to make it as simple, transparent, and fast as possible for founders to leverage their primary value driver, their subscription volumes, to accelerate the growth of their companies in the most agile and painless way possible.”

Davy Kestens, CEO of Cake added, “Both Cake and Levenue’s mission has always been about bringing transparent data solutions to the world. Today, this mission has become much bigger than either of us had ever imagined when we initially started this journey. Challenging the way companies get financed, analysed, and valued is a goal both of our teams are excited to rethink and rebuild.”