Bootstrapping from London to $10 Million: Alexandre Wentzo, CEO of Casewise (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: How do you charge? What’s the business model?

Alexandre Wentzo: It’s per user. Roughly, we sell at an average of $250,000.

Sramana Mitra: So it’s large enterprise selling kind of business?

Alexandre Wentzo: That’s correct. Things have changed because 10 years ago, we used to sell a few licenses. It would be 5 to 10 users. Now, we have this social layer in our platform. We still have 10 to 20 that are using our product but the information is consumed thousands of users. We sell now by server license.

Sramana Mitra: What countries do you operate in now?

Alexandre Wentzo: We operate in the US, England, France, and Canada. We opened in Canada last year starting with Montreal.

Sramana Mitra: Where is the bulk of your revenue coming from?

Alexandre Wentzo: US.

Sramana Mitra: You mentioned that your company is self-financed. Talk to me a little bit about that. Why have you chosen to do it as a self-financed company and not raise financing? Is that part of the philosophy of the founders or yourself?

Alexandre Wentzo: Today, there are five shareholders in the business. We don’t want to get diluted. In the US, customers usually pay around 30 to 40 days after invoicing. In Russia, it takes 220 days. In Italy, it takes 120 days. There are benefits of being so spread. We charge a recurring fee, which is maintenance fee. Customers pay 20% of the license fee every year to get upgrades. Now, I’ve got a very strong recurring income through more than 350 customers.

Sramana Mitra: You really don’t need cash flow very much. You have it under control. You’re basically able to grow organically.

Alexandre Wentzo: That’s correct. Last year and three years ago, we won government grants on innovation. These are grants of around $400,000 that helped us in growing the business.

This segment is part 4 in the series : Bootstrapping from London to $10 Million: Alexandre Wentzo, CEO of Casewise
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