After years of pulling ourselves up by the bootstraps, the time was right for a little “push”.
We’re thrilled to announce that Stacked Marketer has raised €250k at €3M pre-money valuation in a first-ever funding stage for the company.
The money raised will be used to grow Stacked Marketer’s media ecosystem on all fronts including content, brand awareness, and tech over the next 12 months.
And what about the investors? Some of the earliest investors are from our Crew, followed by a brilliant group of entrepreneurs who understand the heartbeat of the online business.
It’s also important to note that the full investment stays in the company, and nobody is taking chips off the table. We’ve increased our active subscribers, revenue, and newsletter portfolio year-over-year for over half a decade. And we’re focused on building a profitable business that continues to grow.
Now let’s dive into some of the most common questions we got during the process.
Why did we opt for the funding route now?
We could continue growing at a pace limited by our own cash flow and follow our roadmap for the next 3-5 years. Or we could raise money to get there within 1-2 years.
This allows us to be faster, more predictable with developments, and also have a buffer for when opportunities arise—a newsletter acquisition for example.
Why didn’t we raise debt?
It’s not that easy to raise debt at our size, at least as a European company. More importantly, we would lose the opportunity for the aforementioned “buffer.”
How did we reach the €3M valuation?
We took into account similar businesses, growth rate over the years, and our roadmap, and it also had to be a valuation where we’d be comfortable with the dilution.
Some said it’s a low valuation, some said it’s fair, some said it’s high.
Considering we got all those answers, and that we had more interest after closing the full round—we think it was a relatively fair valuation.
What we didn’t do: Count subscribers and put a price per subscriber. We do not think that’s the correct way to value newsletter businesses, no matter how much people discuss it that way on social and in groups.
What’s the long-term outlook?
Growth, growth, and more growth.
We won’t turn Stacked Marketer into an overnight unicorn, and we aren’t planning on doing a ‘go big or die’ approach.
So we were looking for investors who are on board with that approach.
And luckily, we got them. With the likes of Mario Peshev, Sarah Letowski, Paul Metcalfe, and the management team of Thomas Tiroch (CFO), Simone Verde (COO), and Emanuel Cinca (CEO) all being a part of our investors pool.
The fact that we didn’t provide a standard 3-year plan to sell the business was actually a reason some decided against investing.
It’s not that we’re completely against a partial or full exit, but we are not actively looking to sell. As mentioned, we’re looking to continue our expansion, but at a more accelerated pace.
To close it off, we’re excited to keep delivering high-quality, entertaining, actionable, and informational media products from the ever-changing marketing trenches.
Here’s to another exciting year!
