Posted:
November 30, 2022

Gilion launch forecasting platform giving founders control of their growth.

Gilion launches AI-driven forecasting platform to the public - allowing founders to see if they can push the pedal and grow - mitigating the risk of layoffs and mastering the shift towards profitability.

STOCKHOLM – 30/11, 2022 – Today, Gilion (formerly known as Ark Kapital) is announcing the public launch of its growth forecasting platform to the founder community. It has been used by Gilion to identify and track companies with durable growth and forecast their future cash position, to ensure they can pay back the loan provided by the tech lender. Gilion issues growth loans up to €10m, repayments not starting until year three and stretched out over seven years total. From the get-go, the platform was designed to create the foundation for Gilion's funding decisions (razor-subscription service Estrid being the latest to receive a€10m growth loan on the basis of the forecast) and with the intent that founders one day will getaccess to the forecasting platform as a stand-alone product. Now, that day is here, the AI-driven forecasting platform, becoming available to companies in Sweden, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands and the UK, and will expand quickly to include key tech regions in Europe. Founders can as of today apply for access on gilion.com.

“Due to my background - AIM has been a highly sought-after tool for VCs, and we’ve let a few of our closest VC friends invite some of their portfolio companies in the beta version. But today is the day we feel ready to release it widely to the founder community” says Henrik Landgren, co-founder and CPTO of Ark Kapital.

Developed by the most experienced growth analytics team in Sweden

Co-founder and CPTO Henrik Landgren was the O.G VP of analytics at Spotify, also developed EQT’s Motherbrain from scratch as a founding partner - which abilities have been widely known in VC circles.When Landgren left EQT to start Gilion, Motherbrain was tracking over 20 million tech companies and their growth trajectories globally - and was trained to identify hidden dark horses in the market before competing VCs. Since launch, Landgren has assembled an experienced tech and analytics team fromEQT, Spotify, Klarna, Tink, Anyfin and Instabox to build the first forecasting platform running on the complete data set related to costs, revenues and user behavior.

The team and ambition are backed by no less than 7 unicorn founders as angel investors - Hjalmar Winbladh of Epidemic sound and founding partner of EQT Ventures, Jacob De Geer of IZettle, TimoSoininen of Small Giant Games, Ilka Paananen of Supercell, Sebastian Knutsson of King, Riccardo Zacconi of King and Steve Anavi of Qonto.

“Henrik is one of the most prominent people in his field. He was the man that transformed Spotify into a data-driven organization and was integral in EQT Ventures reaching a top spot in Europe. His ability to link analytics to business outcomes are proven to make winners out of founders” – Hjalmar Winbladh, Gilion Chairman of the board.

“This is a new era, where founders need to change gears from growth at all costs to a growth control mindset. Mastering durable growth with a continuous clear track of the underlying profitability is what will get rewarded at the end of all of this.”, Henrik Landgren, Gilion CPTO

Forecasting a 5-year future cash position - so founders know if they can master the shift towards profitability.

The platform processes terabytes of data per customer and condenses it into an easy-to-use, actionable platform, constantly being up to date of where the company is heading. A key component of the work has been identifying the core signals that indicate future financial strength for not-yet profitable companies - no matter the business model (currently B2B,B2C,SAAS, ECOM). These signals are found not just in the teams responsible for growing the user base - but in the CFO’s systems signaling if the growth can carry the cost of the whole operation. AIM solves a key problem for founders in these trying times, to get a simple overview if their growth machinery is fit to accelerate or if it will in fact trick them into a wall.

“It’s common for teams and founders not to draw product, growth and user behaviour analytics all the way down to actual money on the bank. But metrics needs to be connected all the way down to the financial modeling. Only then can you know if your customer acquisition cost is any good - by answering the question can the engine carry the car and how long will it take me. This is how you mitigate hitting a wall and being forced to layoffs”, continues Landgren.

The first step towards changing the growth and funding experience for founders

“It’s overly painful to grow a tech company as a founder, both in terms of raising capital and to get a hang of if what you’re doing is working. We are building for a future where founders can easily plug into AIMand track if they have an underlying money making machine before they are profitable - and see exactly if it is strong enough to go the distance. The result will be that more companies stand a chance of winning, especially when they’re going up against tech incumbents that have all this in place.” - Henrik Landgren

As more companies onboard, the forecasts will become more sophisticated for everyone on the platform. Resulting in entrepreneurs being able to make their bets with surgical precision, waste less resources, find product market fit sooner and all in all increase their chances to make it big. As growth analytics is a global language, the platform will be able to scale globally - allowing founders in all corners of the world access to best in class growth forecasting and access to funding proactively through the platform. Founder can as off today sign up for access at gilion.com

About Gilion

Gilion changes the growth experience for founders – through providing access to groundbreaking scaleup loans the frontier of growth forecasting. Gilion is now live in Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Germany. Gilion was founded in 2021 by serial entrepreneur Oliver Hildebrandt, veteran banker Axel Bruzelius, Spotify's former VP of Analytics and former EQT Ventures founding Partner  Henrik Landgren.

For questions:

Fredrik Westin, Head of Communications
fredrik.westin@gilion.com
+46 73 543 51 08

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