Stockholm-based ArK Kapital, a data-driven precision financing company that empowers technology startups to grow faster, announced on Wednesday that it has launched its growth forecasting platform, AIM, to the founder community.
ArK Kapital claims it has utilised AIM to find and follow businesses with steady development and anticipate their future cash positions to make sure they can repay loans the tech lender has given them.
Razor-subscription service Estrid was the most recent recipient of a €10M growth loan based on the AIM forecast.
Everything you need to know about AIM
ArK Kapital issues growth loans up to €10M with repayments not starting until year three and stretched out over seven years in total. The AIM platform was created with the intention that founders will one day have access to the forecasting platform as a stand-alone product and serve as the basis for ArK’s funding decisions.
ArK is predicting that a five-year future financial situation can help entrepreneurs determine whether they can successfully make the transition to profitability.
The AIM platform processes terabytes of data for each client and changes it into a simple, usable platform that is always current with the direction the business is taking. Finding the indicators of future financial strength for not-yet-profitable businesses, regardless of business model (currently B2B, B2C, SAAS, ECOM), is a crucial part of the effort.
AIM provides founders with a quick summary of whether their growth gear is ready to accelerate or whether it will instead lead them into a brick wall, which is a critical challenge.
Henrik Landgren, co-founder of ArK Kapital, says, “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 need to be connected all the way down to the financial modelling. 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.”
Landgren adds, “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.”
Currently, AIM is available to companies in Sweden, DenmarK, Finland, the Netherlands, and the UK, and looks to expand to other key tech regions in Europe. Founders can as of today apply for access on ArKkapital.com.
Changing the growth and funding experience for founders
As more companies onboard AIM, the projections for everyone using the platform will advance. This will result in business owners being better equipped to place their bets precisely, waste fewer resources, discover product market fit earlier, and ultimately boost their chances of being successful.
The company says the platform will be able to scale internationally, giving entrepreneurs access to the finest growth projections and funding proactively through the platform.
Landgren says, “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 AIM and 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.”
About ArK Kapital
ArK Kapital is a data-driven precision finance company that helps startups to grow smarter through long-term loans, maintaining control for founders and reducing risk for investors. Its aim is to break down financial barriers and empower entrepreneurship by building the “best financing solutions” for tech businesses.
Offering an alternative to equity-based funding, ArK focuses on non-dilutive loans to multi-sector European startups ranging from €1M to €10M.
The fintech firm was founded in 2021 by serial entrepreneur Oliver Hildebrandt (CEO), veteran banker Axel Bruzelius (COO), and Spotify’s ex-VP of Analytics and former EQT Ventures partner Henrik Landgren (CPTO).
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