#146: This European SaaS Bootstrapper Raised $22M in Growth Equity Without Losing Control - Roy van den Broek

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Roy van den Broek is the founder and CEO of Rentman, a rental business management software platform for event and media production companies. Roy built software for his event equipment rental business in the Netherlands. He had over 100 software customers in Europe before selling his rental equipment company in 2015 to focus on growing his Rentman SaaS company.

Rentman grew slowly and profitably as word of mouth spread in the industry and their product evolved. In 2024, after growing to nearly 100 employees and 200,000 users across 100 countries, Roy raised a $22 million growth equity round from Expedition Capital to derisk the founder's investment and add growth capital to continue expanding.

In this episode, Roy discusses how they managed the painful growth stages as they expanded from one employee to 80 global employees, building a multi-lingual product and business, and why he chose to raise a significant growth equity investment.

Quote from Roy van den Broek, founder and CEO of Rentman

“We had a lot of interest in investing in Rentman after COVID, so we ran a quick process. We ended up with 3 term sheets. You have multiple ways to look at these term sheets. You can look at the numbers and the valuation, which is a big part.

“But what's often overlooked is the other terms. The other terms are as important as the valuation because they really determine the way you work together. I think these terms might even be important or more important than the valuation. You got to understand their game and really figure out if you could get some alignment.

“In essence, you are negotiating the amount of autonomy that you have as a founder. That's basically what we prioritized. Like the board seats and who makes certain decisions, what are the decisions that require a majority vote? And I think we were able to get 100% autonomy on our side.“

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