Without being 2 years in office, Spreadshirt has swapped its up till now CFO Andreas Schroeteler and replaced him with Tobias Schaugg from DocMorris. At the same time, Spreadshirt has brought in 2 further managers.
You don’t need to be a fortune teller to assume that old as well as new investors are turning up the pressure on the company. In loss ridden 2007, investor Accel had to pump in an extra 2 million euro - to this day not publicly announced.
At about the same time, founder Lukasz Gadowski withdrew from active management and took the role of board chairman. A good read are the exciting details from the 2007 annual report, which can be found in the German language in the electronic Bundesanzeiger (search: “Sprd”).
At the beginning of 2009, Spreadshirt topped up with 10 million euro capital from Accel Partners and Kennet Partners, adding to the already collected 8 million euro (6 million + 2 million) from Accel.
Revenues raised at Spreadshirt from 12.2 million euro in 2006 up to 15.3 million (+25.7%) in 2007. The German business (Germany-Austria-Switzerland) grew to 6.4 million euro in 2007, representing a minimal +1.4%.
Source: Spreadshirt Annual Report 2007 (via ebundesanzeiger)
With a communicated growth of about 40% in the year 2008, the total revenues for 2008 could easily lie at 21 million euro, in other words, far below our expectations from beginning of year which were between 25 to 30 million euro.
One thing can be said for sure: Spreadshirt had perfect timing to bring investors on board in 2006, when they were enjoying growth of almost 80%. Now they are falling far behind their rosy expectations from that time. After the recent changes in the board, one can only speculate when the grace period for CEO Jana Eggers will expire.
Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.
The numbers given are correct, but are only part of our revenues. We have single-entity and group earnings. Under German law, as a private company, we are only required to report the single-entity earnings. This means the numbers you see are only part of our revenues and only part of our growth.
Beyond regulatory requirements, our shareholders -- our founders remain majority shareholders, not our investors -- decide what is disclosed. What they have disclosed is our growth number from last year, the 40% given.
And... to follow in the pen steps of Samuel Clemens: "Rumors of my [impending] death are greatly exaggerated." But thanks for thinking of me. ;-)
Posted by: Jana Eggers | 08/20/2009 at 06:20 AM