Britek
Yuri Furber was a serial entrepreneur with two decades of experience in financial software. In 2009, he sold his first company—a custodian-focused financial software business—for $25 million. Rather than retire, he immediately spotted another gap in the market: investment management was still too complicated and too slow for the ecosystem of asset managers, broker dealers, family offices, and wealth managers who needed better tools.
In 2012, Furber founded Britek with a clear mission: to simplify and accelerate investment management. He funded the company with $1 million of his own capital from his previous exit and spent two years building the first product before going to market in 2014. The company operated lean during this period, staying bootstrapped while perfecting the platform's modular architecture that would allow customers to pay based on usage and modules consumed.
When Britek launched in 2014, Furber focused on Brazil, Mexico, and Chile—markets with established financial sectors. He built a lean sales organization with a team of "hunters" in Brazil (about six people dedicated to new business acquisition) and resellers in the other markets. The go-to-market strategy was 80% direct sales team and 20% marketing (Google AdWords, social networks, LinkedIn). Within a year, he had acquired 150 customers paying an average of $3,000 per month.
The most surprising metric was retention: Britek achieved less than 1% gross revenue churn per year, with an additional 10% expansion revenue from existing customers—resulting in 109% net revenue retention. Customer acquisition cost was $6,000 (fully loaded), with a 7-month payback period. This meant Britek was willing to spend $21,000 to acquire a $3,000/month customer because the economics were so strong. In 2015, Furber raised $4 million to scale, though he deliberately avoided Brazilian venture debt, which he noted was charging 30-35% interest rates—"impossible" and "stealing" by his assessment.
By 2018-2019, Britek was doing approximately $450,000 per month in revenue ($5.4M ARR), doubling year-over-year with a team of 20 people spread across Sao Paulo, Mexico, and Chile. Furber planned to raise another $6 million at a 6x ARR valuation (roughly $32M pre-money) to fund acquisitions and expand the sales and marketing teams to sustain 100% year-over-year growth for the next 3-5 years.
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