CakeEquity

Kim Hansen's frustration with equity management came from hard personal experience. While building a company in Portugal, he spent two years trying to give ownership to employees but found the process impossibly complex—there were no tools, no understanding from CFOs about tax implications, and no playbook for issuing options across borders. Meanwhile, he couldn't access investment opportunities he wanted as a first-time investor. The pain was real, and when he looked at what existed in Silicon Valley versus Australia, he realized an entire market was underserved.

CakeEquity started as a blockchain company focused on creating liquidity in private equity, but Hansen quickly pivoted when he saw an immediate market need: cap table management tools didn't exist in Australia, and dozens of companies desperately needed them. The blockchain infrastructure required solving legal and compliance problems first—barriers that eventually made him focus on the core product instead. He launched in 2019, initially raising $500K in a pre-seed round from family, friends, and investors, then $1M in a seed round.

The early days used a service-led, sales-heavy approach targeting the Australian market. Hansen and the team had no competitors locally and built 200 partnerships. They started with a freemium model (free up to 5 stakeholders, then pay-as-you-grow pricing) and began converting users. The pricing averaged around $70 USD per month per paying customer, roughly $100 AUD. By the time they raised their Series A ($3M on a $10M pre-money valuation), they had 20% market share in Australia—proof of concept that winning a region could justify a higher valuation even at lower absolute revenue.

The pivot from sales-led to product-led growth was "a very painful journey" but it worked. By roughly 1.5 years in, product-market fit clicked and the business started accelerating. The freemium funnel proved effective: most features were available free, but deeper functionality required upgrade. The conversion was healthy, turning 3,000 total users into 650 paying customers. The stickiness was remarkable—net dollar retention hit 105%, meaning existing customers paid more over time. CAC was under $1,000 and falling as SEO improved. Partnerships with remote hiring companies (Deel, Oyster) became the most effective growth channel, with referral fees and affiliate arrangements.

In the year leading up to the Series A, Hansen grew MRR from roughly $10K to $70K—a 7x multiplier that validated the growth thesis. The company now has 650 paying customers, 3,000 total users, and a 25-person team (7-8 engineers). They're expanding globally, launching in the US, UK, Singapore, and nine other countries. The vision is clear: "equity should be borderless." As remote work and global hiring accelerate, CakeEquity is positioned to become the operating system for cap table management across borders—solving the exact problem that kept Kim Hansen up at night for two years at his previous company.