Divani.store boosts R&D and launches new products with growth capital

Challenge

Divani.store, active in Italy, France and more recently, Germany, was facing challenges in finding financing to scale their business and fuel their expansion in new markets. Divani.store found that the cost of advertising to enter markets such as Germany was high, and extra capital was needed to be able to make these investments as well as accelerate growth in existing markets. Moreover, the formalities and red tape of financial institutions often needed endless documentation, and the long disbursement times were affecting their international expansion strategy.

Solution

Divani.store chose Viceversa because of the possibility of getting the funds fast without too much red tape, and because of its RBF model. This model reduces financial pressure during seasons where sales are lower since the amount of repayment is a percentage of the revenues. More sales mean higher repayments, whereas low sales need lower ones.

Thanks to Viceversa’s RBF, we have increased advertising investment in key markets and strengthened new ones, increasing revenue. The additional capital has also allowed us to focus internal resources on strategic objectives such as R&D and manufacturing.

Davis Di PancrazioCEO & Co-Founder

Strategy

Divani.store decided to invest in advertising activities that were critical for them in terms of brand awareness and conversions. Using RBF for advertising campaigns at home and internationally allowed the research and development budget to be unlocked. While they used growth capital for advertising in highly competitive international markets and managing conversions in Italy; they reallocated their internal budgets and resources to product R&D, production activities, and to strengthen the internal marketing team.

With many people purchasing home furnishings like sofas and sofabeds during periods like Black Friday, seasonal sales, or key product initiative months, business tends to be seasonal, and consequently advertising spending sees spikes during these periods. RBF also additionally helped them invest in resources for seasonal advertising and devote other resources to other key areas such as manufacturing.

Results

The investments in R&D led to the addition of new product categories such as beds which many clients were also looking for when buying their sofas to complete their home furnishings. RBF provided the company the financial freedom to invest in the R&D of new product categories and diversify their offerings to their clientele.

It also allowed Divani.store to strengthen their advertising campaigns in key markets since they were able to allocate more resources to the best-performing channels and campaigns. And most importantly fuel growth in new markets, such as Germany, which have very high customer acquisition costs for most online advertising channels. The brand is currently active in the Italian, French and German markets and will shortly enter the Spanish market. Plans also include expansion in the Middle East and the US.

Viceversa in their words

I recommend Viceversa for its ease and speed of accessing funding, the analytics platform, and the customer support. The ability to get funds at the time we need, as well as the platform that tracks KPIs such as ROAS and CAC is helpful. They also have a quick and easy onboarding with a very helpful team.

Davis Di PancrazioCEO & Co-Founder

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