Becoming Germany's go-to investment platform with Finanzen.net

Speaker A: Hello, and welcome to Inflection Point, the podcast that explores those crucial moments in a company's journey that change the trajectory of success. Through conversations with business founders and entrepreneurs, we'll explore what those moments look like and how to recognize and harness them. I'm Tim Smallbone, and in my 20 years as a partner at Inflection, I've been lucky enough to witness a huge number of those moments that are a part of every success story. In today's episode, we're heading to Germany, a country where one in five people invest in the stock market. For a population of 84 million and one of the largest economies in the world, that's a striking number. But it is changing fast, and no business sits close to that shift than finance 25 years.

Speaker B: We designed the product because we have in mind what somebody that uses the product wants it to be. And this always was our main focus and everything else came second.

Speaker C: Financing did jump out because of this rare combination of the portal and the investment platform. And that was, from our perspective, quite unique.

Speaker A: As Germany's number one financial, media and investing platform, Finland and net attracts 6 million monthly users and helps everyday investors research and manage their portfolios. In 2025, Inflection partnered with the founders to carve the business out of media conglomerate Axel Springer, giving it independence and the capital to pursue an ambitious vision to become the leading investment and savings platform in the dark region. To tell that story, I'm joined down the line from Germany by Jens Orr, co founder of Phoenix and Net, who's been with the business from the very beginning. And with me in the studio is Andrea Bertolini, partner and head of financial services at Inflection, who led the investment and who on the board. Jens. Andrea, welcome to you both. Thanks for joining me.

Speaker C: Thank you, Tim.

Speaker B: Thank you for having us.

Speaker A: Jens, could we just start off, Just give us an idea. What's the business we're talking about? What does finansenet do today?

Speaker B: Financenet. Uh, I always explain it to people as the Bloomberg for the end user, that is also free. So that means if you come to our website, you will find every information regarding investment, ah, and quotes, uh, on the stock market. So whether it is securities, funds, ETFs, uh, commodities, we have everything. We got you covered, uh, with everything you need to know if you want to invest.

Speaker A: So, uh, it's an information portal. You come to Finizendet for information to help you with your judgments.

Speaker B: That's the first. A lot of people already know the brand or they come through Google because they are looking for information for their investments. And the second step is that you are also able to do a real investment on the website. So if you, let's say, are attracted to the Amazon stock and you want to buy it, then that's not a problem. You can do it right away on our website.

Speaker A: And there are three businesses, so there's Finas and Net, Xero and Traderfox. What's difference between the three?

Speaker B: Just so I understand, financenet is the information website, Xero is the broadridge where you buy the stocks, and Traderfox is where our experts are sitting and uh, give you perfect advice, uh, regarding your investment strategies.

Speaker A: Ah, uh, so that's where you pay to get some advice specifically.

Speaker B: Exactly.

Speaker A: I got it. So you founded the business, but going back to 1999, that's true, yeah.

Speaker B: I didn't do it alone. I had two co founders, um, Peter and Dominic. And we have been students in the University of Karlsruhe, uh, and we were stock market enthusiasts because around 1999 there was the Internet bubble and we were totally hooked with investing into stocks. And all the information was quite expensive back in the day. So it was not like today where everything was free and available in real time. And if you wanted to have better quality, you had to pay a lot of money, which we obviously didn't have. So uh, this was the beginning because we said, okay, if we want to do proper investment, we need better data, better information. And uh, if we do this for us, we could also do it for other people. And this was the idea behind uh, our project because back in the day we didn't plan to, uh, do a real company, it was just started out of a hobby because, um, we were so much into this topic. And um, yeah, we just, we liked what we do. It was, as I said, like a hobby in the beginning.

Speaker A: So it was part of that crazy time where Internet businesses were popping up all over the place. When the Internet was new.

Speaker B: Exactly.

Speaker A: And your vision was to provide a free platform. How did you think you were going to make money out of that?

Speaker B: I mean there have been some businesses that made a lot of money out of advertisement. And so this was our first goal. But honestly, in the beginning we were not so much thinking about how could we make money out of it, because as I said, it was a hobby. Uh, and after a few weeks to tell this little side story, uh, after a few weeks of being live with the website, uh, one small German bank called us and said, hey guys, can we put advertising on your website? Uh, and we would also be Willing to pay you. And uh, then we said, okay, that sounds good.

Speaker A: That must have been an exciting call to take.

Speaker B: Exactly, yeah.

Speaker A: And how did you attract the users? Back in the day there was no such thing as pay per click. And this is presumably even before Google.

Speaker B: Yeah, this was before Google. At least before Google was famous, uh, in Germany. Uh, but there have been other platforms, other search engines, other blog posts. And honestly there was not a lot of competition back in the day. So word of mouth was our big friend. Um, after we launched, people that were also into the stock market, they talked to each other. And after a few, uh, weeks we started to get traction with the traffic. And um, as I said, it was not the time of real time data back in the day. So we only got the traffic data from the day at one o' clock in the morning on the next day. So that is the reason why we always went to bed after we got this traffic information, because we wanted to see did we attract more people today than yesterday?

Speaker A: So you were waiting until one in the morning, how many people did we have today? And presumably when broadband came along, that must have been a help because even I can remember dial up and all the pains of getting those early, those early websites to load.

Speaker B: Exactly. We all remember these strange sounds that these modems did back in the day. Exactly. And of course, I mean, um, what it did is it gave a lot of more people access to the Internet and everything was more fun. There was no wait times. And speaking of wait times, this was always a big challenge for us because we provided a lot of data on the website and a lot of real time data. And this was one of the biggest challenge is how could we update all the data in real time? Because usually websites back in the day, they were updated like every hour, every, I don't know, a few minutes or perhaps even once a day. Uh, but in our field it was really necessary to update data, uh, in real time, which meant several times per second even because the quotes changed. And this was the first, I don't know if we can call it an inflection point. But this challenge that we had to solve became very important at a later stage because this really differentiated us from the competition. We were one of the first, if not the only company that uh, provided all of the quotes that we got in real time out to our users.

Speaker A: Ah, uh, so you had to link up with stock exchange, presumably to get that automatic upload of the latest data, of the latest prices.

Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.

Speaker A: Uh, so that was an inflection point. And how did you manage that because you were a bunch of students? How did you manage to persuade them to do that?

Speaker B: When we managed this, we were not still a bunch of students. This is some time down the road, but uh, I mean like in every successful business it's crucial to attract good people. And of course back in the day we were very lucky to have very good IT people. And uh, we told him, guys, we somehow need to figure out whatever it takes to deploy all of the quotes we have in real time. And self refreshing. This was also. Today it's a normal feature, self refreshing data on the website. But back in the day you had to refresh the.

Speaker A: Refresh the page.

Speaker B: Exactly, yeah. And we were the first ones in Germany to offer self refreshing quotes. And this had been a very big challenge and it took us quite a time to develop it but in the end we managed to do it and this gave us quite an edge in comparison to the competition.

Speaker A: Were you copying other models in the United States for example? Because often the United States is the leader in these things or were you just making it up yourselves?

Speaker B: I would say also probably like most of the successful companies, it's a mixture of both. Of course you look around and see what other people do and this sometimes gets you inspired and you get own ideas and improve. But of course there's a lot of own idea in the product. But also uh, of course we tracked what do other people in other countries

Speaker A: do and somewhere along the line you became partnered up with Axel Springer. How did that all come about?

Speaker B: Yeah, that's quite a funny story because this was still back in the day when Peter and myself were students and we lived together in a flat near the university. And there was one big news headline, I think it was 1999, where the domain name business.com was uh, bought for 10 million. And we said, oh my God, that's easy. You only have to register a domain name and then sell it for 10 million. That's the easiest way to get rich. So on that day we just registered like 100 domain names, everything that came to our mind. And uh, then we waited if somebody would call us and give us 10 million. Uh, that obviously didn't happen. But uh, sometime Axel Springer called and said, hey guys, you have this certain domain name, it's the name of our new magazine that we are going to launch. Can we talk about having this domain name? And so this was a coincidence? Of course, A piece of luck, yes, for probably both of us. But uh, yeah, this is how we got uh, in contact with Axelspringer because from that point on, we said, okay, we can sell it to you, but could you contract us with making the website for you? And for that reason, it was win win. They got their, uh, domain name and we got another, um, contract that's like

Speaker A: white labeling a technology. So it looked like an actual Springer page, but actually was using your technology.

Speaker B: Exactly.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: So this, let's call it B2B business, we sold this, uh, 10 years ago. Uh, but in the beginning, this was like our second big part of the company. Because after 1999, when the Internet bubble bursted, advertising was not as good of a model before the bursting of the bottle. So we said, okay, what can we do? Okay, let's license out our technology to other companies. And this enabled us to go through this very hard time after the burst of the bottle.

Speaker A: Right, you had an extra string to your bow, an extra business line to lean on.

Speaker B: Exactly, yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: So how did they end up actually owning the business?

Speaker B: This was all. I mean, they. After we did our first project, they looked at the company and said, uh, you know what, guys? We just started an Internet fund within Axelspringer because this was the time when a lot of media companies thought about their own future. Because Internet, you know, endangered the future of media business model. Yeah, exactly. And for that they started, uh, I think 200 million euro fund or whatever. And, uh, they said, guys, what you are doing seems promising. Uh, why don't you want to be part of Axel Springer and why don't you. Don't we join forces? So they were of very big help because they had a very big reach in Germany. They still have it.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: And so they could provide us with a lot of traffic and a lot of experience, how to make a website big. And for that reason, it made a lot of sense for us as well. So we got some very experienced new shareholders and they got some very motivated Internet guys.

Speaker A: So that was a partnership that really worked for both of you?

Speaker B: I would say so, yes.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And that, that gave you credibility as well, presumably because you had them as an additional stakeholder in the business and so.

Speaker B: Exactly. Yeah.

Speaker A: Suddenly you had credibility as well as financial muscle.

Speaker B: Yeah, I remember that one of the biggest German banks wanted to become our client. But, um, before Axel Springer took a part of the company, the guy that we were talking to, he was not allowed to make a contract with this little company in Karlsruhe. But after Axel Springer was one of the shareholders, we got the green light and, uh, this very big German bank became our client.

Speaker A: So what uh, led you on, then you created these trading platforms alongside. Was that your idea? You started with the information portal. Was that Axel Sprenger's idea? Was that your idea?

Speaker B: It was our idea. But uh, it took quite some time because after 2000 there have been other portals already, uh, also been established in Germany and we were the very small one. So our first challenge was how could we become the market leader in Germany. And then it took us roughly eight years to really become the market leader in Germany. And the next step was we wanted to expand into other countries, first of all Switzerland and Austria, and also become the market leader there. And after we have achieved this we thought, okay, what could be the next step, uh, what could we do to further grow the business? And I think it was a very easy decision because we already had a lot of people uh, on the website, uh, and they always had to open up two browser windows because in one they had financen and then the other one there was a brokerage account of their bank and they always had to copy and paste the ISINs or the IDs of the securities. Uh, and a lot of them asked us, hey guys, I uh, really love your website but um, why can't I trade on your website?

Speaker A: So the business is growing. Andrea, what led us to look at a business with this sort of structure, an information portal?

Speaker C: So let me take a step back before getting into what attracted us to finance because that is a sector where we wanted to invest and then we assessed where in Europe, uh, we wanted to focus on. And Germany was very much high, uh, in our level of interest, in our agenda. Why, uh, exactly for what you said at the very beginning, it's really less than 20% of people have any share ownership, which is very low for a western developed country and for a nation

Speaker A: with a big culture of saving.

Speaker C: Indeed. So the is probably the largest saving market in uh, in Europe. And I was actually quite interested when I saw that share ownership was lower, uh, in Germany than in Italy, you know, which is also quite of a market that is very much cash based or used to be cash based or savings based economy. So when we looked at Germany we identified a number of potential, uh, interesting opportunities. Uh, but the reality is financing did jump out because of this rare combination of the portal and the investment platform. That was unusual and that was from our perspective quite unique because there are other firms that do have it. There are other firms outside of Germany that have successfully executed such a strategy where they've been able to convert a lot of the customers from the portal. Into the trading platform. And that is the opportunity that we saw.

Speaker A: Axel Spring had made the decision to divest of the business. Jens, why was that? What led them to make that decision?

Speaker B: The main business of Financenet after having sold the B2B business obviously was the media portal. And over time the brokerage part grew dramatically and got more important. And for that reason we said, okay, it might make sense to find a partner that is more into the topic of the brokerage and could help us grow faster and uh, get to the next level in the brokerage business. Because it was obvious that this would be the future of the financing group

Speaker A: and this was a carve out. You weren't um, put off by that? A carve out being the business doesn't entirely at the moment stand alone, so we had to build some structures around it. That didn't put you off?

Speaker C: No. In a carve out there needs to be a lot of discipline. So we need to really be careful on how to best assess it both around the timing and the cost of it. But if you've done it a few times and if you have a full alignment with the management team, ultimately is around having the right planning. And that's what we ensure that we did even before signing. So we spent a lot of time with Jens, with Peter, with Max, who is now the cfo to really plan for this so that by the time we signed, literally 48 hours later, we were really starting.

Speaker A: We knew how we were going to

Speaker C: get the business down.

Speaker A: On his own feet. Yeah.

Speaker C: So yes, it can be, uh, uh, it's definitely a challenge to carve out, uh, but it's something that if well managed, can actually deliver quite a lot of value.

Speaker A: I can see from the investor point of view the attraction the business is growing, these macro drivers. What was the attraction for you, Jens? In partnering up with us?

Speaker B: We were not only looking for money, we were mainly looking for a partner. And for that reason it was very important to us as the founder and the management team that it would be clicking. In Germany, we say it clicked, uh, perhaps as well in English with the new partner. And obviously there was a lot of interest in the company, but inflection from day one stood out when it came to speaking the same language. They have the same attitude. They are available 24 7. They know the business because a lot of private equity funds that we were talking to, uh, also of course extremely smart people, but not that deep knowledge in the field that we were looking for. Because as I said, this was the main reason for us and Axel Springer to look for another partner. We wanted to have somebody that brings experience to the party.

Speaker A: So the test is, how's it been? We did the deal in 2025. I see the financial results and they're racing away. How has it been from your point of view, Andrew?

Speaker C: Fantastic. Uh, to be honest has been really hard work but it's great to see strong results. But in general I think the critical component, uh, uh, in those type of situation, as Jens talked about it, is a strong partnership and ultimately what we are fully aligned on as stakeholders as board, is on the core strategic principles uh, of the business and the investment. And when you can go back always to the core strategic principles, that's where we're always aligned and ultimately we can always work together towards the same vision and the same common goal.

Speaker A: And we're continuing to build all three parts of the business that we talked about before.

Speaker C: Yeah, we are, we are building it as one business. So if you ask me what is the vision and what we hope to be saying in a few years from today is that we build a strong financial intelligence platform which is a little bit clearly what Jens talked about in terms of Bloomberg in a way, but it's really about having everything into one place where you can trade, you have great access to great content and ultimately you're housing the investors into one platform.

Speaker A: And Jens, the continued growth of users, are we doing anything else to advertise for that or is this still. You referred to word of mouth earlier on. What are we doing to attract so many people?

Speaker B: I would say one of the reasons behind it is that the founder team probably still is the biggest user of the product. And since 25 years we designed the product because we have in mind what somebody that uses the product wants it to be. And this always was our main focus, we always wanted else came second. So this might be one of the reasons for the success.

Speaker A: And what's the vision then? From here the business is racing away. Turn to you first of all Andrea, what's the plan? How big can we make it? Are you going to go to other territories? What's the next plan?

Speaker C: So our vision as I mentioned earlier is uh, really about building this financial intelligence platform. Uh, our focus is Germany for the moment. We've been talking with Jens as well about shall we expand into Austria, Austria and Switzerland. I would say the core principle in our mind is first let's nail the German market. Once we actually have done that, then we can consider expansion into other DAC jurisdictions.

Speaker A: And Jens, we referred to making ourselves the central Platform for the dark region. So it's Germany first.

Speaker B: It's Germany first, but very close. Switzerland, uh, and Austria obviously in the future we want to be the home for every German, Swiss and Austrian that invests in the stock market, providing with the best information and given the opportunity to transact his investments and mainly at the best cost that is somehow possible. Because one of the reasons why our brokerage business is so successful is that we managed to offer it for free. That sounds strange but uh, really people that use our brokerage, they don't have to pay for it. Uh, we only live on a very little margin that is the spread when you buy and sell. But this is possible because we have digitalized the whole process together with our banking partner. And for that reason we can live off a very, very little margin and attract a lot of volume, which makes it a very attractive business for us in the end. And also obviously for our users because they won't find a cheaper. And um.

Speaker A: It can't get cheaper than zero.

Speaker B: It can't get cheaper than zero. Exactly.

Speaker A: Yeah. It's a founder of the business. You obviously have a great emotional attachment to it. How was it handing over that control when inflection became involved?

Speaker B: Yeah, as you can imagine it's a very, very critical point for a founder that invested 25 years into a business. Um, because for you as a founder it's not just a business, it's more like a third child because you have invested so much time and emotions. Because as you can also imagine 25 years, it doesn't always go up, it also sometimes goes down. And so this costs a lot uh, of your own power. And for that reason it's very hard to hand over. And in this process for us it was very important to have a good feeling when it came to the people that we had to hand over the company. And trust is a very, very important uh, part of that. And uh, it was also very good to have Inflection by our side because they brought very intelligent people to the board which had very deep knowledge, which had a career in uh, finance and investing and which had a lot of experience that we needed for this upcoming new stage of transforming the business to the next level.

Speaker A: Andrea, how have we been able to make an impact on the business?

Speaker C: Part of the transaction, uh, and part of the interest in the transaction. Clearly Jens, Peter and Dominik decided to take more of a non executive role that required of course to bring on board a new C level. And that's what we did together with Peter and Jens who have been fully involved, uh, in every hire that we have done. Uh, but it's really about bringing a new, uh, CEO to start. Chief product officer, chief, uh, technology officer and so on and so forth. And we have done that, uh, over the course of the last 12 months. And I would say they have started really well, uh, integrating really well within the culture of the company. And when you have such a big level of hires, that's the critical part is ensuring that the company doesn't fall apart, uh, and the culture stays strong. And I would say having a very strong collaboration with Jens Peter and Dominik, that was critical.

Speaker A: Jens, so reflecting on all that, what would you say to a founder who is sitting in your sort of position inside a corporate right now, wondering about a carve out? How would you encourage them to do that? Or would you not?

Speaker B: I definitely would. It just sets free so much energy and potential if you can do your own decisions. And uh, yeah, this is.

Speaker A: You can be unleashed.

Speaker B: You can be unleashed. Exactly.

Speaker A: Jens. It's an amazing story how you created this business right at the start of the Internet bubble as a bunch of students and building it into this powerhouse that touches the lives of millions of people. Jens Andrea, thank you for joining me.

Speaker B: Thank you for having me, Tim.

Speaker C: Thank you, Tim.

Speaker A: That's it for this episode. Remember to subscribe to Inflection Point wherever you get your podcast so you don't miss an episode. And you can listen back to our previous installments as well. Thanks for listening.