No dreamer is ever too small; no dream is ever too big
Any entrepreneur journey should start with an entrepreneurial dream that craves to be fulfilled. A desire to create something to be remembered for, to contribute to the world or to simply dream of a better life.
Whichever your dream as an entrepreneur is, it requires passion, ambition, hard work and commitment in order to make it come true. And sometimes, it also needs funding in order to materialize to its full potential.
Whether you are an entrepreneur or a CEO with a growth mindset, teaming up with an investment fund might be a proper way to make your entrepreneurial dreams come true. That’s why it is very important to know which are the situations where it is good to open discussions with investment funds; also to know what other benefits they might bring as part of the package.
Investment funds are keen on supporting vision and growth, when they come together. Entrepreneurs can turn to an investment fund for some of the following reasons:
- Supporting the organic growth and/or entering new markets or business segments;
- Accelerating growth through acquisitions on the local and international market;
- Acquiring partners in the business – either minority or majority stakes;
- Buying-out a business – in case of internal or external management teams – essentially management of buy-outs or buy-ins types of transactions.
Hereunder are 3 stories of 3 visionaries that managed to turn their entrepreneurial dreams into reality after attracting an investment fund as a partner:
“Quality Medical Services for Everyone” was the entrepreneurial dream that set the foundation stone of the private medical services in Romania.
Wargha Enayati was the dreamer, a man for which the life and health of the people are a true religion.
In 1995 he founded Unirea Medical Center – the first private medical center in Romania; in a time when the public medical sector was the only option available to patients, he created Unirea. As a reminiscence of the communist era, only a few could even comprehend the idea to pay for medical services, at that time. It was for the multinational companies contributing to the change of the medical system and which started to include greater access to private medical services into the benefits packages offered to their employees, that demand was on the rise.
A couple of years later, as the needs for quality medical services alongside the country were increasing faster than the resources available to Dr. Enayati in order to open new centers, he made the decision to attract a financial partner into the company – the investment fund 3i that took a minority position. Together with the new partner, CMU accelerated the organic expansion by opening new centers.
In 2010, the Advent International investment fund acquired the majority stake – while Enayati remained a minority shareholder – and accelerated the development by putting more emphasis on acquisitions. The name of the medical network has been changed to Regina Maria.
Today, under the umbrella of a different shareholder – investment fund Mid Europa Partners – Regina Maria is the largest provider of private medical services in the country, while Dr. Enayati embarked on a new journey in serving the public good – Enayati Medical Center.
Regina Maria has invested over €150m, making 20+ acquisitions and building 20+ greenfield facilities along with a continuous upgrade of the equipment and the premises, in order to make sure that the patients enjoy the highest quality healthcare services and ever-improving user experience, as well.
“We make software robots, so people don’t have to be robots” – the Cinderella story of UiPath.
UiPath founder, Daniel Dines, had a vision of delivering ”a robot for every person”, an ambitious entrepreneurial dream where companies enable every employee to use, create, and benefit from the transformative power of automation, to liberate the boundless potential of people.
If you are not familiar with the development story of UiPath and can only see the top of the aisberg, well, it’s important to know that the company started in a small apartment in Bucharest and they had no client interested in their new technology, for years.
Actually, they were buying equipments on suppliers credit, borrowing money from friends and almost went bankrupt before getting on a plane to India for a demo of their product.
After many failed attempts to catch the investors’ attention, Daniel Dines was introduced to Dan Lupu, partner at Earlybird. Only one year later, Earlybird (in a consortium of 3) became the first investor who put money into Uipath , cautiously providing … $1 million.
According to Earlybird representatives , “we had our first meeting with him (Daniel Dines) in July 2014 and were blown away with this technology vision and Daniel’s passion for and immersion in his product. It took a while for the seed round to come together – we at Earlybird Digital East led the 2015 round with a $1 million investment and partnered with two co-investors after having offered the opportunity to many others, but who did not share our enthusiasm for Daniel’s vision.”
For working together with the UiPath team on refining the offer and switching from a system sub-parts provider for international integrators into a final product provider – a movement that completely changed the development strategy and brought the company to the big guys’ table, it was also the merit of Dan Lupu. While UiPath focused on their product roadmap, Earlybird helped them secure a lead investor for the Series A round, while bridging the money gaps.
As a next step in UiPath’s international journey, the company became a unicorn in 2018 and emerged as the lead contender to take global leadership of the RPA market. Moreover, for the first time, a company hailing from Romania was vying for global leadership in a major category and executing a global growth strategy, with revenues spread out quite evenly around the world.
UiPath grew organically. Today UiPath is the undisputed worldwide leader of the RPA market and the sole Romanian company listed on NYSE.
“Our mission is to be the third place in people’s lives, to spend quality time after their workplace and homes” – spread the passion for a healthy lifestyle in a country that doesn’t have an individual sports tradition.
Mikael Fredholm, the former CEO of World Class, is a man for which “sports and healthy lifestyle is everything”. He came to Bucharest by chance, whilst being convinced he was hired to manage a company in Budapest 😊, fell in love with Romania and stayed here.
World Class has brought the international fitness experience to the Romanian market in 2000. Initially launched at a premium service for the high-end market, offering access to Marriott and Radisson centers, the World Class network has gradually expanded its services as to spread the passion for fitness across Romania and transform the lifestyle of Romanians.
One of the qualities of great CEOs is their entrepreneurial spirit. It was his passion for adventures and Mikael’s inner entrepreneurial dream of making the fitness experience affordable for everyone, that made him embark the entrepreneur-ship. In 2014, Mikael Fredhold – at that time the CEO of the company – and two other members of the management team joined forces with the Resource Partners investment fund and acquired a controlling stake in World Class Romania in a management buyout structure.
Since the 2014 management buy-out, World Class Romania increased its network four times and currently operates 41 active health & fitness clubs and 20 swimming pool clubs. The Company has made 7 acquisitions and integrated them into its own network. World Class Romania has also successfully developed new sales initiatives such as the digitalization of the process, the introduction of a monthly payment system, and in-club sales of food and beverages, currently being the undisputed fitness market leader in Romania.
Which is your big entrepreneurial dream? Share it with us and we’ll be happy to support you and turn it into reality.
Ruxandra is an M&A expert with 20+ years of experience in investments field.
Her professional expertise has been built in a large number of projects – covering M&A, capital raising, debt raising, financial & operational restructurings and turnaround situations – serving mid-size and large companies.
