Bexio and the fear of digitization

The columnist Urs Prantl on the purchase of Bexio by furniture.

The furniture buys Bexio 100%. Logically, all the other shareholders are out and Jeremias Meier and his colleagues are contractors to employees. These are the facts. Inside-channels writes of an alleged purchase price of 115 million francs.

I must admit that the message has completely surprised me. A few weeks ago, I had a long talk with Bexio's CEO, Jeremias Meier, about his company's strategy and I published it just a month ago, as well as my research on Bexio in my Prantls 5A series. There, I presented to Bexio the title of "Best micro-entrepreneur" and reported on its platform strategy: "Jeremias Meier sees the future of Bexio in the vision of the platform. One Hub shape empowering small businesses.

"Our Bexio platform will eventually connect all key partners for microenterprises digitally. Be it markets, banks and other financial service providers, trustees and accountants or insurance companies. Today, a month later, Bexio is one of the largest Swiss SME insurers, making it a key partner of the visionary Bexio platform. That's what goes through my head.

"Our management and our founders all remain in the team and your interlocutors remain the same" in connection with the statement "the original character remains intact": I do not doubt the honesty of these statements. I am sure the parties firmly believe in it, especially the furniture. All comparable transaction experiences, however, speak a different language. This does not usually work with pureblood entrepreneurs. This can last one, maybe two years, but the likelihood of a malfunction of this construction then turns up to 100%. If then – or even earlier – Jeremias Meier and his comrades have to be replaced, it is the starter character. Because that with the associated groove is one-on-one with the founding entrepreneurs and can not be "technically" alive. Since I have known many IT companies and entrepreneurs in all their strategic and psychological depth, I am absolutely convinced.

Why the high purchase price?
Furniture would have paid 115 million francs for Bexio. With currently more than 15,000 customers, it would be around 7,500 francs per customer. If we assume that a large part of Bexio's customers are already furniture customers (I guess 20% to simplify), the price of the customer even goes up to around 10,000 CHF. If the 115 million are only approximate, then the "customer purchase" at these prices may not have been the driver. From the point of view of the Mobiliar, it is more than a "strategic acquisition" whose price does not matter as long as the funds are there. The drivers are rather "the fear of the disastrous consequences of the digitization of the insurance business" and the "fear that a competitor comes before us". From the point of view of the founders, it can be almost solely the incredible amount of the purchase price, and therefore on their own, that led to the sale. Or – as rumors have been circulating for some time – a menacing tide at the box office? Believe Bexio COO Rouven Mayer's statement "We are financially well", so the motivation may have been only tens of millions, the vision of the platform or not. Which brings me to the strategy of the platform.

Platform strategy requires independence
Unlike the world of big business and oligopolies, the SME environment prevails, say "dedicated" competition. This typing and tingling is currently fueled by digitization, as many players firmly believe that the business world is completely new. In this race, a leading insurance company seizes the flagship start-up in enterprise software and continues to believe that Bexio is a partner for all SMEs (banks, other financial services, trustees and accountants , insurance companies such as Swiss Life and others) expand the leading platform ?! Is not it rather that a trusted SME platform must above all maintain its independence? As Swiss Life, Baloise, Generali, Elvia or Zurich and at the same time partner on the Bexio platform, I always wonder if I have the same length of bias as the owner. I mean, with the change of ownership, there is also a need for fundamental change in the strategy. A strategy that focuses primarily on the interests of Mobiliar. A change of strategy would not necessarily be appropriate only if Mobiliar was engaged exclusively as a financial investor. But I did not read anything about it.

Finally, as a customer of Bexio, I hope two things. First of all, I'm not going to have to reduce all my data to another software soon, and second, that Bexio will not become such a boring and uninspiring platform – even if it works – like Ricardo.ch after its purchase by Tamedia. Because for the media company Ricardo.ch is exclusively a money machine and thus light years of their groove and the original spirit as a digital startup. If the same fate was reserved for Bexio, I would regret it very much.

Urs Prantl (55) has worked for more than 20 years as a software entrepreneur. As a strategic mentor, since the end of 2011, he has been supporting entrepreneurs in the ICT sector towards a self-determined and successful entrepreneurial future with his mission "to create sustainable businesses". He expresses his personal opinion as a columnist for inside-channels.ch