cloudplan GmbH

Idea

Introduction

Every company needs to store and share files. Unlike other solutions we consider that cloudplan covers almost all possible storage scenarios. The intelligent product design enables companies to store, sync and share files on every type of infrastructure and network layout while retaining 100% data sovereignty.

cloudplan has an experienced team that has built up other companies in the past, e.g. Broadnet AG, founded in 1995 with a tradesale in 2006 to QSC offering wireless local loop, DSL and VoIP addressing the same target market.

The product is available in the cloudplan online shop for Windows, Windows Server, MacOS, iOS and Android. We intend for Linux to follow shortly. We have already acquired more than 700 customers.

cloudplan is backed by leading German seed investors HTGF and IFB innovationsstarter and other private investors.

Intended impact

The idea for cloudplan was born when we sold Broadnet AG, a telecom carrier, in 2006. The company offered internet access through DSL and WLL and a large range of other products such as VoIP or VPNs. Our main goal was to provide customers fast and always available access to their data. We have learned that accessing file data within the company's premises, branches or home offices is technically demanding when it comes to availability, security, fast access, low costs and project time. With Broadnet we experienced a catastrophic 10 days outage time of our data servers ourselves almost jeopardizing the existence of our company.

File storage should be very simple to handle without IT knowledge. It should be very secure, highly available and needs to offer best performance at a low cost. We believe that our next-gen private cloud product will change the way companies or even individuals think about file storage!

Substantial accomplishments to date

We developed the “Peer-to-Peer” and “multi master synchronization” technology between 2013 and Jan 2016 when we first launched a beta version of our product.

The first commercial version for windows platform has been available since July 2016. We currently have over 700 customers through direct sales. We expect our customer base to increase much more when Linux is available since companies mostly have heterogeneous IT landscapes. We intend to launch this by Q4 this year.

Cloudplan was financed by the founders from end of 2013 until Aug 2015 when High-Tech Gruenderfonds and another private investor invested.

In March this year we completed another round of 0,8 Mio EUR with existing and new investors. The round was led by Innovationsstarter Fonds Hamburg.

In the beginning of August another private placement of 190k EUR has been concluded with existing investors.

For the next round here on Seedrs we are able to offer the same conditions used during the rounds in March and August, technically as a "second closing".

Monetisation strategy

The product is offered as Software as a Service (SaaS), a subscription based model based on users/ nodes.

Customers have the choice of a monthly or yearly subscription. cloudplan has relatively low direct related costs for each customer using the product itself, since the customers run their own storage devices on-premise or virtually. We are designing the global cloudplan infrastructure to handle thousands of customers on the platform with the ability to simply upgrade for further customers virtually. Our plan is that these infrastructure costs will only have a minimal relation to customer numbers thus enabling us to scale and build a large margin.

We have planned with monthly ARPUs (average revenue per unit) ranging from 12 EUR for a micro enterprise, 181 EUR for a small and 1.132 EUR for a medium size company. We are building our sales pipeline in line with these assumptions.We intend for the product to be offered globally.

Use of proceeds

The product design and testing for first release took about 1.5 years.It is now our intention to scale up the business case and offer the product in a global market. We have brought together a highly professional team of 5 full time employees along with a number of freelancers to cover all aspects of the business such as programming, website creation, graphics and sales. They have been motivated by phantom stock, but only 5 are working full time, only one person is covering sales.

In order to roll-out the product and start a professional sales approach we have to increase the sales and development team. We do not believe we need many people, but just a few more, always in relation to the growth expected.

Based on our past experience as entrepreneurs we are realistic and conservative planners, always expecting the “unexpected”: It is absolutely necessary to plan for aggressive growth, but be prepared for drawbacks that are part of the usual enterprise life!

Please note that Cloudplan currently have a convertible loan outstanding from an institutional investor worth €307k. The loan will mature in August 2022 and accrues 10% interest. This convertible loan acts as an anti-dilution mechanism for the investor as part of it converts on each equity funding round at the prevailing price in order to keep the investor with a 12% stake in Cloudplan. Please be aware that this would lead to additional dilution to existing investors on future funding rounds.

Share Price

Please note that the share price for this round is €118.40. Due to this share price, we have decided to allow investors to hold fractional shares. This means that we have reduced the investment multiple to €11.84 (representing 0.1 of a share). As these shares will be held via the Seedrs Nominee, fractional entitlements are possible. In the event that shares were to be transferred out of the nominee structure, Cloudplan would take the steps required to subdivide its shares so that fractional entitlements result in whole shares.