Case Study · 02
Data-driven, equity-free capital for SMEs
A revenue-based financing marketplace connecting growing D2C brands with the investors who back them — equity-free capital, priced on data.
Klub gave consumer brands a way to raise growth capital without giving up ownership: funding is advanced against future revenue and repaid as a share of it. On the other side of the marketplace, investors get access to a new asset class — diversified exposure to a portfolio of vetted, fast-growing brands.
Founders were stuck with a binary choice
Growing D2C brands needed capital to buy inventory and fund marketing — but their only options were diluting equity early or chasing traditional debt that ignored how their business actually performed.
The opportunity was to underwrite brands on their real revenue data rather than collateral or cap-table appetite, and to make that capital available through a marketplace investors could trust.
A two-sided product, from zero
As a founding member of the product team, I helped shape both sides of the marketplace — the brand experience for applying and receiving a data-driven offer, and the investor experience for discovering brands and building a diversified portfolio.
The core bet was that data does the underwriting. The product turned a brand's revenue history into a fast, legible funding offer — and turned a portfolio of those offers into something an investor could understand at a glance.
The marketplace grew quickly across both sides in its first two years: