Success Story
Sorry as Service is an Estonian start-up founded 5 years ago. Four years after the company had been set up, its founders circle shrank from six to three. Thus, those who stayed in charge were willing to sell the company. Since, at that point of time it had a lucrative client base, viable cashflow and offices both in the UK and Estonia, it was a good time to sell it while the cashflow was still positive. In addition to that, there were several investors who had out their money in the company during the first operating days of the start-up.
Once the founders agreed on selling the company, they communicated it to all the investors and bought back some of their parts. Eventually, in total’ they held up 76% of the company’s shares.
Then, finding the buyer appeared to be quite a challenging task. The offer was out there, and there were two buyers who got in contact with each other. One of them took up the podcast recording part, done by one of the founders – Indrek. And the other buyer was the UK-based investor.
The process was long and hassle, due to the fact that the company was registered in the UK and the subsidiary was based in Estonia. Therefore, all the documentations and legal proceedings in both countries had to be well prepared and strictly followed.
From the initial agreement on the transaction till the final legal proceeding 1,5 years passed.
According to the contract statement on the transition process, , the founders could be contacted directly during the first month after buying, since starting from the 2nd and up until the end of the 3rd month, 8 hours by month are fully charged. There was a transition weekend, at which the founders could deliver the general knowledge and dataset, and some days later they were also contacted several times.
Currently the company is functioning and has its regular client base in place. Apart from that, several changes, concerning company’s strategic focus, has been done after the new owner had took up the position.
– Reported by one of the initial founders Indrek Põldvee
