Case study

How Protein is fueling their global expansion

Protein is one of Northern Europe’s fastest-growing natural supplement brands. Thanks to their focus on the female demographic, paired with a strategic approach to influencer marketing and media buying, the ecommerce retailer was able to achieve a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 215% since its inception in 2017. With ambitions to expand their business globally, Protein has chosen Juni as their financial platform during this exciting part of their journey.

How Juni helped Protein achieve their mission

Before Juni
  • Low-impact card benefits which did nothing for their business
  • Inflexible payment terms on credit offerings
  • Lack of insight on business spend
  • High FX fees and complexities during global expansion
  • Lack of cash flow required to scale their ad spend
After Juni
  • Cashback benefits which directly boost their margins
  • Flexible payment terms on six-figure credit line
  • A centralised overview of all business spend
  • Avoiding FX fees and simplifying admin with multi-currency accounts
  • Scaling media buying using Juni Mastercard Corporate cards and flexible credit lines*
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Before Juni

Inflexible payment terms, lack of cash flow, and admin overload

Being a growth-oriented ecommerce retailer, Protein requires a steady cash flow in order to finance their overheads, predominantly consisting of inventory and media buying expenses. Before Juni, Protein would inject cash via credit lines from past banking partners as a way to fuel their growth. Not being geared towards ecommerce retailers and the nature of their business, these banks offered payment terms which were inflexible, adding unwanted pressure on Protein’s finances. “In ecommerce, it’s quite common that your revenue is temporarily stuck in payment gateways. This is to be expected to some extent, however, our previous banking partner just couldn’t keep up with our pace of doing business – we found that payment terms were often tight and, as a result, simply not conducive to our growth”, explains CEO and co-founder Albert Vllasa.

Protein’s impressive CAGR is in part due to their international expansion over the past four years. Now catering to six different markets within Northern Europe, their team is starting to feel the admin complexities and FX fees that come with running a successful, multi-market ecommerce business. “We’re now at the point where we need to optimise our operation, especially with our ambitions to expand globally”, says CMO and co-founder Anton Perlkvist. “This also includes card benefits which actually boost our margins, instead of allowing us to fly around for cheaper. Air miles are a nice idea, but they don’t help our day-to-day business”, he continues. With monthly ad spend in the six figures, cash back benefits can start to add up, and failing to capitalise on this was starting to become a significant opportunity cost for Protein.

With Juni

Six-figure credit line with flexible payment terms that’s fueling global expansion

Once onboarded, Protein secured a six-figure credit line with flexible payment terms* that were structured to accommodate the nature of their ecommerce business. “It’s refreshing to work with a partner which genuinely understands how your business works and how this impacts the partnership”, says Vllasa. With steady cash flow secured, Protein has started executing on their global expansion plans.

The biggest investment for their expansion has been on the media buying side of their business. “We now have the capability to effectively scale our monthly ad spend well into six-figure sums, which is already driving further growth in the new markets we’re targeting”, explains Perlkvist. “And Juni’s cashback offer is directly boosting our ROAS, which is great.”

Their ability to create multi-currency IBAN accounts is making the whole administrative aspect of their expansion significantly easier. Having dedidated cards for each target market and its respective currency has saved administration headaches and redundant processes because they can categorise their transactions with ease. “Juni is a potential game changer in our financial oversight”, says Vllasa. With a centralised overview on their business, Protein has been able to optimise their operations, and increase their margins across the board.

The future

Going global with Juni

Since joining Juni, Protein has been able to execute on their global expansion plans with a steady and flexible credit line, margin-boosting card benefits, and a newly found oversight of their business. As their newly found financial platform, Juni has given them the tools to scale, optimise, and ultimately strengthen their position as one of the fastest growing natural supplement brands in Europe and beyond.

Learn how you can go beyond the grind with Juni.

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