Hellopeter expands offering to support SMEs with Growth Capital from RMB

Hellopeter is South Africa’s most trusted review platform, bringing consumers and businesses together to continue their focus on improving customer experiences. Having expanded their review platform to help consumers share experiences and make more informed buying decisions, and provide businesses with a simple and cost effective way to grow their company’s reputation and online presence through review collection and social proof, Hellopeter needed growth capital to accelerate its Go-to-Market strategies.

The client need

Hellopeter, in its earlier years, was well-known for its complaints platform.  The busines has broadened its offering to raise the profile and voice of consumers sharing experiences and engaging with businesses in a unique way. It also helps  businesses to engage with and attract customers more easily by growing a trusted online presence, building social proof, and becoming more discoverable on an easy to use, independent review platform.  Reviews are an increasingly important part of the consumer’s decision-making process, whether buying products or services and Hellopeter has responded to this growing need.

Having invested in expanding the Hellopeter Portal with consumer and business offerings, the company needed a funding partner to scale this new offering to meet the demands of its clients.  The company needed a flexible funding solution to achieve its next growth milestones in a defined time horizon without diluting existing shareholders or incurring high financing costs associated with more traditional funding solutions.

The RMB solution

RMB, a long-term partner to Hellopeter through an early investment in the company, was approached by Hellopeter to provide a Growth Capital solution, in the form venture debt financing.  The solution to provide the additional on-demand funding required for the go-to-market strategy across multiple channels and meet the high demand for the Hellopeter product over a finite period of time.

The venture debt facility offers a good solution for existing, proven companies with a strong management team that has a good track record of success in the market with their offering. Funding can then be provided for the next phase of growth with some confidence for the capital provider.

The venture debt solution provided by RMB enables Hellopeter to draw down on a facility each month, provided they reach certain monthly growth metrics and enables existing shareholders the benefits of a complimentary solution to equity funding. It extends the runway of a business until it achieves its next funding milestone.

Client benefits

With the additional funding approved in December 2020, Hellopeter has been able to implement their accelerated growth plan for its consumer and business offerings. In the past 5 months the company has seen a noteworthy improvement across all its key growth metrics.