Tuomas Toivonen
Podcast appearances as guest
Episode 28 - Tuomas Toivonen
In this episode, I sit down with Tuomas Toivonen, founder and CEO of Holvi.
On the podcast
Holvi was founded in Finland in 2011 and obtained a pan-European licence in 2014.
Holvi gives freelancers and small businesses a current account, debit and credit cards, 18 currencies, payment acquiring, invoicing and e-invoicing, an online store, expense management and a cash-flow forecast.
Holvi was the first Finnish company in Seedcamp, and Speedinvest became its first institutional investor in 2014.
BBVA acquired 100% of Holvi at the start of 2016, when it had fewer than 20 people; it grew to about 150 under BBVA.
Holvi's team bought the company back from BBVA in a management buyout at the start of 2021; it is fully team-owned.
After the buyout Holvi cut its team from about 150 to 65 to reach profitability; it now has about 130 people and is solidly profitable, with Finland, Germany and Austria as main markets.
Holvi ended fully free accounts; the customers who left over the fee had been generating about 1.80 euros a month on average.
Holvi serves nonprofit associations, which spread awareness of its brand.
Everyone at Holvi has access to several AI tools under a compliant-use policy, and an internal platform gives product teams a range of LLMs.
Holvi favours deeply harmonised EU regulation; EU directives leave too much to member states, fragmenting markets such as e-invoicing.