Danube Flow has completed its first transaction, arranging venture debt financing provided by its capital partner Orbit Capital to London-based vertical SaaS company CleanCloud to support its acquisition of Australian payments business Tangerpay.
CleanCloud provides point-of-sale, payments, marketing, delivery and operations software to thousands of laundry businesses across more than 100 countries. Tangerpay provides mobile, kiosk and contactless payment technology for laundromats.
CleanCloud announced its acquisition of Tangerpay in September after the two businesses had worked together for several years. The combination is intended to bring together complementary parts of the laundromat technology stack, with Tangerpay hardware being rolled out across CleanCloud locations and CleanCloud software introduced across more than 500 Tangerpay sites.
The acquisition also gives the combined business additional distribution across Europe and APAC through Tangerpay's existing network.
Danube Flow said the financing was attractive because it supported a defined strategic objective, combining complementary products, expanding distribution and opening new markets.
In a statement, Danube Flow said, "This is the kind of venture debt we want to do. Capital that supports a clear strategic objective and gives ambitious companies more options to execute on their growth plans."
The transaction is the first completed by Danube Flow, which was launched by Peter Richl and Christopher Nahler to build a venture debt platform focused primarily on technology companies across DACH and Central and Eastern Europe.
Richl and Nahler worked together at Raiffeisen Bank International in Vienna, where Richl worked in corporate banking and Nahler in the legal department and on the bank's credit committee. From 2021, the pair worked on the bank's €250m "Growth Basket" programme providing non-dilutive bank financing to growth companies, gaining experience across around 20 transactions before launching Danube Flow.
Orbit Capital is a Prague- and Warsaw-based venture debt investor backing tech and tech-enabled scale-ups across CEE and DACH. It provides non-dilutive financing of €3–15m to post-Series A companies to fund expansion, acquisitions and working capital.