Footway is the leading online footwear retailer headquartered in Stockholm.
Founded by Daniel Mühlbach, the former owner and co-founder of Lensway (contact lenses online) which he built to SEK 500 million in sales.
Business overview
- Footway is today the leading online pureplay for footwear in Northern Europe
- Footway currently offers 30,000 different shoe styles and 60 different brands
- The addressable market for shoes in the Nordics is about SEK 30 billion with a low online penetration of approx. 10%, which is expected to increase to 25-30% in 2020. The online penetration in the US is about 20-25%
Key achievements
- Best-in class IT system infrastructure with 150+ integrated applications
- Significant focus on automating business processes:
- Warehouse automation increasing efficiency and flexibility
- Sourcing algorithms that efficiently, with AI and machine learning balancing product supply with demand
- Fully integrated marketing automation solution enabling significant scaleup without meeting marketing inefficiencies i.e. the marginal cost of a new customer remains the same over time
- One of few companies in Europe with complete real time automatic integrations with Facebook and Google
- Strengthening of the management team and Board of Directors
- Increase in working capital to allow for broader selection of products and expansion international expansion outside of Sweden
- Two strategic acquisitions (Heppo in Apr-13 and Brandos in Dec-13)
- IPO on Nasdaq First North in Stockholm on December 20, 2018
Many of our investment criteria where met when we invested in Footway
- Digital business model
- Strong organic revenue growth and high gross margins
- EV target size in Fund II (SEK 60-150 million)
- Large addressable market with a low online penetration expected to rapidly increase
- Strong and coachable management team
- Low average customer acquisition cost enabling Footway to experience strong organic growth under profitability
- Strategic fit with portfolio
- Potential to generate over 4.0x of invested capital
- Wow-factor
Sales per market (Q4 2019)
28% of 2019 sales are from outside Nordics vs. 12% in 2018
Historic sales development
Footway has experienced very strong organic growth since eEquity invested in Dec-11. On average sales has grown 119% per year from 2011-2018, and the growth is expected to continue going forward.
