Casper Henningsen On Raising $55M To End Traditional Research with AI

In the entrepreneurship world, stories often begin in predictable places: classrooms, tech hubs, or corporate boardrooms. Casper Henningsen’s tale, however, takes us to the soccer field.

As a former professional soccer player in Denmark’s top league, Casper pivoted from the high-stakes world of elite sports to the equally demanding landscape of business and startups. His startup, GetWhy has attracted funding from investors like PeakSpan.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Building a professional soccer career from childhood taught Casper Henningsen resilience, focus, and the importance of a long-term vision.
• Recognizing his limits in soccer at age 25, he transitioned to consulting to maximize his best years and acquire new skills.
• Traits like discipline, grit, and team dynamics from sports proved invaluable in the business world.
• Consulting honed his ability to break complex problems into actionable solutions, a foundational skill for entrepreneurship.
• GetWhy’s synthetic researcher revolutionizes customer insights by delivering large-scale, actionable insights.
• Monetizing “work done” rather than software features aligns directly with client value creation.
• Building investor relationships and crafting a clear vision were critical to securing funding for his first venture.

 

SUBSCRIBE ON:

For a winning deck, see the commentary on a pitch deck from an Uber competitor that has raised over $400M (see it here). 

Remember to unlock for free the pitch deck template that founders worldwide are using to raise millions below.

About Casper Henningsen:

Casper Henningsen is the CEO & Co-Founder of GetWhy, a company that combines generative AI, technology, and human expertise to provide high-quality consumer insights quickly.

Casper is also a Member of the Board of Directors at Nordic Knowledge Partners, a company focused on investment research and proprietary M&A intelligence.

Additionally, Casper was the CEO & Co-Founder of UserTribe, a customer-centricity enabler company. Furthermore, Casper was a Member of the Board of Directors at Klausen + Partners, an award-winning tech/digital marketing agency, and a Senior Partner at Kunde & Co, one of Europe’s largest marketing and branding consultancies.

Prior to their entrepreneurial endeavors, Casper had a successful career as a professional football player at the highest level in Scandinavia.

Connect with Casper Henningsen:

• LinkedIn
• Crunchbase
• TheOrg
• RocketReach

Read the Full Transcription of the Interview:

Alejandro Cremades: Alrighty, hello everyone and welcome to the Deal Makers show. So today today we have an amazing founder. I think that this story is going to be awesome. you know I’d say definitely a story you know that is quite inspiring, a story of a professional athlete, a professional soccer player that ended up being you know ah hanging out the hanging up the boots you know on his a best time to be able to ah pick up the business side of things and take you know ah the career and his life to the next level. We’re going to be talking about raising capital, you know the ups and downs on that, also tackling a well-defined market, and then also how to think about

Alejandro Cremades: being patient you know with with the input and and what kind of output you get when you are a founder. no Again, the building, the scaling, the financing, all of that good stuff that we like to hear. So without further ado, let’s welcome our guest today, Caspar Henningsen. Welcome to the show.

Casper Henningsen: Pleasure to be on, Alejandro.

Alejandro Cremades: So born in Denmark. Give us a walk through memory lane. How was life growing up?

Casper Henningsen: Yeah, so so Denmark is ah is a very small country in the north of Europe, and it’s not definitely not the worst place you could be born, so feel quite lucky that that was the that was the place. ah That said, you know ah being born and raised by an uneducated single mom, two kids, and you know a lot of tough love. And you know we need to take care of of of making a living. and And that was sort of like you know um just the premise growing up. ah So as a young kid, I think you know I pretty quickly learned the concept of imagination and dreaming and and kind of like setting a future flag that you you start to construct a reality around. and

Casper Henningsen: In my case that became from the age of five, it became soccer and and it became sports. um And I became relentless, dedicated around achieving the goal of becoming a professional soccer player. and and And that was definitely, if if just one sentence on my youth, that that was that was writing that chapter. At the age of 15, I signed my first youth contract and at the age of 19 or 20, I signed my first full-time contract and and had 12 years as ah as a professional playing at the highest league in in Denmark. so

Alejandro Cremades: what What was that like for you? Because I mean, when you are signing up ah for for anything, you know, when you’re 15 and now it’s like your dream, what you had dreamed with, you know, all your childhood of, you know, when you were getting out and and playing some games with friends or grabbing a ball and hitting it against a wall, you know, and just saying,

Alejandro Cremades: trying to improve and and watching TV, what is that feeling where all of a sudden you’re 15 years old, which obviously you’re still not an adult, but but you get you know that opportunity, that possibility opening in front of your eyes. How how do you go about not losing your mind and and just thinking that you’re a God?

Casper Henningsen: It’s a pretty weird feeling because as I said, you develop sort of like a superpower, which is you can construct a reality you don’t live in, but you kind of like have all the emotions of being in it. So I would still recall that day where you signed the contract and now it was actually reality. It didn’t really feel that much different from what I anticipated. And it was sort of like, okay, now that part happened. Now I need to become a full-time pro. I need to take the next step. So in in a weird way, I would say,

Casper Henningsen: You already had the feeling, it was just a question of when is it going to be reality? And and and sort of like, that was my view on it from the age of five. I knew it would happen. It was the only reality I could construct, but pretty crazy thinking about it, zooming out that you can you can do it in that way. But and but but that was really the feeling. i and kind of like I knew this would happen. I put in my input every day, worked incredibly hard, and I was very patient with my outcomes.

Alejandro Cremades: And how i i saying how was that like for you, too, in terms of discipline? Because now you know it’s like, hey, you signed a contract. You are 15 still, but but you have a duty. You have responsibility now to to to deliver.

Casper Henningsen: Yeah, I think there’s two sides to it. you know One is that you go through different stages as ah as a pro because, you know, one is that you have ah all the aspirations as a youth, but then you get into teenage years and there’s a lot of distractions and there will be a lot of defeats and there’ll be a lot of no’s and you will, you know, so you need to get through all of these kind of like different hurdles that definitely gonna challenge how much do you want it. So I think that’s one one part of it, which is really, you know,

Casper Henningsen: you’re really getting challenged on your character and and you know how determined are you because you’re gonna be pushed and you’re gonna be challenged by the simple way that life’s gonna distract you and you need to say no to a bunch of things. So that’s one one thing. The other thing is that your input needs to compound to a very serious level of outcome. and There is only 1% that starts playing football that even can make a living of it and by by by the generation. So you really need to trust that You cannot only a overcome the hurdles, but you’re also going to compound quality through your input every day.

Alejandro Cremades: And what was that the moment like where, I mean, obviously here you’re scaling through the ranks, you’re going through different teams, you know maybe you’re changing positions you know from striker to midfielder, whatever that was.

Alejandro Cremades: You’re 25 years old. twenty five years old i mean nowadays i mean you Look at Cristiano Ronaldo. He goes all the way up to 40 years old, and he’s like making $400 million bucks a year. but you know Messy. you know Same thing. Making $200 million dollars a year, probably $37.38. Now, you’re 25 years old. You’re still you know like at the point where Most players like start to develop their breakthrough years in terms of earning years. And on your end, you start to think that something is off. What was that like for you and what happened?

Casper Henningsen: yeah Great question. I would say that Luckily, I was able to zoom out and look at the trajectory and see myself in competition with all the other professional soccer players. And what I saw was that I was definitely in progress and I was developing, but I was not developing in a pace and inequality.

Casper Henningsen: that were able to compete at the level that I wanted. And there you can do two things. You can either stay in the game and use the next 10 years, which is your best years, trying to you know write a new chapter. Or you can say, all the learnings I have now, I could start writing a new chapter, which is how I’m going to play Champions League at business side.

Casper Henningsen: And I came to the conclusion that I wanted to spend my best years with all of my hard-earned learnings to try to write that chapter ah instead of trying to write a new chapter within football. So it was really tough decision, but I think the only way I could make it was that I was able to zoom out and look at the competition. If you use two of if you waste two or three years in such an intense environment, you’re going to have a hard time pivot and and actually underwrite your trajectory.

Alejandro Cremades: so How do you get into consulting? Because i mean here you are, a soccer player. It’s not like you have a master’s degree or or anything like that, which is the typical you know thing that you would see consultants do. you know They do the MBA, and then you know they get you know recruited by the consulting firm. In your case, all you had was the education of soccer. so i mean That’s quite the switch of Rooney there and you know and to be able to land the job.

Casper Henningsen: Yeah, that’s right. You know, in in in that way, I’m self-motivated. I learned, but I was also very lucky. It was a Nordic woody consultant, see around 350 people. The founder of that company were a former professional.

Casper Henningsen: And so there was a you know direct correlation. He knew the skills, he knew the attitude, he knew he knew the mindset that it took me to become a professional. And I think he betted on that I was so hungry to prove myself that I pretty pretty quickly with that attitude will learn the skills and and become and become very um you know productive for the company and have a good journey. So I don’t think it could be happening in any company, but specifically this consultancy you know had that culture and that belief that If you have the attitude and you have the mindset, you know there is a chance to build the skills.

Alejandro Cremades: what what what was that the you know What was that like to to be able to apply some of the skills, some of the leadership, sportsmanship that also you had developed and that you had a acquired from those 12 years playing soccer as a professional into the business world, especially you know with Kundi and Cole, where you are now like engaging you know with a bunch of different companies?

Casper Henningsen: It was crazy. I think mentality wise, I found a culture that was kind of like sports, but then you start putting in the craft. And what I pretty quickly learned was that there is a big difference between business and elite sports. And elite sport is much harder and it’s much more intense and has so much more friction than being in business. In sports, if you don’t remove friction and you’re not brutally honest week by week, you’re going to lose on Sunday.

Casper Henningsen: In business, you need to be patient, you need to have communication, you need to have leadership styles, you need to learn all of the softer skills that makes people come together and actually progress. And I needed to have that learning the hard way. So so that was one realization that in In sports, you take for granted that you remove friction weekly, you don’t do that in business life. Second, what I also learned was to acquiring skills by really being powerful on my input were no different than training and building skills in sports. So that was a direct correlation. I could become insanely good at something and write a new narrative if my input

Casper Henningsen: were impatient and with high quality. And I trusted in the outcome and were pretty patient around my outcome. So I would say you pretty quickly learn. You can write new narratives. You can become very skilled at something if you put in the input. But my biggest learning the first three or four or five years were that you can say the way you interact are totally different than you do at sports.

Alejandro Cremades: so So let’s talk about now um being a consultant, right? And and and now you know you got and all these lessons learned you know from your previous um journey as a professional athlete. Now you’re applying them into the world of business, but now you’re also developing new skill sets like, for example, becoming a consultant,

Alejandro Cremades: is specifically when it comes to problem solving, right? Because you’re now consulting these companies on strategy, you own issues, whatever they’re dealing with, but it’s all about helping you know with really generating those solutions. When it comes to a framework for problem solving and what you got you know out of those, you know let’s say four years that you were a consultant and and and really figuring out problems,

Alejandro Cremades: What was your biggest take as to how to tackle you know resolving a problem and going up about about about finding you know what’s the best way to go?

Casper Henningsen: But that that you’re absolutely right. You’re absolutely correct. That was my biggest toolbox. It was my biggest learning how to solve problems. I think if you have that skill set and and you are able to articulate it, you know you can you can be very productive and very successful due to many waves. So we really you know you’re getting learned how to solve problems and how to orchestrate an architect, sort of like a design around it, not only for yourself, but also for a group of people that needs to momentum and go in a direction.

Casper Henningsen: You know, that is the superpower you gain from being a consultant. It’s really this idea of having a framework where you break down a very complicated product or a problem into a series of actions, and then you get momentum in it by accumulating an energy group in a group of people. And when I learned that, and and when I also think kind of like I was on top of that, I was also, that would that should be my biggest learning in this. I think I’m ready for something new.

Alejandro Cremades: So then let’s get to that point. how do you how do you How do you really go through that process of, hey, I want to start something on my own. I want to control my own destiny. And this is what it looks like.

Casper Henningsen: Yeah, so when I was ah when I was doing consultant, I became a senior partner at the firm. And when you do that, I had six or seven different units under my leadership. and One of the units were insights. And so my job was to build an appealing proposition around insights and make that tangible and attractive for the business and the customers of ours.

Casper Henningsen: and And very quickly, I became you know very passionate about that specific unit and what it could do if it was placed right. But I also saw all the problems with the format. m And doing that for four years with quite an amount of intensity, I saw an opportunity to go and solve the problem I felt on my own body.

Casper Henningsen: in in a more sustainable way as an entrepreneur. So that became my my bridge into to starting my own. I realized the problem, I lived it, and and i wanted to and I wanted to do something about it.

Alejandro Cremades: So what ended up becoming you know Get Why? what What are you guys doing at Get Why?

Casper Henningsen: Yeah, so so we are in the consumer insight space or customer insight space. The customer insight space is pretty broad and well-established, and it’s a service-first industry. um and And what we do is we build technology and advanced models to produce great insights on very rich video data, pretty unstructured data, and distribute these insights into decision making and workflows, basically, and at the operating units at at a company. him And the way we did we put a different proposition to market is we’ve built the first and only digital researcher, a synthetic researcher,

Casper Henningsen: where we have a technology stack that replicates the workflow of a researcher, and then we’ve built proprietary models to create content in that workflow, which essentially gives a very strong proposition. We sell work, we don’t sell software, um and we have long-term advantages on, you can say, the customer experience. We’re going to create a fast insight.

Casper Henningsen: that is very, very filled with substance and quality. And we’re going to be very disrupted on price. So we could say, we are here to to produce insights and distribute them to action. And our way of solving it has been to build the first digital researcher that works kind of like as a researcher, you would you would look at at McKinsey or Bain or Ipsos or Kanta, but it’s a synthetic model that replicates the workflow and produces the exact same work as they are doing today. And by that we have a,

Casper Henningsen: very strong in differentiation and proposition in the market.

Alejandro Cremades: That’s amazing. So um so what is what is the monetization? How do how do you guys make money?

Casper Henningsen: Yeah. is So when I say we we charge for work, I really mean it. So work in our industry are an insight done. So we are not selling a feature set or we don’t sell and a subscription to any tooling. you you You buy a subscription for the amount of work you want to have done and you can start that work simultaneously at night, in the morning, in the weekends.

Casper Henningsen: Our digital researcher doesn’t care. and So you’ you’re going to be charged by the work our researcher do for you and the amount of insights it delivers to your organization, rather than paying you know a subscription for a feature set or tooling.

Alejandro Cremades: So in your guys’s case, you’ve also raised some money. I mean, how I know that that’s brutal, raising money, especially, you know, for your first time company. So how was that like?

Casper Henningsen: tons of learnings. and And I think if I can, you know, and my biggest learning is, you know, to really design and and construct a cap table long term. But but how it was we’ve raised just an order of $50 million. dollars um The last round were $35 million dollars raised by by peaks bank capital.

Casper Henningsen: and But we had seven races before that big round. And I can tell you something, five years ago, coming with a proposition to the market, which were, I’m going to build deep learning, I’m going to build AI, and I’m going to replace human work by a digital worker. That was not sexy. And and that took seven years that took five years, seven rounds to get to that stage where you then had the product ready and you could start monetizing it.

Alejandro Cremades: because in total, how much capital I guys raise to date?

Casper Henningsen: I think it’s 55 million in equity and around 10, 15 million in depth.

Alejandro Cremades: That’s amazing. How do you how do you ah think about equity and debt? How do you go about it differently when it comes to raising one or raising the other?

Casper Henningsen: Yeah, it’s it’s you know my rule of thumb is you you you shouldn’t do depth if it’s operational and it’s you know dayto day to day. That is not a good way to fund your business. Any day of the week would do that by equity.

Casper Henningsen: and So I really use it for these two purposes. Equity is for you know having a sustainable you know operating unit and depth could be for acceleration or things around that you that you want to take care of. So that that’s my that that has been sort of like my my my guiding star. and But as a young entrepreneur being first,

Casper Henningsen: you know ah and And you know that yourself. In the first couple of rounds, you don’t really have the optionality. You come with an empty box and an empty bank account. And it it’s you know it’s just to make a living. you know Can we continue another quarter or two? And and and and I would say it’s sort of like that we’re were the first four or five rounds where you know we didn’t really have optionality. So we we needed to take what we could get.

Alejandro Cremades: So, talking about the equity side of things, because i mean when you’re raising money from equity investors, or even when you have you know employees, like in your guy’s case, you have over 40 employees. what is like Vision is a big one, right? Because they’re all betting on vision. They’re all betting into the future that you’re living into. So, with that being said, if you were to go to sleep tonight, Kasper, and you wake up in a world where the vision of get wise is fully realized, what does that world look like?

Casper Henningsen: It is a world where companies and consumers or customers are in alignment. And what we innovate and what we produce are in sync with the market needs and the attractability. um ah So we actually reduce tons of waste, but we also make work meaningful for the company. So I’m really envisioning a company that operates with consumer and customer centricity at the heart of their decision making.

Casper Henningsen: m And to do that, we need to create a complete new insight that are able to be injected in how cmpanies operate. And I think that’s what we are what we what we are trying to do.

Alejandro Cremades: So I know that it has been quite the the journey too when it comes to patients and input and and how to think about them. and And I know too that there is a lot of founders and myself included where it’s tough you know not to get impatient and to think too much about the finish line and forget about that journey that gets you there. So what what can you tell us about patients and input and and what leads with it?

Casper Henningsen: I think you need to be incredibly impatient with your input. Put your best quality every day in all the hours you are on, but you need to be extremely patient with your outcome. So to write a big narrative, like it was for me from the age of five, becoming a professional sportsman,

Casper Henningsen: It is exactly the same when you want to write a big narrative in industry or starting your own business. You need to write a great narrative and a scope of orientation, and then you need to be incredibly impatient with your input, but you need to be very patient with the outcomes. Otherwise, you’re going to be derailing, you’re going to be defocused, and you’re going to take bad decisions along the journey.

Alejandro Cremades: So let’s say I was to put you now into a time machine. now As we’re thinking about decisions, lessons learned, all that stuff. And I put you to a time machine and and I bring you back in time to that moment that you were giving your notice yeah the ah ah at & Co. and and basically to embark in really taking ownership of your own destiny.

Alejandro Cremades: And right there on the spot, you’re able to have a chat with that younger Casper that is coming out of the headquarters of Coney and go after giving your resignation letter. And you’re able to sit down that younger Casper, let’s say for a coffee.

Alejandro Cremades: and you’re able to give right there on the spot one piece of advice to that younger Casper. you know What would that be and why you know on launching a business, that piece of advice on launching a business, that one piece of advice that you would give to that younger Casper and why, given what you know now?

Casper Henningsen: Hmm. I would empathize a lot what we just talked about. So the younger Kasper would say, you know have the right orientation, write a big and enough narrative that is appealing and makes you passionate. But be extremely focused.

Casper Henningsen: in building your business in sequences that allows you to control your cap table and build it in sequence step by step instead of just being all over. So you’re working with a paradox, which is your scope of orientation or your vision needs to be controlled by a very, very focused and and more segmented ah way of building your business. And I learned that the hard way. If you don’t do that,

Casper Henningsen: you’re going to be you’re going to be hard You’re going to be hit on cap table. You’re going to be deoriented. So you need both. You need the very ambitious scope of perspective. But when you break that down and you build your business, you need to be extremely segmented into small chapters that you then write and complete before you start another one.

Alejandro Cremades: Okay. so So for you too, right? When it comes to developing yourself, because I mean, it has been seven years of really pushing this thing. in And obviously you want to always make sure that you’re growing at the same pace as the company and you are a competitive beast. I mean, you you you are a professional athlete, right? I mean, you know what it takes and you know, the discipline and the hard work and dedication that you got to put into it. Applying that to business.

Alejandro Cremades: to developing yourself so that the company doesn’t outpace you. How did you go about that, to be able to be at the same level as the company was going from one cycle to the next?

Casper Henningsen: Yeah, great question. One, you need to be aware what stages you’re in and what the company calls for. So you need to be able to zoom out and have the right assessment on the different different chapters and the different needs of your organization throughout building the company. I think that’s that’s first.

Casper Henningsen: Two, when you then are going into chapters or needs that you have gaps within your current capability, I think you need to be brutal honest with yourself around what i what is my weaknesses and where do I need to develop? And then you need to be relentless focused on your input, building these capabilities. and For me, as I also mentioned, my biggest one of my biggest kind of like learnings has has really to become a leader.

Casper Henningsen: and and and I’ve worked very intense on that and both you could say by the natural kind of like extension but but also simple things like trying to become a good dad become a good you know friend become a good husband and and stuff like that I just found there’s so many synergies between being a good person and being a good leader.

Casper Henningsen: And so you are absolutely right, I think there’s many sequences, there’s many capabilities that you need to acquire throughout such a journey. But it all starts with what are the different chapters, what do they call for and where’s my weaknesses or strengths that I need to apply within a certain chapter and be brutal honest with yourself around that. If you’re going to be wrong here, you’re probably going to build them, you know, a less attractive company.

Alejandro Cremades: So this is amazing, Casper. I’m sure there’s a lot of people that that are super inspired and that are wondering you know how they could reach out and and say hi, and then also to learn more about Get Why. What what can you tell them?

Casper Henningsen: Please reach out on LinkedIn. I’m very active there and would be happy to to engage.

Alejandro Cremades: Amazing. Well, Casper, thank you so much for being on the Dealmaker Show today. It has been an absolute honor to have you with us.

Casper Henningsen: Thank you for having me. It’s been a pleasure.

*****

If you like the show, make sure that you hit that subscribe button. If you can leave a review as well, that would be fantastic. And if you got any value either from this episode or from the show itself, share it with a friend. Perhaps they will also appreciate it. Also, remember, if you need any help, whether it is with your fundraising efforts or with selling your business, you can reach me at al*******@pa**************.com“>al*******@pa**************.com

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | TuneIn | RSS | More