Malte Rau On Raising $270 Million To Enable Companies To Issue Physical And Virtual Credit Cards And Integrate Data Into Their FinTech Stack

In a rapidly evolving world of fintech and entrepreneurship, few stories exemplify resilience, adaptation, and foresight quite like that of Malte Rau.

In this interview, Malte talks about navigating his company, Pliant, through different countries and currencies. He also reveals fundraising insights, having raised over $70M in equity and more than $200M in debt from top-tier investors like SBI Investment, Alstin Capital, Motive Ventures, and Neosfer.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Malte Rau’s entrepreneurial journey is rooted in resilience and is shaped by early experiences of adapting to new environments.
• He transitioned from consulting to fintech, finding excitement in the fast-paced, high-risk world of startups.
• His early ventures taught him the importance of market timing and building trust with investors.
• Founding Pliant, Malte focused on B2B card issuing with a unique value proposition, allowing the company to scale quickly.
• Pliant raised over $70M in equity and $200M in debt, vital for its operations and expansion.
• Malte overcame multiple challenges, including the collapse of Wirecard, pandemic disruptions, and tough regulatory hurdles.
• His conservative market expansion approach ensures sustainability while maintaining a focus on high-spending clients and cross-border operations.

 

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About Malte Rau:

Malte Rau has a diverse work experience in the financial industry. He is the CEO and Co-Founder of Pliant, a company that has developed a flexible corporate credit card integrated into existing financial processes.

Prior to Pliant, Malte founded and served as CEO of Geldspeicher GmbH. He also worked as the interim Chief Risk Officer at FinCompare – Smarter SME Financing and as a Portfolio Manager and Head of Fintech Investments at Global Growth Cap.

Malte Rau has also held positions at Lendico Global Services GmbH, auxmoney, zeb consulting, and KPMG, where they gained expertise in risk management, strategic projects, and consulting.

Malte Rau obtained their Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) in Management and Economics from Ruhr-Universität Bochum. Malte attended this institution from 2007 to 2010.

Connect with Malte Rau:

• LinkedIn
• The Org
• Crunchbase
• Xing

Read the Full Transcription of the Interview:

Alejandro Cremades: All righty. Hello, everyone, and welcome to The Deal Maker Show. So today we have a really exciting founder you know joining us, a repeated founder. you know Right now he’s riding a rocket ship. you know They’re like growing like crazy in different countries, different currencies. But again, what he’s done is remarkable. Not only they’ve raised the over 70 million on the equity side, also over 200 million on the debt side for their operation. But we’re going to be talking about how bumpy you know the first years were, you know whether it was Corona, you know partner issues with one of the partners that they had. Also, so how to deal with fast growth when you are ah especially tackling a very heavily regulated market like they like they are doing. And then also, how do you go about the whole thing on ah building, scaling, financing, and beyond? So without further ado, let’s welcome our guest today, Malte Rao. Welcome to the show.

Malte Rau: Thanks for having me.

Alejandro Cremades: So originally born in Berlin, so give us a walk through memory lane. How was life growing up in Berlin?

Malte Rau: It’s more like from stories. I lived here till I was 10. So, um, I actually, uh, don’t remember, but my dad told me like I was there when the wolf came down. So I was actually like one year old. So that was quite interesting. But the time after I can only.

Malte Rau: talk about the kind of vibe the city had once the wall went down and was pretty amazing, according to my dad. But for myself, I didn’t remember too much. So I think that parts of my life after then, when I moved away, when I was 10, I was a little bit more shaping my character than the first 10. But I wish I have more stories from actually that supposed to be an amazing time.

Alejandro Cremades: so So obviously, you moved to attend to spend the youth and graduated high school a little bit away from from Berlin. I’m wondering, too, how was that you know process of being in a different place, making new friends, dealing with the uncertainty? I’m sure that shaped you up quite a bit.

Malte Rau: Maybe I compensated with a lot of chocolate, to be honest. So I gained a lot of weight with the age of 10. So when we morphed away, it was for the my the job of my dad. And from that point on, kind of have to you’re kind of unrooted, right? So your roots are still in Berlin, but then you’re moved away. So I think they did a lot of adjustment and took some time to adjust to it and find your place again. But I think.

Malte Rau: With this experience, it also shapes you maybe in good ways, maybe in some parts you only discuss in therapy.

Alejandro Cremades: It sounds like ah the world on of consulting, I mean, you studied economics and management, but it sounds like the world of consulting is what really got you hooked to start off your career. What but was it about consulting that they got your interest?

Malte Rau: Yeah, I think like generally when I picked the subject of my studies, I wasn’t too sure exactly what I wanted to do. I always knew I like numbers and then after studying, I spent some time in an internship abroad in the US and coming back, consulting sounded like the best option because if you’re not 100% sure the ever-changing projects in consulting and these kind of things,

Malte Rau: a very good way into the job market. You could still figure out a little bit where you wanted to go. And I got kind of hooked on the risk management side of things. So I didn’t plan on becoming a risk manager or someone who spends a lot of time and data. But this is where after like two years after the financial crisis, there was a lot of demand. And so I ended up at KPMG crunching some numbers for some banks in Germany. And so yeah, I think it was ah coincident at the same time but also lucky to go to be at the right time at the right place.

Alejandro Cremades: So, I mean, you you actually work for big companies like KPMG and and so forth. What was it like, you know, like to really, because here what you were doing ultimately was like risk risk management. You know, it sounds like that was the specialty that you developed. So how was it like, you know, like going through all these different organizations and taking a look at risk management? I mean, what what’s that about? Because I mean, right now your family has, and and it that’s had nothing to do with risk management. It’s all about taking risk.

Malte Rau: Well, yeah, I mean, that’s that’s true, right? Sometimes I’m joking also, I’m ah risk friendly and not risk averse risk manager. There’s are that many, but I still think it shapes you a lot because in a way what you do also when you play with this data, you still have to see like what are kind of the worst case scenarios. What is the outcome you like like to prepare for? So but these kinds of things were for sure very early on.

Malte Rau: experience that helped a lot to shape your mind, to think also, to be prepared for other scenarios. But of course, it moves very slow. It was big banks we worked for. So still, this project took some time. We had impact, but at the end, also as a consultant, you usually leave after the implementation. So you don’t really see it bearing fruits. So in that regard, I think it was good to train your brain to think in a certain way. And nowadays, I still think back a lot How did I approach it in a larger corporation? And got my own learnings out of it, but there was also a reason to leave at some point in time.

Alejandro Cremades: so then So then let’s talk about to getting into the whole world of lending and and then also rocket internet and the world of startups. Tell us about how you did that shift ah into something more ah specific in terms of industry.

Malte Rau: Yeah, so it was also a little bit of coincidence. It wasn’t fully planned at that point. I was still thinking about kind of the partner track in a consulting environment, but a former colleague of mine left KPMG to join a company called OX money. It was still quite early stage. And when we had a conversation, when he was leaving the consultancy, it just sounded very interesting. I said, okay, cool. Whenever you start hiring, building but a bigger team, give me a call.

Malte Rau: And two years later, or one and a half years later, he actually did. And this is how I got involved in this idea of leaving for a smaller company. So then I took the step. I never looked back because it was very exciting. And the impact you have in a startup when I joined was like around 30 people.

Malte Rau: It was really nice to see and you really had to train different muscles when you build landing capabilities as well as risk management for early on startups. So when you do that, you have to think completely different because you don’t have a big bank in the background and you We’ll learn quickly that usually banks are paid first us and not fintechs these things. So when you just adjust the models that you have in banks, they don’t work in fintech. So that was quite interesting. And that was a company focused on consumer. Afterwards, I went to a company that did similar things.

Malte Rau: But more on the SME lending side, so slightly different again. They don’t necessarily have as much data, but also very interesting. And Rocket Internet was the company that intubated. And after that company was sold to ING, I joined Rocket directly to build a venture debt fund that focused on refinancing fintings with lending operations, which was kind of closing the gap or the loop a little bit to also help provide the liquidity a lot of these learning fintechs have due diligence in what they do every day and it was quite easy once you have been on the other side beforehand to do the diligence so the other way around.

Alejandro Cremades: I mean, rocket internet, you know at that point, was also booming. So I’m sure that that gave you great exposure on on things that work, things that don’t work.

Malte Rau: Yes for sure.

Alejandro Cremades: So I guess, what kind of pattern were you seeing on on the things that were working?

Malte Rau: So for me specifically, I mean, we had some lay, but like touch points also with the equity arm, but we were a little bit disconnected because at that point, Rocket had or sitting on, I think, 2 billion in cash and said, like, well, I think we can’t spend it all on just equity. So let’s build also debt practice. So we, of course, swapped deals or when there was already Rocket investment, that was a way of building pipelines.

Malte Rau: But we didn’t have the mandate that we basically have to do the refinancing just because they’re also an equity investor. But what we saw is that there was still a lot of potential of, I would say, generating above market returns.

Malte Rau: and When you have access to early-on stay start-ups with the backing and a brand of Rocket where people even consider like taking higher prices for a better brand. So that was one of the parts, but from a pure lending perspective I think we did an amazing job when it comes to just the pure returns and like basically mitigated all defaults. So that was interesting. I think by now, as everybody knows, Rocket is shutting down most of their things and the debt practice was also one of them and it turned into different focus areas and just fintech and that’s also the point when I thought okay, seeing the investment side, I think it’s time to venture out, do my own thing, start as a consultant myself, but then always with the the aim to also found a company.

Alejandro Cremades: So then let’s talk about the that moment where you decide to take the leap of faith and and venture out and start your own thing. How how did that unfold?

Malte Rau: I think first, like i you know wasn’t like the the youngest founder, I would say, when I started that I was always above 30 and I took some time to also study what I think was like the success um or the the area of success that the founders I’ve met by then really excelled at and at some point I just had the feeling well I’m not really learning more from these like very good founders at the current stage so that gave me the comfort to really take the leap of faith and also at the same time

Malte Rau: you of course start with an idea, talk to angels, talk to people you worked for and I think the biggest push or compliment I got was simply that from all parts of my life beforehand and that yeah CV in general from every part someone wanted to invest because they trusted in my judgment even though the the first company that was not the the right judgments to invest. But I think that was especially the part where if you have peers that also push you, I mean, you can have a lot of things in your head. But of course, once people are willing to give you money, um that’s quite interesting. But also learning from that experience for the second company that when we actually were able to pay back most investors during that first company, but some said you don’t have to do that, you know, and that was also a big aha moment. So that

Malte Rau: Even when you have it, and angels invest. They also do some. They have usually even the higher risk profiles and like pre-seed investors, but also the bigger returns. But that was, I think, also big learning.

Malte Rau: um But you gained a lot of confidence that people trust you with their money that know you.

Alejandro Cremades: No kidding. No kidding. Now, now with this with this first venture, obviously, you know as they say, you either succeed or you learn. right and And this company, basically what they but you guys were were doing but was basically risk management solutions ah and they’re more in the open banking you know data um world.

Malte Rau: Yeah.

Malte Rau: but

Alejandro Cremades: But you either succeed or you learn. I guess things that didn’t unfold the way that you had hoped for.

Malte Rau: Yeah.

Alejandro Cremades: So well what happened there?

Malte Rau: Yeah. So for us, of course, we saw that there’s a lot of opportunity. There’s this new data source that’s super relevant for risk management. Also something a lot of FinTechs early on just utilize to close the information asymmetry they have towards banks to really be able to also convince customers to use They are loan products. And at that point in time, this way of underwriting was not really available to banks. And the overall interest was there. The part that I would say kind of killed the company was simply the sales cycles, right? If you’re younger, you haven’t sold anything to a bank yet, which of course, first say all is super interesting. And then you sit there the first year, wait for the budget. For the second year, it doesn’t work out. And then at some point, you just have to say, yeah, I guess this won’t work out.

Malte Rau: Um, and also if it was a little bit early, I would say, because you see now that similar business models are taking off or are quite successful. So overall, um, sometimes it’s market timing, but also like for me afterwards, it was the point where I said, well, I might not want to do or found another company. Um, it took a lot of convincing from ah my mentor to say, Hey, um, let’s, you should try it again.

Malte Rau: It happens. um like I think that’s something that also shapes you also go for the other for the next step where you have these learning moments like, well, you don’t have to really return the money. um That gives you more confidence also to take even a bigger risk, I’d say.

Alejandro Cremades: What was that point for you? I’m sure it was a massive um when you decided it’s time to pull the plug here on this opportunity. And and what was that thing reflection ah journey?

Alejandro Cremades: Because I know that there was ah a mentor that was the one that they had to give you a slap across the face, you know sort of saying, saying hey, Mate, let’s go.

Malte Rau: Yeah.

Alejandro Cremades: Pick yourself back up and and keep it moving.

Malte Rau: Yeah. Should happen.

Alejandro Cremades: so So yeah, so so I’m sure that that was quite an experience and very transformative transformative for you.

Malte Rau: Yeah. Yeah. I think it’s like two points in time, right? The first one is really you it’s I mean, you see it coming, right? It’s not that you try to cling on a little bit, but then once you actually take the decision, it’s actually a relief, which is, a lot of people always say, yes, it’s very stressful, but if you know, okay, this will come. But once you have taken the decision, everybody’s informed. It can also be a factor of relief. And I still had some time also to do some projects in between, like to keep me busy.

Malte Rau: and And the biggest really pivotal moment was also the said like this communication of that one age as well, like we invest, we know the money is at risk. And then the mentor um was a failure from our money the CEO there who also the hired me like very early on. ah He clearly said, well,

Malte Rau: I know you have kind of the talent, right? I needed some build up. It didn’t necessarily need to slap across the face. It was more like, okay, I’m here. I can support you. I’m sure this will work out, helped me shape the idea, even helped me fundraise because I said, like, I don’t, I don’t want to go out. Like basically I had like everything provided to me. um And that was such an amazing and experience and it wasn’t like,

Malte Rau: It was my own drive. It needed someone to drive me and now I’m driving myself insane, but then that’s kind of and the story behind that.

Alejandro Cremades: That’s incredible. So then talk to us about how the idea for your newest baby, and which is a rocket ship, how how did it ah you know come together?

Malte Rau: Yeah, so we at that point in time, when we decided to fund the company, my co-founder and I started to look, especially in the card space. um It was already quite hot space to be frank. So there was already seven companies in that space. And we still saw that there’s a big gap in the market, even though it seemed quite busy for a lot of investors, because there were already so many companies that already have raised even their Series A. And we were the new kid on the block.

Malte Rau: um I wish that we would have had the romantic story that we suffered from bad credit cards. Actually, it’s more that we fell in love with the technology, the complexity. So I’m always saying that we are more a bunch of nerds rather than the ah inspired people that found a very special way. We just saw there’s a lot of opportunity, meaning that a lot of these providers focus on direct business and we choose i have chosen a path where we rather enable others in a different way with partners into the mass market rather than trying to be the dominant brand in these kinds of things. So I think that was

Malte Rau: An interesting approach to the market and at the same time needed a lot of convincing of VCs or investors also that you don’t have to be either or because we have direct business and and in end indirect business. But nowadays, I think looking at our P&L, they’re happy because actually that is a very good approach to save marketing expenses.

Alejandro Cremades: so then So then tell us you know what ended up becoming the business model of—how do you say it well? Because I have the Spanglish kicking in pilot.

Malte Rau: Yeah. but Client like compliant.

Alejandro Cremades: li Client.

Malte Rau: Yeah.

Alejandro Cremades: Client. Yeah, you see you know my my accent sometimes you know gives gives me the hurdle spot.

Malte Rau: Yeah.

Alejandro Cremades: But with client, what ended up becoming the business model?

Malte Rau: Yeah.

Alejandro Cremades: How do you guys make money?

Malte Rau: So client is a B2B card issuer. So cards do, or ah most of the card providers have two revenue streams. One is of course you offer also software around the card that you can charge.

Malte Rau: For us, the main revenue source also is the interchange fee. meaning that if you use a card at the merchant, the merchant pays a fee. In the business space in Europe, it’s not regulated or kept like the consumer cards.

Malte Rau: So this is why there’s not that many consumer cards in comparison to the US. And with that, you then make around yeah an average maybe 2% and the US is actually more than you make per transaction, but that’s a big revenue stream and your customer doesn’t really have to pay for it.

Malte Rau: And that’s the main revenue driver for us. It’s a big chunk of change.

Alejandro Cremades: I know that the first years too of the business were a little bit bumpy. you know We’re talking about issues with coronavirus, you know lockdown, also issues with the partner that you guys you know were dealing with.

Malte Rau: Yeah.

Alejandro Cremades: you know i mean It sounds like it was full of ah adrenaline.

Malte Rau: Yeah.

Malte Rau: Yeah, adrenaline is good. It’s a good way of dancing with the black swans. So yeah, we actually, like when we started raising, um, this is what we started in February and then the lockdown had happened.

Alejandro Cremades: No kidding.

Malte Rau: We had term sheets, they were withdrawn, right? It was the first lockdown. It wasn’t like, well, money is free now. It was still the phase where I don’t know if the web just got a word is going to end. So that was a tough. And we then still got a term sheet and from a family office. um And we thought, OK, this is amazing because we’re the only one who can raise right now. And then we decided to take the money and start working on it.

Malte Rau: Which if we would have waited a little bit, I think the money afterwards would have been cheaper again and maybe a more interesting cap table at that point in time. But so we went for it um and then started working, hired our first seven engineers. We were a team of 10 at that point in time and then two or three months in.

Malte Rau: our lovely partner Weierkart decided to yeah be the biggest fraud in the German stock exchange ah that has happened so far and that was the point in time where after three months of burn um you’re there have no setup so basically we had where were quite close to say like guys, do you want your money back now? um But I remember it also they don’t necessarily need it, but at that point in time, then we continued to push on and decided, okay, we we are still going to finish the product. We’re going to search for new partners, which was not easy. And we came to the next point where then we didn’t have enough money to go live. So we had to raise two pre-seats, which luckily worked out in the end, but those are not the easy fundraisers and you take

Malte Rau: Your, your cap table gets messy. that’s

Alejandro Cremades: No kidding. So let’s talk let’s let’s double click on that. How much capital have you guys raised today?

Malte Rau: Yeah.

Alejandro Cremades: Because I know you have the equity side and then also the debt side.

Malte Rau: Yeah. So on the equity side, a little bit more than 70, so seven zero million in USD. And on the debt side that we need, especially for refinancing of our card receivables around 200 million, which we are not fully utilizing, but that we have committed.

Malte Rau: and that we can use to scale our business, especially for the part of the customer base that is high spending and needs credit lines in the millions. And that’s the base for that. And we continue to to raise even more, especially debt, and because there are so many cash requirements you have as a FinTech. Sometimes it’s just sad.

Alejandro Cremades: How was the um the journey to of going through the motions and the different cycles, and you know again, for raising all that money?

Malte Rau: Yeah.

Malte Rau: I think the initial one, besides like Corona, we always felt that we had the time where it wasn’t the best timing because then when we didn’t race, everybody’s doing the big rounds. um And the other existential fundraise I would say was then end of 2022.

Malte Rau: where we absolutely had to raise and we actually closed early 2023, but we talked to 150 VCs. I would say 99% said no and also said, well, similar story during Corona. We don’t know where this is going. We want to set it out for now. We focus on our own portfolio, but then we were lucky to find one investor um in Japan, SBI,

Malte Rau: which is quite active actually also in Europe as a FinTech investor, but we had to fly for a 20-minute meeting to Tokyo for the for the final IC, so that was also a nice experience and they even decided on the spot which was interesting because then with our term sheet we landed and had our Christmas party.

Alejandro Cremades: Wow, that’s incredible.

Malte Rau: if

Alejandro Cremades: that’s think and And what’s the difference, too? I mean, you are alluding to it on a company like this between raising equity and raising debt. And how do you go about what’s different from raising one approach or the other approach?

Malte Rau: Yeah, I think for me, coming from the debt background, debt is a little bit easier just because it’s very rational and it’s very number driven. So you just say, like well, this is a loan book, this is data here, you’d like to finance it. And usually it’s not as hard if your loan performance is great. um But then for equity, being like selling a vision and these kinds of things that um as a data guy, it’s a little bit harder to wrap your head around. So there’s also,

Malte Rau: a lot of coaching feedback on decks that were um yeah required. And I still feel that our deck is to the stage, not as easy, not as vision there in comparison to what we are actually doing. and So it is for me a skill set that I for sure need to even get better um round by round. But whenever we raise our Series A, I’m looking forward to the first fundraise in a more relaxed environment.

Alejandro Cremades: and And obviously, you know, when you’re a startup, not only you have to deal with the uncertainty of, um you know, going through the hoops and the fast growth of of being a startup, but then also in your guy’s his case, you know, dealing with regulation.

Malte Rau: Yeah.

Alejandro Cremades: It’s a heavy, heavily regulated, them you know, segment. So how do you go about the uncertainty of both?

Malte Rau: yeah

Malte Rau: yeah First of all, wasting a lot of money on lawyers. so I shouldn’t say wasting, but there’s a lot of the money. um those The first people who make money with FinTechs are usually lawyers, especially in the regulatory it regulars tori environment that we are in.

Malte Rau: But initially, we had Larry to have one partner for the cards, one partner for the lending. So you had so many partners and vendors to manage. And that is a lot of time investment. And also, all these discussions abound. And who is allowed to push this button? Or should that be ah allowed a regulated entity or not? So it gets really to the nitty gritty details, where even before, if you have worked in regulated um are spaces or even fintechs sometimes when you have to build yourself and so talk to lawyers where it’s like one sentence in your TNC that when then the regulator could claim that you need a license for this and this is really what it gets down to and yeah you have to triple ah check everything and usually all our legal projects are cost at least double from what we initially think.

Malte Rau: and

Alejandro Cremades: No kidding. No kidding. So let’s say you were to go to sleep tonight. mal You wake up in a world where the vision of client is fully realized. What does that world look like?

Malte Rau: So our hypothesis, is the way we go to market is clearly that best in class software and banks when sounds maybe not as but and inspiring as some other visions, but this is the way we position o ourselves. We think that business relationships or businesses have a very strong relationship with their bank, which is a harder bond than having a millennial checking out a new Neobank.

Malte Rau: So therefore, we want to position enable, bring the technology to banks so that everybody can utilize or benefit from digital cards that we offer. So we think that if that happens, continues to happen, of course, hopefully they also buy our services, but then they are positioned very well. and And that would be not a dream come true, but I think that would be the world where we would excel specifically.

Alejandro Cremades: So I know, too, that team you guys have been, again, you know alluding to the growth earlier you know and as part of making this like a mega ah success. You guys are operating now in different countries, different currencies.

Alejandro Cremades: How how how do you deal with that? I mean, that sounds like madness.

Malte Rau: Yeah,

Malte Rau: yeah yeah it ah it unfolds all the problems. I think like when it comes to markets, we have just chosen a very conservative approach. So for us, every market is like a new market marketing channel at the end, right? It’s similar to like a Google campaign. You just say, well, I try something out and either it pays off or it doesn’t. so We hire usually only one or two people, especially in Europe, we have so many different markets. We have core markets, but it’s usually you hire two people and then you give them a specific timeframe and see if they start paying off. And otherwise we also had markets where the head was not perfect. So we just decided to shut down the market, wait six to even 12 months to hire someone who really is a game changer for the company.

Malte Rau: And that was a very big learning. and But we never said, for example, build big offices in France, hire 10 people. like It’s really to like really bootstrap mindset. So this is, I think, where even though we have a broad reach and we can also do a lot of cross-border things, at the same time, we always stayed quite conservative and always follow our highest-bending clients, but at the same time try to really get market access through then our partners.

Alejandro Cremades: Thank you.

Malte Rau: So I think that is where we could of course, have more complexity if we would be more aggressive in these markets. um And the second part, I think, multi-currency is something where it sounded easier than it was um to launch it because the liquidity flows behind that are just very complicated because we can not only offer them, we also can lend them, them but and you always need to do cash calls and these kind of things and to build books in all of these currencies so that you have

Malte Rau: will utilize facility is tricky. And we are not ya yet. We just an announced it. um It will take some time to say that we have um yeah deployed in all of these currencies. But it’s things that when someone tells you here’s 11 currencies, and yeah well, this currency takes two days longer to send. But Visa wants that in one day earlier. What do you do now? right And that’s something goes through every currency.

Alejandro Cremades: So now let’s let’s put you into a time machine.

Malte Rau: but

Alejandro Cremades: And let’s say I bring you back to end of 2018, you know, when you were thinking about starting something of your own, becoming a founder, take ownership of your own future and destiny.

Alejandro Cremades: And let’s say you’re able to appear right there, right now with your younger self. And you’re able to give that younger self one piece of advice before launching a business. What would that be and why, given what you know now?

Malte Rau: I think it would be mainly patience. So a lot of times as a founder, you push, push, push, and it not only takes a soul on yourself because of course being stressed or trying to push being and impatient, that is something that also not only eats at the people around you or feeds from the people around it also takes your own part or you um also give a lot for it. so some of these things where it is not necessarily like believing in like or like beingan having faith to do something, but quite often you have to really say, okay,

Malte Rau: This might take longer than you expected and that’s fine, right? It sounds like some something easy, but I think all founders are usually quite impatient, right? Because they also know there’s a wall I’m running and I’m running fast. and But sometimes you really have to slow it down. um And that’s something that I still try to to the state. And I think my co-founder and some others would still say.

Malte Rau: We’re not very good at it yet, but that’s a skill you really need to develop as early as possible. Also, if you become ah someone who has a lot of people in the company, you have to present that because if you’re like the chicken without and a head, then you will only hire people like chickens without heads.

Alejandro Cremades: I hear you. I hear you. malte so So for the people that are listening that would love to reach out and say hi, what is the best way for them to do so?

Malte Rau: You can just find me at LinkedIn, ma row so as I don’t think there’s anybody else with that name so far, maybe in the future. My son has a different name.

Malte Rau: I was, I was i wondered, I couldn’t name a junior, or my wife wasn’t happy about it. Even though she’s American.

Alejandro Cremades: that’s amazing well It happens.

Malte Rau: Yeah.

Alejandro Cremades: It happens.

Malte Rau: that Thank you for the ro invitation.

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

*****

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