K Lips AG is running a financing campaign on the swisspeers platform. The aim is to replace existing financing.

Alwin: Nimrod, who are you and tell us something about your career.

Nimrod: I was born in Transylvania, Romania, and come from a Hungarian entrepreneurial family. I studied civil engineering and then worked as a construction manager and project manager at an architectural firm in Vorarlberg, Austria, to finance my studies. 
Two important qualities that I have cultivated are my ability to learn and my hard work. Both have helped me to get through difficult times. Later, I worked as a construction manager in Götzis, in Vorarlberg. 
A study director once asked me what my outrageously big dream was. My answer was this: to own a company in Switzerland and thereby create an international impact.

My outrageously big dream is to own a company in Switzerland and have an international impact.

Alwin: An ambitious dream. Were you able to make it come true?

Nimrod: I was looking for companies that were for sale and came across K-Lips in the Rhine Valley. The company produces and sells machines for coating, stripping or cleaning surfaces. 

The birth of a revolutionary idea

Alwin: And how did you manage to take over the company?

Nimrod: It was a big challenge, partly because I didn't have any money to buy the company directly. So we agreed that I would work as an employee for a year starting in 2020 and then I could buy the company. 

In the field, I noticed that our corporate customers not only needed equipment and spare parts, but above all they were looking for employees. I learned that painters in industrial companies have a 70% higher risk of developing lung and bladder cancer and that 60% of a production company's CO2 emissions come from the paint shop. That depressed and preoccupied me.

A friend asked me if I had heard of painting robots. I saw the technology and realized that we could use it to save the employees' know-how and have robots do the dangerous work. That's how I came up with the idea of selling painting robots.

Alwin: This is a huge change for the company. How did you implement it?

Nimrod: I found a supplier for robots and signed a contract that allowed us to sell the spray robots throughout the DACH region (Germany, Austria, Switzerland). 

Today, companies such as Porsche, Schneider Electric and SEW-Eurodrive are among our customers. 

From robot sales to rental model

Alwin: But that was just the start of the change in the company. Today you not only sell robots, but also offer a subscription model?

Nimrod: Exactly, I wanted smaller companies to be able to afford this technology, so we developed a subscription model where customers buy the work instead of owning the machines.

The idea came about in winter 2021. We wanted to test the subscription model and were of the opinion that the price had to be below the monthly salary of an employee, i.e. around 3,500 francs. We went to market with the offer and immediately sold ten subscriptions.

The takeover is successful

Alwin: Impressive! Then the takeover issue came up again. How did you get the financing for it?

Nimrod: I approached over 30 banks and was rejected. It was a difficult time! I had to sell robots and at the same time secure financing for the company purchase. But we managed it and today I own the company and we have over 60 robots in use at well-known companies.

An anecdote from that time: The director of our bank said he would quit and start working for us if the plan presented worked. Two years later, we had achieved our goal and I asked him when he wanted to start. 

Alwin: How did you ultimately finance the takeover?

Nimrod: I was able to finance 50% of the purchase price with a loan from an institutional lender and we structured the other 50% with the previous owner as a so-called earn-out model. The latter gives me and third-party investors confidence: the previous owner also believes in the path we have chosen.

Alwin: Who are your customers today and how/where are you growing the most?

Nimrod: We have major customers like Porsche, where parts of all Porsche 911 GT3s are primed by our robots. 

The Röchling Group and the Straumann Group also use our robots.

Despite economic challenges in Germany, we achieved sales growth of 80% for the third year in a row.

Alwin: Why should investors invest in your company and business model?

Nimrod: We are now paying off the takeover loan from my company takeover. It helped me buy the company, but the conditions do not allow us to scale the robot rental and implement the vision of crowdownership on the robots.

By investing in a loan from swisspeers, investors enable us to implement the chosen path more quickly and earn an attractive interest rate.

Alwin: Ok, explain the crowdownership model to us?

We want everyone to have access to this technology in the future and, on the other hand, everyone to be able to generate passive income with small investments in robots. We are democratizing the means of production. The model enables us to realize our vision and spread the technology further.

We believe that technology needs to be democratized, especially now that artificial intelligence and robotics are growing exponentially.

Alwin: That's impressive. What are your next steps?

Nimrod: As mentioned, we want to bring the financing side to where the robots already are on the customer side with the rental model. My goal is to democratize the technology and scale our business model. 

Alwin: Thank you, Nimrod, for this inspiring conversation. I wish you and your team continued success!