Early in Lucanet’s expansion, two Chinese employees working in Germany had a moment of insight. Seeing how configurable the consolidation software was, they believed it could succeed in their home market. Acting on that conviction, they traveled from Berlin back to China and built what would become Lucanet’s Chinese business. The story illustrates how a tool designed for global complexity could travel easily across borders, Gurney tells us.
Lucanet’s origins are firmly rooted in Germany, where the company first built its reputation with a consolidation platform designed for companies operating across multiple jurisdictions. That design decision proved foundational. Because customers often consolidate entities across countries, the platform had to integrate financial data from different jurisdictions and support multiple accounting frameworks, Gurney tells us. The system can report under German GAAP, IFRS, or different management accounting rules and allows users to toggle between those views efficiently, he tells us.
Read MoreToday, the company’s geographic reach reflects that original cross-border orientation. While Germany remains Lucanet’s strongest market, the company now operates across Europe and Asia, including the Netherlands, Switzerland, France, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, China, and Singapore, Gurney tells us. Increasingly, a majority of new customer bookings come from outside Lucanet’s historical DACH and Netherlands markets, he tells us.
Growth has also been shaped by capital structure changes. After roughly eighteen years as a founder-run business, HG Capital made a majority investment in 2022, accelerating both product development and geographic expansion, Gurney tells us.
For Gurney, who joined Lucanet at the start of May last year, the company’s focus remains clear: build tools that make the Office of the CFO more effective across borders and systems, he tells us.
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CFOTL: There you mentioned jurisdictions and the consolidations that need to take place. Tell us a little bit about the company—where its origins are and what part of the world it comes from.
Gurney: Lucanet’s origins are German, and that remains our strongest market. But we now have well-established operations in the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the rest of the DACH region, along with fast-growing businesses in France, Italy, Spain, the UK, China, and Singapore. Increasingly, a majority of our new logo bookings are coming from outside what were historically our strongest markets in DACH and the Netherlands.
Gurney: So we now have a broad geographic footprint, and at the same time we’re filling functional gaps to create a more complete suite of tools for the Office of the CFO. That includes adding our xP&A capability, expanding disclosure management functionality, and introducing agentic XBRL tagging so finance teams no longer have to manually tag their accounts. All of this is designed to save users significant time.
CFOTL: Can you provide what we like to call an abbreviated history of the capital structure?
Gurney: The company was founder-run for roughly 18 years (give or take a year or two), and then HG Capital made a majority investment in 2022. Since then, we’ve been operating with HG’s support. Their backing has significantly accelerated our growth over the past few years, particularly in expanding both the product offering and our geographic reach.
CFOTL: When did you arrive?
Gurney: I joined Lucanet at the start of May last year, so I’m approaching my first year in the role. I had been speaking with the CEO for some time before that, so in some ways it feels like I’ve been connected with the business longer than that.
CFOTL: You’ve been in the role roughly a year. Was the company always focused on the CFO and finance leadership, or has that sharpened over time?
Gurney: From a product perspective, the focus has always been on the Office of the CFO. The company originally built a consolidation tool, and that remains a core capability. Interestingly, internally there was a period before I joined when there was a very strong VP of Finance but no board-level CFO role in place.
Gurney: Bringing the CFO role back into the leadership structure mirrors how we view the importance of the role for our customers. Part of my role is to be an advocate for those customers and for the product—ensuring that what we build truly supports the finance leaders using it.
CFOTL: I’m intrigued that the company grew out of Germany. Germany has a robust middle market, although it’s somewhat different from the U.S. middle market. How have the company’s origins helped it understand and serve that segment?
Gurney: If you take the consolidation tool as the example—which really drove much of our historical growth—it had to be built to work cross-border from the outset. When you consolidate financials, you’re almost always integrating international entities. That means pulling data from multiple jurisdictions and reporting under different accounting frameworks.
Gurney: Our platform can report under German GAAP, IFRS, and different management accounting rules depending on the audience. You can toggle between those views efficiently. It also supports multiple languages, so users can operate in their local language without any friction.
Gurney: That flexibility meant that once we had grown organically in the DACH region, it wasn’t difficult to expand into the Benelux markets and then into the rest of Europe. China actually came about through two employees in Germany who were Chinese. They realized the product worked well and decided to build the Chinese business themselves—traveling from Berlin back to China to establish it.
Gurney: It’s a good illustration that the platform works globally. Now it’s really about allocating our resources carefully so we can grow efficiently across as many regions as possible.
CFOTL: Many software companies are balancing growth and profitability. How do you think about that balance at Lucanet?
Gurney: We spend a lot of time thinking about that balance. At the moment we’re operating around a “rule of 60,” which means we feel quite comfortable with the trade-off between growth and profitability.
Gurney: We’ve been expanding EBITDA margins while maintaining growth above 30% for several years—and that growth has been organic rather than acquisition-driven. A big focus for us is customer acquisition cost, particularly the marketing magic number and the overall go-to-market magic number.
Gurney: As long as those metrics remain healthy and churn stays at or below about 5%, we’re confident that growth will remain efficient. If those fundamentals are working, the rest tends to take care of itself.
Lucanet | www.lucanet.com | Berlin, Germany