Vargen & Thor: ramping up growth and product offering

The background

When design aficionado and cooking enthusiast Alexander Thor complained about the quality of kitchenware products in the market, his brother challenged him: “why don’t you do better yourself?” – and so Vargen & Thor came to be. 

To get the startup money needed, Alex put his brains to work, quite literally, by joining a TV game show. He took home a €50,000 prize – the exact amount he needed to put in a first order for the pots and pans he’d designed.

And so, the dream of creating unique kitchen products that were built to last (while looking fantastic) became a reality. The interest was definitely there, and over 500 pre-ordered products were sent in the first week.

Since then, the company has grown steadily month after month – with the demand far outstripping the supply. So much so that his supplier tipped him off and recommended he put in larger orders, advising him to use Treyd to bridge the upfront costs.

“Using Treyd let us put in larger orders, and ramp up production by also ordering new products.”

– Alexander Thor, Vargen & Thor founder

Straightforward inventory financing

Although he hadn’t heard about Treyd before – and admits it can feel scary to trust unknown companies with money matters – Alex felt there was very little risk involved after going through Treyd’s agreement terms. 

“Our finance manager has also praised Treyd a lot, for how the agreement terms are set up, and how simple it all is,” he shares.

Being able to rely on Treyd to make inventory purchases helped Vargen & Thor ramp up production and expand their product offering. “Before I was putting in one order at a time, waiting to get the money in before putting in the next one, which slowed things down. So Treyd has helped accelerate things.”

More stable cash flow and inventory levels

By being able to make larger inventory orders, and increase frequency, Alex shares they were able to improve inventory levels to keep up with the demand. 

“We didn’t have that gap anymore, where we would sell out and then have empty shelves for 8 weeks, which would lead to pretty unhappy customers,” he says.

Besides improving inventory levels, Alex shares that another big benefit was helping stabilize the company’s cash flow, since Treyd helped bridge the gap in liquidity between paying suppliers and starting to sell the goods.