Intervju med Imperos CFO Kasper Lihn

For those who have not previously heard of Impero, can you tell us a bit more about your business, what you do, and which markets you address?

Impero is a Danish B2B SaaS company operating within the governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) domain. The company was founded in 2013 by two former Deloitte consultants who identified a recurring problem: risk and internal control recommendations from audit reports were simply not being implemented effectively -that insight became the foundation of what Impero is today.

The platform is designed to help finance and tax teams proactively map, manage, and mitigate risk through structured controls and relevant actions. In practice, this means replacing manual processes – most commonly spreadsheets and SharePoint workflows – with a centralised, easy-to-use platform that also ensures reliable audit trail and valid supporting documentation. The primary use cases are within tax and finance compliance management, though the platform is increasingly being rolled out to other departments for various controls, for instance within IT and general compliance departments.

Today, Impero serves more than 200 customers across large enterprises, public sector organisations, and SMEs. The platform is industry-agnostic, and the customer base is spanning from large and complex manufacturing companies to financial institutions and shipping companies.

Impero has increasingly focused on large enterprise customers rather than the mid-market. How do you view your competitive positioning in a GRC market that includes both large, established platforms and more specialized point solutions?

Compared to the large US-based GRC platforms, Impero occupies a distinct and deliberate position. The major enterprise platforms tend to be more costly, come with long and heavy implementation cycles, and often require companies to adapt their processes to fit the system rather than the other way around. Impero flips that dynamic – the platform is more intuitive, more affordable, and can typically be implemented within weeks rather than months or years.

In terms of focus, Impero is built specifically for finance, tax, and compliance teams – ”tax, finance and beyond”. This gives the company a clear vertical niche, while still being industry-agnostic, allowing it to win customers on that focused use case and then expand to broader use cases over time.

There is also a geographic and cultural dimension to Impero’s positioning. With the Nordic roots, we carry a level of trust and credibility in markets where compliance, transparency, and anti-corruption standards are taken seriously. This is seen as a meaningful advantage when expanding southward from the Nordics into the DACH region, where an understanding of how finance and compliance teams operate – combined with awareness of EU regulatory developments – gives us an edge over both large US platforms and more generic solutions.

The company has highlighted strong growth in the DACH region, while other markets appear to be more regulation driven. How do you prioritize geographic expansion and allocate resources across markets?

While the DACH region was our largest market by the end Q3 2025, the Danish home market had caught up by the end of Q4 2025, leaving the two roughly equal in size – each accounting for approximately 44% of ARR. That said, the sheer scale of the DACH market compared to Denmark makes it a particularly significant opportunity, and the results speak for themselves: 26% growth in the region in 2025, zero churn, and a presence across 22.5% of the DAX 40 listed companies. Impero entered the DACH market back in 2018 through a partnership model and that foundation continues to drive strong momentum today in combination with direct sales through our sales office in Hamburg.

Going forward, the strategy is to continue investing in DACH, where product-market fit is well established, while allowing the Danish business to continue growing, especially through our high level of brand awareness, and supported by ongoing upsell to our existing customer base. At the same time, Impero is actively evaluating opportunities to expand further across Northwestern Europe. As we have communicated, we will keep investing in the UK market where we already have existing customers and potentially get feet on the ground during 2026. The capital raised in December 2025 gives Impero the resources to put commercial investments behind gaining traction in new markets, with the goal of replicating the partner-led entry model that proved so effective in DACH.

Impero previously communicated an ambition to become cash-flow positive before the end of 2026, but has since changed this target in favor of prioritizing growth. What changed, and how do you think about balancing investment with capital efficiency going forward?

At our core, we are a growth company, and we believe this is what drives value creation for shareholders. Throughout 2025, Impero successfully balanced our investments to the point where we were positioned to become cash-flow positive on a recurring basis before the end of 2026.

However, what became increasingly clear was that the same strong fundamentals that made profitability achievable also made a compelling case for doubling down on growth instead. With an ARR churn rate of just 1% in 2025 and a well-proven product-market fit, the board concluded that deploying more capital into commercial activities would build a stronger foundation for future growth, which is believed to create more value than hitting a cash-flow milestone.

That said, the shift is not a blank cheque to spend freely. Capital efficiency remains a priority, and the investment will be deployed thoughtfully and with discipline. We follow the broader principle of balancing growth with healthy unit economics – this is very much part of how we think about our trajectory. But given the company’s current size and stage, top-line growth is firmly the priority – and that is also reflected in the guidance and strategy communicated to the market.

In one year, where do you see Impero, and what is the strategy to get there?

Over the next year, the focus is on building a stronger foundation for growth beyond 2026. That means continuing to develop the commercial team in line with the current strategic plan, while also sustaining the momentum of the land-and-expand strategy – attracting new customers and helping existing customers grow and expand their usage of the platform. During 2026, we are also planning to integrate AI more deeply into the compliance lifecycle and deliver more intelligent, context-aware functionality in future releases, supported by an enhancing development velocity from AI tools.

Geographically, we are looking to take further steps into markets outside Impero’s current core markets, while simultaneously maintaining growth in the existing markets, with particular emphasis on continued momentum in the DACH region. Execution risk is taken seriously, especially given that we are a team of only around 40 people. Getting the right people in place – both through direct hiring and through leveraging the existing partner network as a steppingstone into new markets – is seen as the most critical factor in delivering on the strategy.

Can you mention three reasons as to why Impero is an interesting investment today?

Structural regulatory tailwinds. Across Europe, and the Nordics in particular, increasing regulation is driving demand for GRC solutions. The complexity of operating in today’s business environment brings more risk, and with it a greater need for centralised visibility, automation, and controls – all areas where Impero is well positioned.

Proven and scalable go-to-market model. Our success in the DACH region demonstrates our ability to enter new markets by starting with partners, gaining initial traction, and then establishing a local presence. With 26% growth in that region, the model has shown it can be replicated across geographies – an important characteristic for any SaaS business.

Strong SaaS metrics and product-market fit. Our low churn rate and the stickiness of our platform reflect genuine customer satisfaction, while a net revenue retention rate consistently above 100% – reaching 106% in 2025 – shows that existing customers are not only staying but expanding their usage. This creates a reliable growth engine from the existing customer base, on top of which new market expansion can be layered.