From the “second SAP” to insolvency? Software start-up faces an uncertain future

Marco Börrie’s start-up Enfore was traded as the “second SAP” in e-commerce. Now the company has filed for bankruptcy – what happened to the former tech “prodigy”?

Berlin – The media and investors once celebrated him as the “German Bill Gates” or “prodigy” of the tech scene – which, as is well known, is not exactly short on highly talented visionaries. But after dazzling activities in Silicon Valley, million-dollar company sales and the founding of the German e-commerce hope NumberFour AG – Enfore for short, Marco Börries’ high-flying fortunes now seem to have come to an end for the time being. How to die Business Week reported that Börries’ current company NumberFour AG – Enfore for short – filed for bankruptcy on Thursday, September 26th. The Berlin-Charlottenburg district court appointed Björn Gehde as insolvency administrator.

Will Marco Börrie’s high flight end in bankruptcy? Enfore’s founding gets into trouble

But what happened to the start-up that Börries founded in 2017 and which was quickly traded as the “second SAP” and “Germany’s hottest tech bet”? Börries had big plans for Enfore and wanted to offer “200 million small businesses” a home in online trading via a software-based platform solution – as an alternative to market leader Amazon.

With the seemingly visionary idea as well as sophisticated hardware and software solutions for payment, accounting and shop hosting, he brought star investors on board. Microsystems co-founder and multi-billionaire Andreas von Bechtolsheim, Xing founder Lars Hinrichs and Lakestar frontman Klaus Hommels gave around 40 million euros in venture capital. Börries’s industry reputation probably also helped.

After all, he had worked for the tech company Yahoo, which was still important at the time, sold orders to Apple icon Steve Jobs or founded his own company as a student.

Impressive CV and full-bodied promises: Did Börries miscalculate with Enfore?

“Star Office” was the name of the computer program with which 16-year-old Börries Bill Gates wanted to compete with Microsoft. The investors’ hopes were not entirely unfounded given the German’s experience.

But the growth promises that Börries made full-heartedly were not to be fulfilled in the following seven years. Enfore’s technology was once comparable to established top dogs such as Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s FinTech Square (market value 38.1 billion US dollars) or the US restaurant technology provider Toast (14 billion US dollars). Then he once spoke of “Apple margins” of around 70 percent that Enfore’s services could bring in. But at the beginning of 2024 the first cracks appeared to appear. Like that Manager Magazine reported that workers waited for their standards between April and June.

A lack of standards is followed by layoffs and stalling tactics – is Enfore going bankrupt?

Internal emails show that Börries roasted his employees in writing during this time and referred to upcoming financing rounds. There were also layoffs in between, before some of the employees were paid by another company in the Börries cosmos in July. The founder and 71 percent majority owner did not want to comment on the allegations in the summer. However, it is still questionable as to what ultimately caused the misery. Börries always referred to the difficulties during the corona pandemic, which had pushed Enfore’s business plan back by three years – actually unusual for a software provider in the e-commerce environment. So far, Enfore’s technology has been used by smaller retailers and medium-sized German chains, including Fressnapf. Here, however, Börries sits on the supervisory board.

In July he announced his goal of achieving a market breakthrough by the end of 2027 – with additional investors and even more sophisticated technology. He continued to rave about the “unrivaled product” and thought he was in a league with “big multi-billion or deca-billion players”.

But Börries and Enfore will probably have to say goodbye to that for the time being. The next step is to search for investors under the aegis of the insolvency administrator Gehde.