Office software for Chief Financial Officer H2-2025

H2-2025 The Office of the CFO CONTENTS-WHAT WE COVER IN THIS REPORT Insights from industry leaders What’s driving business of Europe’s established andgrowing OCFO leaders? We satdown with founders andexecutives to find out how they gear up for the next phase of Refined market maps with hundreds of additionalconstituentsglobally,evidencing the breadth of software Very high transaction activity, mainly drivenby sponsor-ledplatform investments and add-on transactions. Privatemarket valuations sustained on a high level, while public KEY TRENDS DRIVING OFFICE OF THECFOSOFTWARE–H2 2025 INTRODUCTION TO DRAKE STAR AT A GLANCE A LEADING GLOBAL TECH INVESTMENT BANKING BOUTIQUE LEADER INMID-MARKET TECHINVESTMENTBANKING 100%TECH-FOCUSED Deep sector expertise in8 core tech verticals Partner-ownedinvestment bank withan entrepreneurial team Only boutique inglobal top 10 Executing wide range oftransactions includingStrategic M&A, PEBuyouts, PrivatePlacements, Buy Side, STRONGTRANSACTION RECOGNIZEDBY THE INDUSTRY GLOBAL REACHCOMBINED WITHLOCAL PRESENCE 11x investment bankof the year48x deal of the year8x leadership awards One of the largest techteams with over 100professionals in the US,Europe and Middle East Over 500 transactionscompleted incl. numeroustech landmark deals A CROSS-SECTORALOCFOTEAM WITH DEEP DOMAIN EXPERTISE AND CONNECTIVITY THE DRAKE STAR TEAM HAS DEEP EXPERTISE ACROSS OCFO AND RELEVANTADJACENT AREAS–WE PROVIDE DIFFERENTIATEDPERSPECTIVES AND LEVERAGE AN EXTREMELY BROAD NETWORK GLOBALLY DRAKE STAR HAS A PROVEN TRACK RECORD ACROSS THEOCFOSOFTWARE STACK THE TEAM ADVISED ON SOME OF THE MOST PROMINENT TRANSACTIONS ACROSS THEOCFOSOFTWARE LANDSCAPE EXECUTIVE SURVEY–KEY TAKEAWAYS SURVEY AMONG EIGHT INTERVIEW PARTNERS REVEALS POSITIVE OUTLOOK ON GROWTH SUPPORTED BY CFO’S CONTINUED HIGHSPEND ON OCFO TOOLS. INTERESTINGLY, EUROPEAN CUSTOMERS SEEM TO NOT YET BE DEMANDING AI TOOLS BROADLY INSIGHTS FROM INDUSTRY LEADERS INTERVIEW WITH CHRISTIANRITOSEK, CO-FOUNDER ANDCEOOFCANDIS Today, Candis covers the core day-to-day workflows of the CFO office, including: ─End-to-end invoice management and AP automation─Approval workflows and compliance-ready audit trails─Expense and travel management, including reimbursements─Contract and document management─Corporate credit cards with real-time receipt capture─Purchase management ChristianRitosekCo-founder / CEO Please briefly share your background and tell us how you got involved with Candis. Our focus is on eliminating manual work, ensuring compliance, and giving CFOs real-timevisibility and control over company spend–without replacing their existing accounting or ERP I am a serial FinTech entrepreneur with more than 15 years of experience building and scalingsoftware companies in the finance and accounting space. Before founding Candis, I workedclosely with finance teams and saw the same structural problem: finance processes in SMEswere mission-critical, yet fragmented, manual and built around tools that were never designed How does Candis differentiate in a competitive landscape of software tools for theCFO function? Candis was founded in 2015 with a very clear ambition: to become the operating layer forfinance teams in SMEs. We started by tackling one of the most complex and painful areas first–accounts payable automation in the highly regulated German market–and built the Candis differentiates across several dimensions: Product & architecture: We are not a point solution. Candis is a unified suite that covers multiple finance workflows inone system. At the same time, it is deeply integrated into ERP or accounting systems, whichcreates a strong moat, especially in Germany. Please tell us more about the product/solution offering of Candis today-whichworkflows and challenges across the CFO office are you addressing? AI & technology: Candis is AI-first across the entire workflow: from document capture and semanticunderstanding to automated pre-accounting, validation, approval suggestions and error Candis is Germany’s leading AI-powered finance automation platform for SMEs. We act asthe workflow and system-of-record layer on top of existing ERPs and accounting systems. INSIGHTS FROM INDUSTRY LEADERS INTERVIEW WITH CHRISTIANRITOSEK, CO-FOUNDER ANDCEOOFCANDIS(CONTINUED) How does Candis differentiate in a competitive landscape of software tools for theCFO function?(continued) Please provide a brief overview of Candis, including, if possible, some stats about thebusiness today. Ease of use + depth: Candis is the leading finance automation platform for SMEs in the DACH region. Candis is built “by experts for experts” but remains intuitive enough for business users acrossthe organization. This combination of depth and usability is very hard to replicate. ─Founded in 2015, headquartered in Berlin and a team of ~115 employees─Customers: 10,000+ SMEs─Ecosystem: 400+ partners─Users: 50,000+ across finance and business teams─Growth: Strong do