Case: DataBoard ApS: Start-ups and downs

Photo by Balázs Kétyi on Unsplash

By Thomas J. Howard; associate profesor at DTU, Carina Lomberg, professor at DTU, Rasmus Bushøj, and Jesper Hart-Hansen

This story follows the journey of DataBoard, a promising B2B tech startup led by Rasmus, which faced numerous challenges after securing early investment from Capnova. Despite strong commercial traction and an enthusiastic sales effort, the company struggled with an unstable product and a team lacking the required expertise. With mounting financial pressure, miscommunications, and delayed milestones, DataBoard ultimately went bankrupt within a year of its initial investment, marking the end of a turbulent but valuable entrepreneurial journey for Rasmus and his team. 

About the Article

The article is based on Chapter 18: DataBoard ApS: start-ups and downs, from the book REFRAMING THE CASE METHOD IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION.

This article examines the rise and fall of DataBoard, a startup that navigated the challenges of scaling, team dynamics, and product development in its early stages. It explores the key factors that influenced the company’s trajectory, including the critical decisions made by its founders, the support (and eventual withdrawal) from investors, and the impact of market conditions on its growth. The story provides valuable insights for entrepreneurs and educators as well as anyone interested in the complexities of building and scaling a tech startup. Use this story to teach your students about success and failure. There are questions to discuss throughout the article.

Setting the Scene

On a sunny Friday afternoon in October 2016, Rasmus is thrilled—his colleague Kasper has just shown him the alpha version of DataBoard ApS, a user-friendly info-screen platform. Kasper, a skilled front-end developer, built it in his spare time and shares Rasmus’s vision: an “app store for info screens.” With the prototype ready, Rasmus hopes to secure a seed investment from Jesper at Capnova next week.

DataBoard is a typical AV start-up—digital, scalable, and fast-moving. In this industry, IP protection is weak, so speed and execution matter most. VCs look for teams that can get to market quickly and generate early traction. Investors like Jesper often bet on strong teams first, ideas second. With Rasmus’s industry experience, Jesper is eager to learn more about DataBoard.

Part 1: The Pre-investment

This part describes the pre-investment situation in terms of the DataBoard founding team, Capnova, the VC undertaking the due diligence, the status of DataBoard both technically andcommercially, and finally the mindsets and viewpoints of both the investor and the entrepreneurs when it comes to the investment prospect.

The Founding Team

Rasmus Bushøj, a Danish business school graduate, spent his early career in sales before becoming a business manager at Atea ASA and later a sales and product specialist at ALSO Holding AG. In 2015, he founded his first venture, AV-Nerds.dk, where he identified the need for DataBoard. While Rasmus has strong AV industry experience, his entrepreneurial and VC negotiation experience is limited.

Joining him are Kasper (CTO), a skilled front-end developer with 12 years of experience, and Sten (CFO), a hardware engineer with significant business and start-up experience, particularly in AV and audio manufacturing. Rasmus and Sten previously worked together during AV-Nerds.dk. Sten focuses on investor relations and fundraising.

At the time of fundraising with Capnova, the team included Rasmus, Kasper, and Sten, while John, June, and Phil are not part of this case study.

At the time of DataBoard’s first funding round, Capnova A/S was one of Denmark’s four “innovation environments,” investing public and private funds. However, in May 2018, the Danish government decided to end this program, and Capnova would no longer make new investments—only manage existing ones.

In Q4 2016, during due diligence, Capnova’s portfolio included digital tech, with typical investments ranging from DKK 500,000 to 6 million (EUR 70,000–800,000). Jesper Hart-Hansen, Capnova’s investment manager and a former telecom entrepreneur, led the DataBoard case.

Jesper focuses on seven key success factors:
1. A strong, adaptable team with a shared vision
2. Relevant business and tech skills
3. Industry experience from day one
4. Deep customer understanding
5. Ongoing investor dialogue
6. Flexibility and rapid iteration based on feedback
7. Realistic, grounded financial planning

Drawing from past successes and failures, Jesper emphasizes one rule above all: don’t scale too fast—a lesson reinforced by the Startup Genome project’s finding that premature scaling is a top reason for start-up failure.

When walking into the reception of a company—whether an aircraft manufacturer, software coding house, public library, or university—chances are high you will see an info screen, like the one shown in Figure 18.1. The problem DataBoard solves is to make these company displays easy to configure and customize in a professional manner, allowing the user to easily insert apps/widgets, images, and video and resize them to fit within the display. Normally this process needs to be done by someone who can write code, but DataBoard makes it possible for the project manager, marketing team, or secretary to update the display.

DataBoard is a B2B company with a strong focus on customer acquisition—a key part of its investor pitch. Rasmus, well-versed in sales and the AV market, highlights a licence-based model with solid customer lifetime value: first-year fees cover acquisition costs, while retention drives profit.

Though bootstrapped so far, early traction is strong, with seven sales, five demos, and a promising pipeline. Financials show expected profitability in 2018, despite a small loss in 2017.

Much of this progress stems from Rasmus’s persuasive skills—recruiting a CTO to build the alpha version in his spare time and convincing early customers to pay for prototypes, which helped validate the product and build credibility.

As a further testament to Rasmus’s persuasive qualities, he is told by Capnova that before they could invest, DataBoard would have to bring in a senior board member with relevant industry experience. Rasmus manages to convince Magnus to become the board chair as well as invest some of his own cash into the company!

Capnova regarded the team now to be complete with:

  • a CEO who is a great salesman, knowledgeable of the industry
  • a committed CTO who manages to hack together good-quality proof of concepts in
  • a short time and close to no budget
  • a CFO good with financials, marketing, and investment who would be Rasmus’s right-hand person to help keep him on track, follow up with customers, and manage the orders.

The equity split between the founders is done without any apparent friction. Rasmus was keen to close an investment fast to get the company moving. From the Capnova side, this was seen as eagerness and a bullish determination to get the company running at speed.

Please answer the questions for yourself before you discuss in your team.

1. How would you assess DataBoard ApS in terms of Jesper’s critical success criteria? If you were Jesper, would you invest? Explain your decision.

2. Regarding the equity split in the founding team:

  • How would you distribute equity (%) between Rasmus, Kasper, and Sten?
  • What could you do to ensure commitment and engagement of the founders?
  • What valuation would you place on DataBoard ApS at the time before a potential investment from Capnova?

 

4. What terms would you want to include in the term sheet if you were a VC investing in DataBoard?

Part 2: The Investment

The negotiation proceeds smoothly, with Rasmus eager and flexible, aiming for a quick deal. On 27 March 2017, DataBoard secures a DKK 2 million investment from Capnova.

This section outlines the investment terms and DataBoard’s progress toward the first milestone following the initial tranche.

The Term Sheet Agreement

The contract terms appear highly favorable to Capnova. The deal gives DataBoard a low pre-money valuation, with Capnova securing around 26% equity through a small investment, while the rest is structured as a loan—minimizing risk and improving their chance of recovery.

From an investor’s perspective, it’s a smart strategy. Unlike many early-stage start-ups, DataBoard is already generating revenue with a promising sales pipeline. Even if it doesn’t scale rapidly, steady growth could still provide enough cash flow to repay the loan.

To reduce risk further, the investment is paid in milestones. The first DKK 1 million is released upon signing, with the second tied to meeting the first milestone (Clause 2.2).

There are mixed views on the milestone’s importance. Jesper considers it largely symbolic, preferring milestones that are easy to meet and open to interpretation—leaving the decision to release the next tranche up to the investor. Rasmus, however, takes the milestones seriously and is actively working toward them.

The agreement also names Rasmus, Kasper, and Sten as key persons. While their obligations are standard, Sten’s arrangement stands out: instead of a traditional employment contract, he has a consulting agreement at a flat rate of DKK 18,500 per month. The terms are flexible, requiring him to be available for support in business, finance, and marketing, either at the office or remotely.

After signing the investment agreement, Rasmus is highly motivated to push DataBoard forward. However, team issues emerge quickly. Sten demands payment for past work and proves unreliable—rarely present, focused on other consulting projects, and showing little commitment to the start-up. Despite being a key figure meant to support Rasmus, he fails to act like a true co-founder. Jesper notes that Sten simply isn’t doing his job.

Kasper also struggles. The demo software is unstable, and bug-fixing becomes overwhelming. While Kasper was great for building early prototypes, he’s not equipped for back-end or scalable development. Each fix introduces new issues, and delays mount due to underestimating time and complexity.

The initial DKK 1 million is quickly depleted. Although Jesper feels the milestone wasn’t fully met, he acknowledges that timelines are often too optimistic. Recognizing the team’s effort and the reality of early-stage execution, he takes the case to Capnova’s board, which approves the second DKK 1 million tranche, completing the investment.

After receiving the second tranche, Rasmus goes full speed on sales, marketing, and scaling. His commercial push is impressive—but the product isn’t market-ready. There’s no official launch, only ongoing fixes and updates. Jesper describes the process as chaotic: customers have the product, but it’s buggy and unstable. Fixes made late in the week often cause worse issues by Monday, frustrating users like Capnova, whose own office display fails after a recent bug fix.

Still, Rasmus powers through, learning the system’s bugs well enough to give smooth live demos. The company is scaling commercially without a stable product, relying on Kasper’s optimistic timelines. Internationally, they’ve sold to a Chilean TV station, a school in Pakistan, and even co-branded with NEC at a major AV conference.

However, Rasmus feels increasingly isolated. The board chair, Magnus, offers advice but holds back on using his network until the product improves. Financially, DataBoard is burning cash fast, consistently overspending its budget—much of it on marketing—despite the product’s instability. A new funding round is urgently needed.

QUESTIONS

PART 2A

1. What are your thoughts on the investment agreement?

  • Was it good from both sides?
  • What were the main risk factors involved?
  • What were the potential issues related to the agreement?

PART 2B

  1. Looking back over Part 2, how do you evaluate the ups and downs of the investment case and the causes?
  2. What would you have done differently if you were acting on the board of DataBoard during this time?
  3. What do you think will happen next? What will we read in Part 3?

Part 3: New Investment Round

Facing near bankruptcy, Rasmus turns to Jesper for additional funding. Jesper agrees but with the condition that Rasmus must secure another private investor to co-finance with Capnova. True to his resourceful nature, Rasmus brings in Lars, the company’s accountant, and they each invest DKK300,000. However, with the high burn rate and unstable product, the extra funding quickly runs out.

Rasmus remains optimistic, believing DataBoard has strong scaling potential and that issues will resolve over time. He draws confidence from other start-ups that succeeded despite similar product challenges. Jesper, however, has been through this before and believes continuing with flawed code is futile. He also feels the team, lacking the necessary expertise, won’t overcome the challenge.

Rasmus convinces Lars to invest another DKK300,000 under the same terms, but Lars mistakenly believes Jesper has committed to matching the investment. With no formal agreement in place, Lars proceeds. About a year after the original investment, Jesper decides Capnova will not invest further in DataBoard.

Lars is unhappy, and with Capnova pulling out, Rasmus is forced to lay off six staff members. The company operates on Lars’s investment and Rasmus’s personal funds. After struggling to find a new CTO, Rasmus is sued by Kasper, the former CTO. With no CTO and no replacement, the company seeks new investment but fails to secure it. By mid-2019, DataBoard goes bankrupt and is dissolved in August 2020.

Jesper, now an investor at Vækstfonden, looks for entrepreneurs like Rasmus. Rasmus, following Jesper’s advice, returns to study business administration and now works at Atea ASA selling AV solutions. Ironically, he regularly receives requests for a DataBoard-like product. Despite the outcome, Rasmus and Jesper remain friends, respecting each other for the journey they shared.

Based on

REFRAMING THE CASE METHOD IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION,

Karin Wigger, Lise Aaboen, Dag Haneberg, Siri Jakobsen, and Thomas Lauvås –

9781800881150

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via Open Access. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons

Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives 4.0 License

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Chapter 18: DataBoard ApS: start-ups and downs, by

Thomas J. Howard, Carina Lomberg, Rasmus Bushøj, and Jesper Hart-Hansen.

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