Case Study: Vow

Vow uses Primary to align their Series A investors with their cash management strategy.

About Vow

Vow are creating a new food category, driven by ambitions to feature sustainability, abundance and deliciousness at the core of what we eat. They use unique cell combinations to form new cultured meat products, having already explored the potential of growing meat from over 50 species. The most well-known venture of Vow’s so far has been the highly-publicised woolly mammoth meatball, which consists of meat from a species that has been extinct for thousands of years.

Vow’s scale of ambition has required significant external investment, having most recently closed their Series A of around $73 million. The Company’s backers include Blackbird, Square Peg and Grok Ventures.

Planning to optimise idle cash

Following their Series A raise, Vow had a significant amount of strategic cash that needed to be put to work. The company’s new Head of Finance Nick Barnes joined the team as the round was closing, and recognised the importance of optimising the funds.

With a good understanding of different fixed income products available in the market, Nick organised a series of term deposits with Vow’s existing bank. He knew that it was a quick win to optimise funds with their existing bank, but they had a number of issues:

1. They weren’t getting best rates in market on their term deposits. There were higher rates in market away from their existing bank, presenting a opportunity to further optimise.
2. Setting up investments with their existing bank was a largely manual process. To open new investment instruments meant that the company directors needed to lodge wet signed paper forms.
3. Turning to an international bank for alternative options meant they experienced a paper-based process. The alternate options were able to deliver superior yield but onboarding was difficult and the fees were commercially uncompetitive.

Given that Nick & the finance team knew Vow could access better rates and a better service elsewhere, they knew they needed to design a more tailored, long term treasury strategy.

Getting buy in from Series A investors

Vow’s requirements for a treasury strategy were clear: they needed options that delivered better yield than their existing bank & fit within their company’s risk parameters. To define their risk parameters, Vow needed to align with their Series A investors and board.

Without the resources to operationalise this process, Vow’s finance team faced challenges in feeding in their requirements, sourcing ideas and doing sufficient due diligence on each instrument.

Building a strategy using Primary

Turning to Primary to automate their treasury operations, Vow generated a comprehensive cash management strategy.

Using materials generated in Primary, the finance team were able to pitch the strategy and align their board with the instruments they planned to use. With their investors & board fully aligned with the strategy, Vow now uses Primary to monitor their strategy, adjust positions and generate reports to keep their investors updated.