Founder Spotlight #5: Steve Helmbrecht
The Fortson VC Founder Spotlight series, where we take some time to catch up with a portfolio company we back, continues. This week, we had the opportunity to sit down with Steve Helmbrecht, co-founder, president, and CEO at Treasury4, whose company builds advanced data analytics tools and solutions for corporate finance and treasury professionals. Keep reading for an exclusive look into the Treasury4 team’s evolution, leadership, and priorities moving forward.
Q: Can you give a brief overview of Treasury4 in your own words?
A: At Treasury4, we build software for the office of the chief financial officer and focus primarily on capabilities of treasury management, which include legal entity management, cash, forecasting, and payments. Our overarching focus is to build the tools we wish we had when we were practitioners working in a variety of complex companies. At Treasury4, we help our customers unlock the power of their treasury data.
Q: How did Treasury4 and the team of co-founders come together?
A: I met my two co-founders, Ed Barrie and Nathan Brown, when we worked at Itron. After nearly ten years as CFO at Itron, I left the company but the three of us stayed connected as we navigated different roles over the years. In late 2019, Ed and I had a conversation about our desire to start a new software company based here in Spokane. We asked ourselves, what tools do finance professionals need? What type of culture do we want to create? We founded Treasury4 in 2020 and by early 2021, Ed, Nathan, and I were all on board full time and began to accelerate our software development efforts. Later in the year, we announced Treasury4 to the market and began raising capital to grow.
Q: What core values does your team hold close and put into practice that are instrumental to Treasury4’s success?
A: What immediately comes to mind is trust. We think it’s foundational to believe that team members have the best intention, which begins with how we work with each other. We focus on being sincere with each other, being reliable, and making the right commitments. We prioritize having a strong foundation with each other because we want to build that relationship with our customers and partners as well.
We also value customer success. We are oriented on delivering real value to our customers. We are always asking ourselves, how quickly can we help them get value? And then rolling up our sleeves to make it happen. This, combined with trust, are the two main drivers of our culture. We have others, too – collaboration, authentic listening, and the notion that great ideas can come from anyone. Our leadership team is actively engaged with the team to demonstrate these values, help share knowledge, and collaborate closely on executing Treasury4’s vision.
Q: How does having a team of founders vs. a single founder give Treasury4 an edge?
A: Ed, Nathan, and I each bring different levels of experience and areas of focus that none of us possesses singularly – it’s all in the combination. Mine is strategy, recruiting a team, raising capital, and building relationships with investors and partners. Ed is a visionary and he’s one of the most respected, longstanding treasury practitioners who has won awards for his work. Nathan brings analytics capabilities, marketing skills, forecasting, and much more to the table. When you stitch us all together, you get the team that is Treasury4.
I feel fortunate to have business partners who are as committed as I am. We all have a sense of ownership of Treasury4. Starting out with three co-founders certainly enhanced and developed our sense of teamwork throughout the organization and will continue to do so as we grow in the years ahead.
Q: What’s next for Treasury4?
A: We are excited about the Series A financing with WestCap that we recently announced. It gives us financial capital to continue developing our products, going to market, accelerating our product roadmap and creating the vision we have for a comprehensive financial platform.
WestCap has an amazing team of professionals who are there to help their portfolio companies grow and be successful. They create a sense of community, share ideas, and work together, and we feel very fortunate that WestCap discovered Treasury4 in their due diligence. They understand the space, they have experience and financial expertise – and we want to tap into that to help us accelerate our efforts and grow.
Q: Any closing thoughts?
A: My advice for founders and anyone looking to raise capital – if you’re thinking about raising from an institutional investor, ask yourself if the partnership would be a good fit in terms of perspective and advice you can glean from their team. Those intangibles are invaluable in addition to the financial capital.