How Abacum tripled its revenue without adding headcount...then raised a $60M Series B.

After a huge year of growth, Abacum just raised a $60M Series B.

In this episode of The SaaS Revolution Show, Co-founder and COO Jorge Lluch joins Alex Theuma to discuss how they did it, including: tripling revenue without growing headcount, staying laser-focused on efficiency, and delivering a great product.

They discuss:

Abacum’s early stages, including the decision to take time and invest heavily in the product early on.
How Jorge’s frustrations as a CFO helped shape the Abacum platform.
How they stayed disciplined to balance fast growth and efficiency.
The pillars behind Abacum’s GTM motion.
Growing a global company and expanding from Europe into the US.
Life as a co-founder and the true meaning of success.

Founding Abacum

Before founding Abacum, Jorge worked in operations and as a CFO at several high-growth startups, including Travelperk and Wallapop. It was this experience working under inspiring founders that led him to want to be an entrepreneur himself.

In 2019, his friend and Co-founder Julio reached out about an FP&A product that addressed the frustrations Jorge had as a CFO leading finance teams. It made Abacum the perfect fit.

“I was extremely excited about partnering with Julio and working on building the product I wish I had.”

Investing in the product up front

FP&A products are complex to build with components including ETL pipelines, data modelling, planning, reporting, and collaboration to get right.

Early on, Jorge and Julio made the decision to invest early funding back into the product and build something market-leading. By late 2023/early 2024, the product had matured and they entered a period of fast growth.

“We’d been focused on building the product for the mid-market. And it reached a level of maturity that showed that it was extremely good. We’d also been learning our playbooks, on sales, on marketing.”

This approach paid off and Abacum grew much faster than expected in 2024:

“Our closed-won ratios were extremely high, above market benchmarks.”

The journey to Series B – Tripling revenue without growing the team

When the company started growing, Abacum kept headcount steady instead of expanding like many would have. Jorge explained:

“2024 for us was the year to validate the product we had built, everything that we had learned, and to test our efficiency. So, let’s see how fast we grow while keeping costs extremely under control.”

Every new hire had to return positive ROI. Every function had to operate with clear efficiency metrics. And instead of inflating the team, they focused on tooling, process, and getting the absolute most out of what they’d already built.

Through dedication and discipline, they tripled revenue without increasing headcount. And this became the efficient growth story that they took to the investment market when raising their Series B:

“You can imagine how your efficiency metrics and KPIs look if you do 3x in growth but keep the same headcount. We went out there to the market explaining this is what we’ve done. This is the product we have. This is the company we’ve built. This is the customer feedback.

“We truly believe there’s a huge opportunity ahead of us. Who wants to partner…and go after a massive market and with a product that looks quite good?”

Running an efficient GTM motion

During this period of high growth, Jorge and Julio stayed in “founder mode” – with Julio leading the GTM, without a VP Sales or CMO.

“What [Julio] and the team did was work hard, get the basics right, and show up every day. And also leverage a strong product that we had invested in and developed closely with our customers. All that combined was the recipe for success.”

As a GTM leader, Julio focused on hiring and retaining the right people and then enabling them to do their job well. This was through monthly objectives, coaching, and building a scalable tech stack.

What’s next? What success looks like for Jorge

Now the fastest growing tech company in Spain, the Series B funding will drive the next phase of Abacum’s product innovation, including: agentic AI, faster scenario planning, a robust data layer, and more collaborative workflows.

But for Jorge, all of that doesn’t equal success. Neither would an ultimate IPO.

For him, success is about the journey and giving it 100% along the way:

“I don’t want to look back and say I didn’t put 100 % into this. Into anything, into my family, into my kids. I did my best and I got to the maximum. If that’s the case, there’s nothing to regret. Even if Abacum is a failure. I tried to do it the best I could in my way. If the answer is yes to those questions, I’ll be extremely happy, whatever the outcome is.”