Why fiskaly Is Splitting Its CEO Role
Vienna-based fiskaly, which makes cash-register receipts tamper-proof across Europe, has appointed David Feichter as co-CEO. Since 1 September he leads the company together with founder Johannes Ferner, seven years after Ferner, Simon Tragatschnig and Patrick Gaubatz launched the business.
The company's core job is to create legal proof that a transaction occurred at a point of sale and cannot be altered later. Its software signs and stores transaction data under eight different national rules, then reconciles them with filings and cash balances during tax audits. What began as a niche regulatory service has become one of Europe's fastest-growing compliance fields, initially driven by Germany's Kassensicherungsverordnung and its multiple transition periods.
Feichter is not a conventional outside hire. He was responsible for product at orderbird, fiskaly's first customer, and previously worked at NCR and Clover in San Francisco. Ferner will concentrate on strategic direction, international partnerships, M&A and investor relations, while Feichter takes operating responsibility and organisational scaling.
fiskaly's growth since investment from growth-equity investor Verdane has been substantial. At Verdane's entry revenue was around €10 million with about 800 B2B partner customers on roughly 500,000 POS systems. The company now reports more than 1,900 B2B customers, over one million connected POS systems and a team of more than 150 people across eight markets, helped by the acquisitions of Deutsche Fiskal GmbH and Infrasec Sweden AB. It is now building e-invoicing as a second business line alongside traditional fiscalisation.
What the Co-CEO Shift Reveals About the Austrian Compliance Player's Expansion
A Co-CEO Model for a More Complex Company
The split is a structural answer to growth, not a crisis. Ferner argues decisions had concentrated at the top as the company added acquisitions, entered new countries and grew from a handful of employees to more than 150. Sharing the CEO role is therefore a way to keep strategic and operational decisions from becoming a bottleneck; that logic fits the company's stated Rule of 40 performance above 50 rather than indicating weak leadership.
The German Compliance Moat
fiskaly's position rests on a market that is hard to enter and hard to leave. Germany was the company's most demanding regulatory entry point and remains its strongest market. Early adoption of a cloud-based, API-first solution instead of hardware gave it an advantage when the Kassensicherungsverordnung finally required tamper-proof systems. That history helps explain how it can now expand across Europe on an existing technical base rather than rebuilding for each national rule.
Feichter's Customer-Side Credibility
Hiring the first customer's product lead is meaningful for an infrastructure provider. Feichter dealt with fiskaly's product as a user, including complaining when problems arose. That experience should make the co-CEO model credible to B2B partners, who need a leader that understands point-of-sale constraints rather than only regulatory logic.
E-invoicing and M&A as the Next Leg
The company is not relying solely on receipt fiscalisation. E-invoicing is designed to extend coverage into e-commerce and omnichannel retail, while continued acquisition activity is aimed at buying market access, time and regulatory know-how rather than simply revenue. That strategy fits the stated goal of market leadership in each new country, as already achieved in Portugal, but it also raises execution risk because each acquisition and national rollout has to be absorbed while the leadership transition is still fresh.
What the Leadership Change Means for fiskaly's Customers and Rivals
For fiskaly's existing B2B partners:
- Expect operational day-to-day issues to sit with David Feichter, while Johannes Ferner remains the face for strategy, partnerships, M&A and investor relations; use that split when escalating commercial or service questions.
- Assess how fiskaly's e-invoicing build-out changes the point-of-sale and omnichannel requirements you are asked to support, because the company is explicitly expanding beyond cash-register receipts into e-commerce-related compliance.
For competitors and investors:
- Treat fiskaly's M&A appetite as a live consolidation signal in European fiscalisation, especially after Deutsche Fiskal and Infrasec Sweden; the company says acquisitions are for market access and regulatory know-how, not only revenue.
- The next meaningful test of the co-CEO structure is whether e-invoicing becomes a second revenue line and whether new-country expansion replicates the Portuguese market-leadership result without slowing the reported 60% year-on-year growth.
Risk & Opportunity Assessment
| Commercial Risk | Medium | fiskaly's revenue still depends on national fiscalisation mandates across eight countries; e-invoicing broadens exposure but also adds execution complexity. The article cites 60% growth, but detailed current revenue or profit is not disclosed. |
| Competitive Risk | Medium | Deutsche Fiskal and Infrasec were acquired to remove or pre-empt European rivals, but the field remains regulated and attractive, so new entrants or local incumbents may challenge in untapped markets. |
| Regulatory Risk | Medium | The entire business model is built on national tax-compliance laws; changes to rules, deadlines or certification requirements in any of the eight active countries would directly affect product and revenue. |
| Reputation Risk | Low | The co-CEO appointment was tested internally with the team over about half a year, and Feichter's history as fiskaly's first customer supports continuity; no reputational concerns are reported. |
| Technology Disruption | Medium | fiskaly's cloud-based, API-first architecture is a key advantage over hardware-era competitors, but e-invoicing and omnichannel compliance will require continued product investment as transaction formats evolve. |
| Commercial Opportunity | High | The company has more than one million connected POS systems, active M&A and a second e-invoicing line; it states it wants market leadership in each country and is already exploring beyond Europe. |
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