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Case Study

CVTrust and the Smart Certificate

By Benoit F. Leleux, Baldvin Kovacs, Sayat Kurmanbayev and Luigi Mirri

18 pages

January 2025

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Reference: IMD-7-2611

When the dotcom bubble burst in March 2000, this did not stop the world from going digital, but it did poke holes in the concept of trust, especially in the digital world. David Goldenberg, a Belgian entrepreneur with extensive experience in management consulting, was confronted daily with the hassles of recruiting when information about candidates could not be validated easily. Research showed that 30% to 50% of CVs contained errors, omissions or outright fraudulent claims. Could trust in the recruitment process be re-created for the benefit of all parties? The initial idea in 2010 was to develop a solution for digitally certified diplomas, and it led to the launch of CVTrust. Through a number of iterations based on feedback from early adopters, including some prestigious European business schools, the solution evolved from Smart Diploma to Smart Certificate and a full suite of fully integrated SaaS addressing the digital certification needs of all certificate-granting institutions. By 2024, CVTrust was forced to revisit its business model, competitive advantages and routes to market for a number of reasons. These included the emergence of open standards, legislation on digital certificates and an increase in digital education in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Was it time to pivot again to remain relevant?

Learning Objective

Moving from problem-solution to product-market fit
Taking technology to market
Managing the startup and early growth phases
Pivoting the business model

Keywords

Entrepreneurship, Digital, Venture Capital, Digital Certification, Digitalization, Strategic Pivot, Venturing, Certification, Trust, Recruiting, Curriculum Vitae, Business Model, Go to Market Strategy, Strategic Positioning, Scale-up, Growth Management, Fundraising, Crisis Management, Team Building, Competitive Advantage, Digital Platform, Software as a Service

Settings

Belgium
CVTrust, Information Technology, Information Technology Services
2010-2024

Type

Field Research

Available Languages

English

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Case reference: IMD-2689 ©2025

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Michel Galeazzi and Felix Ackermann, founding partners of the private equity firm Evoco, sat with the rest of the team pondering the latest strategic issues. Evoco had evolved significantly as a fund manager since its creation in 2012, taking advantage of newly identified opportunities and developing novel competencies. Its first three funds had an excellent track record, which provided a strong platform to continue learning and to evolve the business models of its funds. Evoco's founding premise was to develop business solutions for governance and liquidity issues that emerged in private equity, creating investment opportunities for its investors in the process. The first two funds, Evoco TSE I and II, focused primarily on developing secondary solutions for liquidity and governance issues in private equity, i.e. acquiring portfolios of positions in late-stage or undermanaged buyout funds, and creating value by accelerating exits and engineering a palette of value-creating, hands-on strategic initiatives. The sellers typically required liquidity for some reason, e.g. new investment paradigms, better allocation opportunities or team reorganization. With Evoco TSE III, the strategy was refined, opening the door to single-asset deals and ever more original value creation interventions facilitated by majority ownership positions. When US President Donald Trump announced a tsunami of new tariffs on 'Liberation Day' 2 April 2025, the world of trade and industry was thrown into disarray, and private equity with it. Would it make sense to capitalize on the upheaval by tweaking the firm's strategy again to fine-tune an even more compelling investment proposition? Which direction should that take?

Reference IMD-2689

Organization Evoco

Industry Finance and Insurance, Private Equity

Available Languages English

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