Growth becomes harder to define as a company matures. Early on, the objective may be clear: build the product, prove demand and establish a position in the market. Later, founders face a wider set of choices.

They can enter another country, deepen their position in existing markets, broaden the product, pursue profitability, form partnerships or use M&A to accelerate growth.

Giovanni Daprà, Co-Founder and CEO of Moneyfarm, has faced each of these decisions while building the digital wealth management company across Italy and the UK.

Together with Paolo Gesess, Founder and Managing Partner at United Ventures, he joined host Andreas Munk Holm to explain how the right growth framework changes with a company’s stage.

Their experience offers a practical principle: identify what the company needs now, rather than continuing to follow the strategy that worked before.

Moneyfarm began in Italy because its founders understood the opportunity, regulation and local market. Italy had high fees for managed investment products, creating room for a more accessible digital alternative.

“Starting from Italy for us was the natural choice,” Giovanni explained. “We understood the market and regulation better. But it was never the view to remain only in Italy.”

A home market can provide a strong launch point without defining the limits of the company. Local knowledge may help founders navigate regulation, understand customers and build with less capital. Giovanni also noted that talent costs in Italy made it possible to launch a product more cheaply than in London or the US.

However, founders in larger domestic markets can become too comfortable. Paolo said founders in smaller countries often begin with an international mindset because their home market cannot support their full ambition. In Italy, the domestic opportunity may appear large enough.

“You can really start there, but you have to have the ambition to scale outside,” he said. “The Italian market is big, but it is not big enough if you want to build something strong.”

The first decision is whether the home market provides a useful advantage. The second is whether the company is being designed to move beyond it.

Moneyfarm did not enter the UK simply because international expansion was part of its vision. Several conditions came together.

The company needed more capital, wanted access to a more supportive regulatory environment and remained committed to becoming a pan-European business. At the time, raising Series A and Series B funding in Italy was difficult. A UK investor could support both the financing round and the launch of a UK operation.

“Our decision was taken at the point where there was a convergence,” Giovanni said. “We needed more capital, wanted a more friendly regulator and wanted to continue moving forward with the vision of being pan-European.”

This provides a useful test for geographic expansion. A new market should solve more than one problem. It may open a larger commercial opportunity, improve access to capital, provide regulatory advantages or strengthen the company’s strategic position.

Paolo described these moments as tipping points. After a company has spent several years building and testing its product, it may need to make a strong decision to reach the next level.

“In my experience, there is always a moment where we have to take a strong decision and try to do something different,” he said. “If you take the right decision, then you scale.”

The strategy that took Moneyfarm into the UK was no longer appropriate when capital became more expensive.

After the rise in interest rates, the company stepped back from further geographic expansion and focused on becoming profitable in Italy and the UK. Opening another country would have required a new J-curve, with additional investment before the market could contribute meaningfully.

“Every stage of a company requires a different framework,” Giovanni said. “The challenge is always to understand which one is the right framework at the right time.”

Moneyfarm moved from losses to profitability within 24 months. Recognising the need to change was relatively straightforward because the company operates close to financial markets. Execution was harder.

“The signal was saying, ‘You have to adjust,’” Giovanni explained. “Making the decision was very easy. The complicated part was executing on that decision.”

Paolo added that execution requires clear internal communication. The leadership team, board and wider organisation must understand the direction and the reasons behind it. A strategic shift will struggle if different parts of the company continue operating against the previous objective.

Once Moneyfarm had strengthened its two core markets, it chose to broaden the product rather than enter another country.

The company expanded from its original digital wealth management proposition into a fuller investment platform, including brokerage and pensions. This allowed Moneyfarm to pursue more growth from customers and infrastructure it already had.

“Rather than country, we focused on product expansion for the last two or three years,” Giovanni said. “Now it is a point of maximising the commercial opportunity given by the new verticals.”

Founders should compare the cost and potential of geographic expansion with the opportunity inside the current business. A new product may increase customer value, improve retention or strengthen the company’s position without requiring the full infrastructure of another market.

The sequence matters. Moneyfarm first reached profitability, then expanded the platform and is now reconsidering geographic growth from a stronger base.

M&A became part of Moneyfarm’s growth approach when organic expansion became harder and acquisition opportunities improved. The company completed three transactions, including the acquisition of a UK pension consolidation business with about £1 billion in assets.

Giovanni sees M&A as a scale-up tool rather than an early-stage shortcut.

“It does not make sense until you have full product-market fit and you are solid with your core business,” he said. “But after that, as a scale-up, it is a lever that you have for growth.”

The decision to build or buy should begin with a clear business reason. For Moneyfarm, acquiring a pension business allowed it to add a product vertical and gain scale faster. Giovanni remains agnostic about the method. The objective is to find the most effective route to the strategic goal.

The operational burden must still be taken seriously. Paolo warned that M&A can consume a founder’s attention and pull leadership away from the core business. Companies need executives, board members and advisers capable of managing the transaction and integration process.

An acquisition may accelerate growth, but only when the company has the people and structure to pursue it without weakening the business it already has.

Different growth stages can require different investors and capital. Early investors may be well suited to helping a company move from one to ten, while a later investor may bring the capital, expertise and timeframe required to move from ten to one hundred.

The wider playbook is to treat growth as a sequence of decisions rather than a permanent commitment to expansion. Founders should ask which constraint matters most at the current stage, which growth lever addresses it and what must already be true before that lever can work.

The next engine may be a new market. It may also be profitability, a broader product, a partnership or an acquisition. The quality of the decision depends on choosing the framework that fits now.