Lucanet, a global leader in CFO SaaS solutions based in Berlin, has announced the acquisition of Causal, a London-based financial planning and analysis (FP&A) innovator. This acquisition adds Extended Planning and Analysis (xP&A) to Lucanet’s CFO SaaS solutions Platform, supporting CFO offices with advanced budgeting, forecasting, and scenario planning. Causal will continue serving over three hundred finance leaders globally while enhancing Lucanet’s offerings for new and existing clients.
Strengthening financial planning with modern xP&A technology
The acquisition brings Causal’s cloud-native platform into Lucanet’s comprehensive suite, which already covers financial consolidation, ESG reporting, tax compliance, and cash management. Causal’s user-friendly solution enables companies to transition from complex spreadsheet models to streamlined financial analysis, reducing errors and enhancing efficiency.
Elias Apel, Lucanet Group CEO, commented, “With Causal, we are extending our solution offering into the highly relevant and strategic category of operational planning. This addition means that our existing users as well as future customers will benefit from a unique, extended planning solution that shares the same product DNA as Lucanet’s existing value proposition: easy and intuitive user experience, a quick-to-implement cloud solution and cutting-edge, out-of-the box functionalities – supported by natural language modelling and AI automation. The acquisition of Causal concludes a year-long strategic search for the right partner. We found that partner in Taimur, Lukas and their team, who impressed us with their revolutionary and modern approach to operational planning but also their market traction across different customer sizes and their presence in the UK and US, two highly strategic geographies for Lucanet.”
Operational planning for comprehensive CFO solutions
Causal’s integration equips Lucanet with an advanced xP&A solution that centralises financial and operational planning, helping organisations proactively address potential issues through real-time insights and predictive analysis. This facilitates collaboration across departments, simplifies complex data modelling, and enhances decision-making.
This expansion also reflects the growing demand for modern operational planning tools that enable finance departments to execute detailed scenario planning. Paul Barnhurst, FP&A consultant, highlighted the significance, “Lucanet’s decision to acquire Causal shows its commitment to providing its customers with operational planning with a modern, easy-to-use platform. This has been a missing gap for Lucanet, and today’s announcement shows a commitment to closing the gap and providing its customers with a holistic operational and financial planning tool. Causal is a third generation planning solution that is multi-dimensional, cloud-based, requires no coding and provides its users with a modern, straightforward modelling experience. With this acquisition, Lucanet reaffirms its commitment to be a leading provider of software for the office of the CFO.”
A growing global presence in the FP&A market
Lucanet’s acquisition of Causal follows a year-long strategic search, with Lucanet choosing Causal’s platform for its innovative approach to operational planning and its established market traction across the UK and US. With a client base spanning startups to public companies, Causal’s focus on multi-dimensional, scenario-based financial planning aligns well with Lucanet’s mission.
Causal’s CEO, Taimur Abdaal, expressed enthusiasm for the partnership, “Causal was on a great trajectory as a standalone product, but after spending time with the Lucanet team, we saw the tremendous growth potential of joining forces. We’re excited to join Lucanet’s fantastic product suite and business, which will accelerate our go-to-market journey and let us bring Causal to thousands more customers over the coming years.”
A transformative step for CFO technology
This acquisition reinforces Lucanet’s commitment to providing CFOs with powerful, easy-to-implement tools that address operational and strategic challenges. According to Dr Christian Fuchs, Head of Data & Analytics Research at BARC, “Lucanet’s acquisition of Causal, and in particular the subsequent introduction of operational planning capabilities, represents a significant step forward in closing critical gaps and provides the opportunity to focus on end-to-end planning processes within organizations. As a modern planning solution, Causal provides operational and strategic planning capabilities that enable businesses to streamline processes, improve collaboration and drive informed decision making at multiple organizational levels. Its multi-dimensional capabilities enable deeper and more sophisticated analysis of data from disparate source systems, providing multi-dimensional insights that enable users to perform detailed scenario planning. By integrating a modern, cloud-native, third generation planning solution, Lucanet reaffirms its commitment to providing its customers with state-of-the-art SaaS technology to support operational, financial and strategic decision-making processes. “