Alexander Heckmann

Hiring people smarter than me. Co-Founder @Irisfinanceco Founding Team (Acq Nov 22).

[Alexander Heckmann @ADHeckmann]

I partnered with @drewfallon12 because after meeting hundreds of founders, I consistently saw that there was a massive gap in financial literacy/ infrastructure inside consumer businesses. We are super excited to help democratize world class infrastructure and forecasting for all!

[Drew Fallon @drewfallon12]

Announcement day!🗣

Excited to come out of stealth and announce Iris to the world (@irisfinanceco) a next-gen FP&A tool for CPG

We raised $2M of funding led by @revolution, with Rosecliff, and angels to give CPG brands better insights & forecasts to run better brands

👇👇

[Drew Fallon @drewfallon12]

JOE & THE JUICE SECURES $1.8B VALUATION IN UAE STAKE SALE

Emirates International Investment Co. has acquired a minority stake in the Danish chain Joe & the Juice, valuing the company at $1.8B, which implies a multiple of ~3.6x revenue.

General Atlantic will maintain its majority position, which it has held since acquiring the brand for $641M in November 2023.

At the time, that transaction represented a multiple of ~1.9x revenue based on the $340M in sales reported for 2023. This current deal allows General Atlantic to sell a portion of its interest to the UAE based investor alongside the issuance of new shares.

The capital injection is designed to fund an aggressive expansion strategy, with a target of reaching 1,000 stores by 2028.

Joe & the Juice reported ~$500M in revenue for 2025, a year in which it opened 75 new locations across international markets including Mexico, Turkey, and Morocco.

The investor, which is the investment arm of National Holding Group, is already a franchise partner for the brand in Spain and Turkey.Their broader portfolio includes stakes in companies such as talabat, Spinneys, and xAI Corp.

This deal follows a period where General Atlantic explored a potential U.S. IPO for the brand in 2025.

Comps:
- Cava trades at ~9x Revenue
- Dutch Bros trades at ~4.2x Revenue
- Starbucks trades at ~3x Revenue

[Alexander Heckmann @ADHeckmann]

Zach is the Doug Demuro of WI.

[Zach Stuck @zachmstuck]

ecom folks…

what is something you’ve built with ai that had a meaningful impact on:
- lowering cac
- increasing customer LTV
- lowering opex

if it doesn’t make a *meaningful* difference to any of these…you’re just playing dress up as a washed out engineer and wasting time.

[Drew Fallon @drewfallon12]

Mars Men has closed a $27.5M Series A led by L Catterton

The men's health brand has closed a $27.5M series A led by L Catterton.

Founded in 2023 by CEO @itmebenjamin and (iris investor🙂) @zachmstuck, Mars Men sells DTC through its website and targets men seeking hormone optimization without the use of synthetic TRT.

The brand's pitch is simple: science backed natural ingredients for hormone optimization without synthetic hormones.

This positioning targets a testosterone booster market projected to grow from $4.2B in 2026 to $10.3B by 2035.

L Catterton is doubling down on the sector, adding Mars Men to a powerhouse wellness portfolio that includes Thorne HealthTech, Nutrafol, and Hims & Hers.

[Alexander Heckmann @ADHeckmann]

@jacob_posel Wow this is the best take of 2026 so far. Thank you!!

[Drew Fallon @drewfallon12]

https://t.co/XTs7IJRU7D

[Drew Fallon @drewfallon12]

it seems increasingly obvious that in a world where the foundation models are getting better all the time, the value has to accrue to proprietary data sets.

In other words, how can you make the model better in a way no one else can?

what’s the counter argument to this?

[Drew Fallon @drewfallon12]

We just launched Iris MCP 🚀

Everyone is building AI agents, but they break as soon as they touch finance tasks

Why? Finance & operational data is ESPESICALLY messy & siloed - and messy data means more hallucinations and less reliable agents

For example, If you're connecting Claude to Quickbooks & Amazon, those two systems will show different numbers for revenue, meaning your agent can't answer a question as simple as 'what were our sales last month" - let alone build any analysis or modeling.

Iris MCP gives agents secure, governed access to clean, normalized, agent friendly structured data from 1000s of sources:

- ERPs, Accounting ledgers, & AP systems
- Amazon/Shopify
- Ad accounts, SMS, & email
- Retailers
- Bank Accts / Credit Cars
- Subscription platforms

and more.

One central & USABLE AI optimized data store for all your data is how you build agents that will actually drive value in your business.

My favorite things customers have built so far that are not iris-native yet:

- Cash level monitoring agent
- Inventory level monitoring agent
- Revenue reconciliation agent

Good data is your advantage.

Shoot me a DM if you want to connect to iris MCP

[Niko Ludwig @Collateral_com]

I'm excited to launch something new:

Weekly documentaries on the top stories in finance

Here's the story of Trammell Crow

(the founder of modern real estate private equity)

"The Man Behind a $13 Billion Real Estate Empire"

(02:17) THE WOUND (1914–1946)
>born 1914, Dallas, 5th of 8 kids, 9 people in 3 rooms
>dad is a bookkeeper, owns nothing
>boss dies in 1928, dad loses everything overnight
>14 years old, decides: employees are vulnerable, owners survive
>grinds through the Depression, becomes youngest CPA in Texas at 24

(04:44) THE FIRST DEAL (1946–1948)
>gets out of the Navy at 32, joins wife's dying grain warehouse
>tenant says "we need more space, we're leaving"
>Crow: "what if I build it for you?" - he's never built anything, he's an accountant
>builds 11,250 sq ft when tenant only needs 6,750, fills the rest
>50 warehouses in 3 years, just invented speculative building

(07:47) THE 3 RULES (1948–1956)
>Rule 1: never sell, hold everything
>Rule 2: share equity with everyone, turn employees into owners
>Rule 3: sign personally for everything, unlimited liability
>"you can get rich selling real estate, you can only get wealthy owning it"
>these 3 rules built the empire and nearly destroyed it, twice

(09:48) THE FURNITURE MART (1956–1960)
>visits Joe Kennedy's Merchandise Mart in Chicago, becomes obsessed
>decides to build a furniture mart in Dallas, nobody wants it
>one company: "we hope you don't build it"
>his partner says let's quit, Crow goes silent, then: "I'm going to build the finest furniture mart in America" - rolls over and goes to sleep
>builds it, it works, Dallas Market Center grows to 7M sq ft, largest wholesale complex in the world

(12:43) EMPIRE BUILDING (1960–1973)
>deploys young MBAs to new cities, gives them capital, autonomy, and ownership
>Bob Glaze: 13 years, never got a raise from $16K salary, worth millions through partnership stakes
>meets Mack Pogue, young broker, zero dev experience, forms Lincoln Property - becomes 2nd largest apartment manager in America
>1971: 140M sq ft, 8,000 properties, 26 cities, 6 countries, Forbes calls him nation's biggest private landlord
>Fortune headline: "Trammell Crow Succeeds Because YOU Want Him To"

(20:21) THE FIRST CRISIS (1973–1977)
>Arab oil embargo, oil prices quadruple, interest rates spike
>personally liable for $433M, cash flow negative $25M/year
>Federal Reserve puts him on credit watch, too big to fail
>calls a partners meeting, asks them to liquidate their own wealth to save him - not legally obligated
>one partner: "I don't think the partners are safe until you are safe" - they save him

(25:15) THE COMEBACK (1977–1985)
>back on Forbes 400 by 1982, net worth $500M
>Harvard Business School asks: "most important element in business?"
>Crow: "love"
>builds the Anatole Hotel, numbers every single brick
>1984: $13B in assets, 5,000 employees

(29:09) THE SECOND CRISIS (1986–1989)
>oil collapses, S&L crisis, Tax Reform Act kills real estate incentives
>Dallas office vacancy hits 30%
>Forbes: "the dinosaurs are dying"
>partners hitting golf balls into empty buildings because there's nothing else to do
>second crisis, same mistakes

(30:48) LESSONS LEARNED (1989)
>one partner sends a memo: "please outline mistakes you have made"
>101 pages come back, single spaced, names attached
>"we covered up mistakes because we could borrow more money"
>"we continued to build because that's what we knew how to do"
>"when you don't have staying power, you turn into the fish"

(35:29) LEGACY (1989–2009)
>2006: acquired by CBRE for $2.2B
>alumni: Lincoln Property, Starwood, Transwestern, Spieker, Greystar
>"spawned more millionaires than anybody in his generation"
>dies in 2009 at 94, married to Margaret for 66 years
>asked about retiring: "you'd waste yourself instead of using yourself"

>partnership built the empire
>partnership saved the empire
>partnership outlasted the man who created it

One more thing:

If you're in real estate, private equity, or building anything on partnership, this one's for you

This took 7 people weeks to create

We spent weeks going through lost interviews, Forbes and Fortune investigations, library archives, and a 101-page internal document so that we could share this with you

Our goal is to produce content like this every single week

If you want to see more of this, like/repost the video, follow, reply, and share it with someone who needs to hear this story

Produced by Collateral, the financial storytelling firm

[Drew Fallon @drewfallon12]

Announcing our integration with Fulfil, the ecommerce ERP!

@IrisFinanceCo now integrates with over 1,000 data sources from ERPs to bank accounts to Applovin to Walmart to inventory management systems.

This centralized data warehouse approach allows our agents to access our MCP and build professional grade financial models, dashboarding, and analysis for your omnichannel brand better than anyone else.

AI is 20x better than it was a month ago, and iris is your one stop shop for all things data & finance.

I have never been a fulfil customer, but all of our customers say really great things so you should check them out! @fulfilio

[Drew Fallon @drewfallon12]

my hot take is that openclaw is underrated

[Alexander Heckmann @ADHeckmann]

@patife Have loved following your updates. Congrats!

[Drew Fallon @drewfallon12]

you're getting drunk and watching hockey on a sunday morning

i'm maxing out opus

i wish i was u

[Alexander Heckmann @ADHeckmann]

Accurate as hell.

[Nick Shackelford @iamshackelford]

99.9% of you using AI in your daily number crunching are probably so fucked with fake data.

[Alexander Heckmann @ADHeckmann]

@paulswaney3 Not one soul liked or responded old man. Valentine’s Day brutal for you

[Alexander Heckmann @ADHeckmann]

@paulswaney3 Does not sound like you’re in ecom or cpg then which means this is irrelevant

[Alexander Heckmann @ADHeckmann]

This is how your brand dies overnight and you become radioactive

[CDC @CDCgov]

Salmonella Outbreak: 7 people sick in 7 states, 3 hospitalized. Do not eat any affected Rosabella brand moringa powder capsules. See the notice for full details: https://t.co/6aEyhB1UtQ

[Alexander Heckmann @ADHeckmann]

@drewfallon12 @tryramp Gonna run ads to your calendar link

[Alexander Heckmann @ADHeckmann]

@tryramp REFUSING to use plaid as a data integration source has guaranteed I will never use the system for the foreseeable future

[Alexander Heckmann @ADHeckmann]

@SanjayAtPlay do you respond here

[Alexander Heckmann @ADHeckmann]

@zachmstuck What about Alex