DHDL deal collapsed after show: Why the investor pulled out after all

During the show, Janna Ensthaler, initially skeptical, was persuaded by Equaly founders Ronja Hoffacker and Louisa Plasberg. But then something changed.

She was skeptical from the start: "I have my problems with this prickly feminism," Janna Ensthaler countered the two founders of the equal care app Equaly. She believes the demand for a 50:50 split of household chores is wrong. It's an individual question whether a woman prefers to do more at home or at work.

Anyone who occasionally reads the investor's LinkedIn posts wasn't surprised by these statements. Her posts consistently receive a lot of likes and hearts from older men and rarely from young female founders.

Nonetheless, the three women came together at the end of the show. Although Ensthaler wanted significantly more for her €200,000 investment , they ultimately embraced each other with the deal: In return for her money, Ensthaler would receive 22.5 percent of the company's shares.

But in the real world, Ensthaler ultimately didn't invest in Equaly, as the two founders revealed in an interview with Manager Magazin . What went wrong?

The two founders, Ronja Hoffacker, a former McKinsey consultant, and Louisa Plasberg, who previously worked in politics and who – one wonders given that surname – is actually the daughter of TV presenter Frank Plasberg, started their pitch with a major problem: arguments within their partnership about the distribution of household responsibilities and those surrounding the children.

All the lions nod and readily share where things are going wrong at home. Judith Williams is annoyed by her husband's obsession with order; Tilman Schulz, who says he does "nothing at all around the house," occasionally clashes with his partner because she wishes he would do something. Only Ralph Dümmel apparently lives in Harmonia with his partner, the presenter Anna Heesch, because, says the investor, they "actually never argue."

The others, however, directly confirm the point the two founders are trying to make with their chatter: A large proportion of all relationship conflicts stem from the unequal distribution of daily to-dos: I always have to empty the dishwasher! You never put the kids to bed!

To counteract this, Hoffacker and Plasberg have developed an app. It's designed to help couples, firstly, make care work, household chores, and mental load measurable and visible, and secondly, organize them more fairly. For €159, couples can purchase a one-year subscription to define and distribute their tasks in the app, and then reflect on them in a weekly "check-in." It also offers tips from experts and coaches.

When it's the lions' turn to submit their bids, they all leave one by one: Dümmel, because, as he said, he personally doesn't see any need for it. Schulz, because he self-reflectively decides he's simply "not the right person" for the Equal Care app.

Williams believes that greater leverage is needed to achieve equality, and Carsten Maschmeyer isn't convinced by the business figures: With their demand for €200,000 for 10 percent of the shares, Hoffacker and Plasberg are calling for a company valuation of €2 million. However, they currently only generate €30,000 in annual revenue. This means that Equaly isn't worth €2 million, according to the investor.

In the end, only Janna Enstahler, the founders' "dream lioness," remains. And she makes a confident counteroffer: she wants 30 percent instead of the original 10 percent, in which case she would invest the 200,000 euros.

The show was recorded in spring 2024. A lot has happened since then, reports founder Louisa Plasberg in an interview with Manager Magazin: "Since then, our business model has shifted almost entirely to the B2B sector ."

Instead of what was stated in the show, her company's offerings are now aimed less at couples and more at companies. Equaly now offers them "management workshops and parent coaching," establishes parent networks, and provides advice on returning to work after parental leave. "With this concept, we quickly became profitable and have decided against bringing in investors for the time being." However, she and her founder have benefited from the exchange with Janna Ensthaler.