Most founders dream of the kind of problem Unrot experienced just two months after launching: meta ads that worked too well.

Unrot launched in June 2025 with a simple goal. Help people quit doomscrolling — but not by treating their phone like an enemy, by replacing bad habits with better ones. Instead of just blocking apps outright, Unrot makes users earn their screen time. Complete a real-world habit (a walk, a workout, a few minutes of reading or journaling) and you earn “brain credits” you can spend to unlock TikTok, Instagram, or whatever app you’re craving. Without enough credits, restricted apps simply stay locked. No credits, no app access. It’s less you’ve reached your time limit and more earn your time first.

Founded by an international team including co-founders Marc Burgmaier, Pete Tran, and Johannes Grubmüller, among others, the app found early growth signals the old-fashioned way. “It started with organic only. We just pushed out some content, and paid some creators on Instagram and TikTok,” Johannes explained.

Then, in late July 2025, the team turned on Meta ads, and the numbers quickly went vertical.

The Cash Flow Problem With Winning Too Fast

Here’s the catch with great performance marketing unique to the app industry: it’s only as fast as your cash flow lets it be. Unrot’s CPAs were strong enough that every dollar in was generating profitable returns, but Apple’s payout schedule simply couldn’t keep pace with how quickly the team wanted to reinvest.

“At the time, we realized we needed to be smart about managing our cash flow and liquidity, because Apple’s payouts are delayed and irregular. And that is exactly where Braavo came in,” Johannes said.

Why Braavo Capital Worked

Johannes and his co-founders weren’t shopping around for just any capital. They had two hard lines.

No equity, ever. “We never wanted to give away equity, which is a huge plus for working with Braavo,” Johannes explained. Instead of investing for a stake in the company, Braavo advances founders a portion of their future App Store earnings, in exchange for a small fixed fee, a revenue-based financing strategy known as Factoring. Founders get the cash now, invest it into growth, and repay it as revenue comes in, without giving up any ownership.

No traditional debt, either. With a globally distributed, remote founding team and a newly-established entity, conventional bank lending was effectively off the table. “We didn’t really want to get a regular bank loan — that would’ve been tricky for us anyway,” Johannes explained. As he put it, weighing the options came down to one question: “If you don’t want to give up equity, and you can’t access traditional bank funding, what’s actually left? That’s the thing Braavo offers.”

Braavo was the rare option that checked every box: accessible capital, no strings attached to ownership, no need to fit into a bank’s idea of what a fundable company looks like.

Turning Cash Flow Into Rocket Fuel

Once Unrot plugged into Braavo, the growth engine sped up.

“Through Braavo, we had the opportunity to access our money way earlier than we would have with just Apple’s infrastructure, and we were able to reinvest it immediately into paid ads and into hiring more creators,” Johannes said.

Instead of waiting on Apple’s standard payout calendar, Unrot could pour earnings straight back into what was already working: scaling Meta spend, layering in Google and YouTube ads, and expanding their creator portfolio. The result was a flywheel that compounded fast. “Every dollar we put into UA or even into new organic content just generated bigger numbers than we invested, so we just kept doing that,” Johannes said.

The Bottom Line

Within a few months of launching paid UA, Unrot went from a bootstrapped idea to a six-figure MRR, fast-scaling business running paid acquisition across Meta, Google, and YouTube, all without giving up a single share of equity. 

“Through Braavo, we have the opportunity to access our money way earlier than we would have otherwise.”

For a globally distributed team that didn’t fit the mold traditional lenders look for, Braavo wasn’t just a financing tool, it was the thing standing between strong ad performance and being able to act on it. “Through Braavo, we have the opportunity to access our money way earlier than we would have otherwise,” Johannes said — and for Unrot, that head start made all the difference.

Braavo offers non-dilutive, revenue-based financing for subscription app founders. If you’re scaling UA spend and want to move faster without giving up equity, sign up here to learn more