We do not sell to end-taxpayers — we sell to, and co-build with, the operators who serve them. The plan is disciplined and sequenced: start where demand is already proven (the truck vertical) in the market with the most API-ready tax authority (Spain / AEAT), land one operator, prove euros recovered, then fan out across capabilities, verticals and countries as the data-network-effect compounds. Where operators don't yet exist, we seed them ourselves.
Our customer is never the driver, the SME or the importer — it is the vertical operator who recovers on their behalf. So there are exactly two ways to grow: (A) POWER operators who already exist (sell them the backbone), and (B) CO-BUILD operators who don't yet exist (become their technical co-founder for equity). Motion B is not a hedge — it is how we manufacture our own demand and de-risk the single sharpest GTM question: are there enough operators to sell to?
So what: a single-motion platform is hostage to how many operators happen to exist. A two-motion platform can always add supply — we sell to the market and we grow it.
Our competitive research names ICP depth as the single most important thing to validate: the population of vertical recovery startups may be dozens, not thousands 1 — a real risk that the "sell to operators" market is thin. The mitigation is structural: if the operators don't exist, we build them. Motion B (co-build for equity) turns a demand-side unknown into a supply we control, and converts the portfolio into venture upside rather than a marketing spend. We still validate operator density empirically with the first two verticals before over-investing in pure Motion-A sales.
Six candidate verticals (Market §3) scored across five GTM criteria. Higher is better; scores are directional judgement, not measured. The truck vertical wins because it is the reference vertical — proven demand, deepest existing product design, fastest path to a first euro recovered.
| Vertical | Recoverable pool | Build-alone pain | Reg. readiness | Reference proximity | Competition (openness) | Sequence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trucking / road carriers fuel VAT · diesel excise · per-diem |
High €10.8B2 |
High | High | Reference | Med | ① first |
| SME / entrepreneur VAT 8th-Dir. cross-border · input VAT |
High €5–8B2 |
High | High | Med | Open | ② second |
| Import / customs / tariff duty overpayment · FTA drawback |
Med €0.5–1.25B2 |
High | Med | Med | Open | ③ third |
| Corporate travel / T&E VAT foreign hotel · fuel · conference VAT |
High €5–6B2 |
Med | High | Med | Blue dot / VAT IT | later |
| Cross-border employees income-tax relief · per-diems |
Med €2–4B2 |
High | Low no bank rail |
Med | Med | later |
| e-Commerce VAT (OSS/IOSS) over-declared rate · input credits |
Med €1–2B2 |
Med | High | Low | Med | later |
The reference vertical: a full product/tech design already exists (Thesis §2), demand is proven, the pool is the largest single number, and every platform layer is exercised end-to-end. Fastest credible path to "€ recovered." Bank rail (fuel-spend verification) is essential and available.
Second vertical validates that the shared layers transfer: same OCR, same 8th-Directive filing rail (Modelo 360), same open banking. Large open pool, no dominant incumbent, and it turns on the cross-vertical pool the moment two verticals feed it (Platform §5.4).
Document-intensive and painful to build alone, but different authority endpoints (CDS/TARIC). Sequenced third to prove the connectivity layer generalises beyond VAT filing before opening the long tail of niches.
T&E VAT is crowded (Blue dot / VAT IT own it); cross-border employees lack a bank rail and face a shrinking per-diem pool under the EU Mobility Package; e-commerce sits far from the reference. Attractive pools, worse first-move economics.
So what: we lead with the vertical where we already have the answer, then use each next vertical to prove a different property of the platform — reuse (②), then generalisation (③) — before fanning out to the long tail.
Connectivity is built country-by-country (Risks §9). We sequence by how API-ready each tax authority is and how strong its open-banking coverage is — not by market size. Spain is the beachhead because AEAT is genuinely machine-fileable today.
AEAT files programmatically over SOAP web services with a client certificate, and — critically for acting at scale — offers colaboración social: a registered intermediary can e-file for third parties without a per-taxpayer power of attorney, with REGAPO apoderamiento as the explicit-PoA fallback. Modelo 360 is the direct endpoint for the 8th-Directive cross-border VAT refund the truck vertical needs. Open-banking maturity: High. 3
Italy's SdI clearance API is mature (since 2019) and a new interoperability API (Prov. 200918/2026) lets delegated intermediaries connect directly. France's B2B mandate lands Sep 2026, routed through registered PDP platforms — becoming/partnering-with a PDP is a strategic connectivity asset. Both are High open-banking markets. 3
Germany files via the ERiC SDK (library, not REST — heavier, continuously versioned); NL via SBR/Digipoort; Poland via KSeF clearance (mandatory from Feb 2026). All strong-to-medium open banking. Add against the versioned rules + connectivity layers, not a rebuild. 3
ViDA (adopted Mar 2025) mandates EN 16931 structured e-invoicing + digital reporting for intra-EU transactions from 1 Jul 2030, converging 27 patchworks into one standard. Each mandate is a pre-built, resold integration. 4
So what: Spain is not a compromise — it is the fastest place on the map to file at scale legally. We expand along the grain of the mandate calendar, adding countries where the authority has already done the hard work of exposing an API.
Land one vertical/operator narrowly, prove euros recovered, then expand along three axes — capabilities, verticals, countries — each expansion feeding the data pool that makes the next land cheaper.
So what: we never sell "a platform" cold — we sell a proven euro figure from an operator who looks like the buyer, then let expansion and the pool do the compounding.
The flywheel means our best salesperson is a reference operator's recovery number, and our moat and our GTM are the same thing: every operator we land makes the next one cheaper to acquire and more likely to win. Growth compounds instead of resetting with each new logo.
We reach a technical/founder audience the way infrastructure brands do — developer-marketing and ecosystem partnerships — plus a direct co-build motion for Studio deals. The ingredient brand ("Powered by Reclaim," Branding §7.8) is the compounding distribution asset.
Docs-as-marketing, a public API reference, "7 lines of code" quickstarts, and the Powered by Reclaim badge. Speaks to CTOs and technical founders in their own register — Stripe/Plaid's playbook. Feeds Motion A.
Ingredient/referral deals with fuel-card networks, logistics platforms, and accounting/gestoría software — they already own the operators and end-customers our verticals need. A compliance player (Stripe/Marosa-style) is a live partnership template. Feeds A + B.
Founder-led outbound to domain experts without a tech team — ex-reclaim-agents, tax advisors, logistics operators. We pitch "we are your CTO for equity" (Model §6). Low-volume, high-touch, high-value. Powers Motion B.
Own the phrase "tax-recovery infrastructure" before an incumbent does. Thought-leadership on ViDA, the 8th Directive, and the build-vs-buy math — SEO and credibility with founders and investors alike. Feeds the whole funnel.
Lead every conversation with the trucking operator's proven € recovered. Case studies from vertical N sell vertical N+1. The flywheel (§8.5) makes each reference stronger than the last.
Opportunistic: Taxdoo exits VAT services Apr 20265, vacating SMB e-commerce filing — a warm pool of orphaned operators to power if our verticals extend into filing. Watch for similar incumbent retreats.
So what: we never buy consumer attention. We market to builders and borrow distribution from the platforms that already aggregate our operators — and every "Powered by Reclaim" badge compounds the next deal.
For the first vertical, we do not wait for a finished platform. We start with a thin, concierge-operated slice — fake what we can, prove the recovery is real — then industrialise into product exactly where volume justifies it. This mirrors the platform build sequencing (Platform §5.7).
Measure € recovered, never documents processed · fake the tax logic before you build the rules engine · one operator, one vertical, one country flows end-to-end before anything fans out · productise only the path the concierge walks twice · every human fix tunes a threshold and feeds the pool. Concierge is a wedge, not the business — the business is the platform underneath it.