Some companies ask us how “safe” it is to trust us, OpenRegulatory, when using our eQMS software. After all, you’re entrusting us with your medical device and quality management data! That’s why I’d like to summarize our model and sustainability and governance so that you have some better context when making your purchasing decision.
Will OpenRegulatory Be Around 5 Years From Now?
Will our company be around, say, 5 years from now? The short answer is yes.
Here are the reasons.
- OpenRegulatory has been profitable from day 1:
The company was founded in 2020, so at the time of writing (2025), we’ve been around for 5 years. More importantly, we’ve been profitable from day 1. This means we don’t have any external investors (more on that later), but more importantly, we are financially very stable. - No investors, 100% founder-owned:
OpenRegulatory is still owned 100% by its founder, Dr. Oliver Eidel (hey, that’s me!). This means that the company doesn’t have to follow any irrational “investor decisions” which are often dictated by venture capital investors seeking to maximize the value of their investments. Examples for these are growing at all costs (hiring more people than you can pay for), unsustainable sales and marketing (spending more money on ads than you should), and, worst of all, selling the company to someone else who might have suboptimal ulterior motives. No, none of those apply to us because again, we have zero investors and are completely founder-owned.
Those are some pretty big benefits of choosing OpenRegulatory. Don’t believe us? Let’s look at our competitors and see how we compare.
Why OpenRegulatory Is More Safe Than Other Companies
Let’s compare the sustainability and governance model of OpenRegulatory to some of our competitors. As always, I’m not in this for making them look bad, so I’ll just stick to the facts which are based on publicly available information. We’ll be looking at Greenlight Guru, Qualio and Matrix Requirements:
| OpenRegulatory | Greenlight Guru | Qualio | Matrix Requirements | |
| Ownership | No investors 100% founder-owned | Venture capital investors | Venture capital investors | Private equity investors |
| Profitability | Profitable | Unclear | Unclear | Profitable |
As you can see above, OpenRegulatory is the only eQMS company which is both 100% founder-owned with no investors and profitable at the same time.
Greenlight Guru and Qualio and backed by venture capital (VC) investors. Generally speaking, VC investors have an interest in their portfolio companies growing rapidly (increasing headcount etc.) and ultimately selling them – in many cases, this is detrimental for their customers.
Matrix Requirements is an interesting case: Until recently, they actually were founder-owned. However, in around 2022 or 2023, the founders sold their company, Matrix Requirements, to a private equity company. We wrote about this arguably controversial move in this article. Since then, we’ve observed Matrix Requirements pricing to increase and become (much) less friendly towards startups. They even went ahead and increased the pricing for their existing customers which is arguably not a very customer-friendly move.
So there you have it. OpenRegulatory compares pretty well. But let’s say you’re still unsure. Okay, fair. Let me tell you about something we have which no one else offers which makes your choice even safer: Our data export, and our no-commitment pricing.
Still Not Sure? Data Export & No Commitment
Let’s say you’re still skeptical. Sure, fine! Let me tell you about two more benefits of OpenRegulatory:
- Export all your structured data:
You can take out your data our of our eQMS system any time. It’s as easy as pushing a button – we call the feature “Batch Export” and “Audit Export”. This exports all your eQMS data for you to take out and move into another eQMS system (even our competitors!). And those aren’t crappy PDF files, they are structured files instead, e.g. Microsoft Excel and Markdown files. - No-commitment pricing:
When you purchase our eQMS software, you can cancel every month. There’s no commitment. You pay monthly, and you can cancel monthly. No need to sign a lengthy contract, and no need to commit for 1-3 years (which is what our competitors above make you do).
So Formwork is the only eQMS software out there which is truly “no-commitment”: You can cancel any time, take out your data and move somewhere else.
This opens up an interesting possibility: Even if you’re unsure about using Formwork, why not try it out for one month? Because you could try out Formwork for one month, cancel it, and still go for one of our competitors, no harm done. The opposite is not true: Once you’ve committed to one of our competitors, you’re typically forced to sign a contract with 1-3 years commitment, so you’re locked in for good, no chance to choose our eQMS any more.
So – what do you think?
