The Berlin-based fintech business Topi announced that it has received $45 million in debt and equity, of which $15 million was contributed by Silicon Valley’s TriplePoint Capital and headed by Index Ventures and Creandum.
The announcement comes nine months after Index Ventures and Creandum jointly raised $4.5M in a pre-seed fundraising round. Additionally, the business has disclosed a strategic alliance with GRAVIS, one of Germany’s top electronic merchants.
“This completely changes the game for us. For a very long time, Jan Sperlich, managing director of GRAVIS, says, “We have been searching for a partner like a topi.
We are thrilled that our commercial customers may now quickly and easily subscribe to their IT equipment in real-time at the point of transaction, devoid of time-consuming procedures and cumbersome paperwork. During the pilot phase, about half of the clients who rented hardware from topi came back for more items. We anticipate working with Topi in the future and growing our service on their platform.
To date, topi has secured finance totaling close to $50M from several sources, including founders and early employees of Adyen, Stripe, N26, HelloFresh, Cloudflare, Personio, and other companies as well as Index Ventures, Creandum, and TriplePoint Capital of Silicon Valley.
With its hardware-as-a-service business concept, topi, founded by Charlotte Pallua and Estelle Merle, enables any merchant or manufacturer to rent out their equipment, from cellphones and printers to robotic arms and sector-specific machines.
Estelle Merle & Charlotte Pallua, co-founders of topi, state that “the as-a-service models that have long been established for software will also become the standard for hardware.” “Our subscription platform will safeguard enterprises’ cash flow, and employees won’t ever again use out-of-date tools for their jobs. We firmly believe that to remain competitive, every manufacturer and reseller will need to provide their products through a subscription model.
Topi is developing the framework for B2B merchants to offer Hardware-as-a-Service by integrating the subscription option into the purchasing flow (HaaS). The fraud and risk engine of topi screens potential customers automatically and in real-time.
Index Ventures Partners Jan Hammer and Julia Andre join the topi board.
Andre comments on the news, saying that businesses prefer to concentrate on producing excellent results rather than being caught down in the complexities of actually purchasing equipment. Topi eliminates the traditional layers of suppliers and costs associated with leasing equipment and provides businesses with a hardware subscription service that delivers unmatched terms to its clients. We are impressed by the topi team’s quick execution and think they are ideally situated to facilitate this transformation at scale.
The General Partner of Creandum, Simon Schmincke, who is also joining the board, believes that topi will be one of the forces altering the world of B2B payments. “The concept is fresh, fills a need that has existed for far too long, and offers advantages to all parties. Execution will ultimately be everything. To achieve this, Topi has assembled a remarkable team, something we hardly ever see in businesses at this point.
Image Credit: Topi
