Tequipy, a Polish-British startup that ships, companies, and retrieves worker IT gadgets, has raised over €3 million in funding to develop its platform past {hardware} into software program and safety operations.
The spherical was led by Smedvig Ventures, with participation from Manta Ray and Unfold.vc.
“I’ve seen formidable, proficient IT specialists, who ought to have been constructing scalable methods, find yourself repacking packing containers and wiping laptops with rags, whereas additionally attempting to unravel the issue of a tool caught on the border. Throughout 1000’s of corporations, this isn’t an exception. It’s an on a regular basis actuality. We constructed Tequipy so IT can supervise the method as a substitute of executing each step of it by hand,” stated Tomek Stawarski, co-founder and CEO of Tequipy.
Tequipy was based in 2022 by Stawarski, Bart Czerkies, and Albert Podraza. Stawarski was the previous World Head of IT at Revolut, and Czerkies and Podraza had been Revolut colleagues. The corporate claims that for corporations hiring throughout a number of nations, it’s the quickest, most cost-effective option to get {hardware} to its staff worldwide.
It states that gadgets are sourced regionally in over 180 nations by greater than 800 authorised resellers. They’re pre-configured for the purchasers’ MDM methods reminiscent of Jamf, Intune, or JumpCloud, with a mean supply time of three days. The corporate additionally manages the remaining lifecycle phases, together with servicing, offboarding, storage, redeployment, and sellback.
The corporate notes that for globally distributed organisations, an worker’s laptop computer isn’t just a fundamental procurement. Tequip explains it as the start of a cross-border operation, doubtlessly spanning 10, 30, 60, and even 180 nations concurrently. Every machine have to be bought, configured based on safety insurance policies, delivered on time, serviced, recovered throughout offboarding, after which routed again into circulation, storage, or resale.
The startup highlights that this course of continues to be largely guide. IT groups nonetheless need to depend on spreadsheets, native suppliers, couriers, customs brokers, warehouses and countless follow-ups. Though international distributors remedy components of the issue, they usually require lengthy contracts, centralised warehousing and {hardware} markups that make the mannequin too sluggish and costly for fast-growing corporations.
Stawarski claims to be effectively conscious of this drawback and has witnessed the breakdown of machine logistics on a world scale, having scaled IT operations from 100 staff in two workplaces to five,000 throughout 17 nations throughout his tenure at Revolut. This expertise laid the muse for Tequip.
In response to the corporate, clients see one system; beneath, Tequipy factors out that it combines software program with a community of a number of hundred native companions buying, configuring and retrieving gadgets on the bottom.
“Firms usually come to us with one nation or one pressing drawback. They can not get a tool to a brand new rent rapidly and predictably. With Tequipy, onboarding begins in 5 minutes as a substitute of two months, and the machine reaches the worker in three days on common. After that, they often give us extra nations, as a result of they see our course of working higher than their very own,” stated Bart Czerkies, co-founder of Tequipy.
Tequipy started with {hardware} as a result of it’s essentially the most difficult facet of automating IT operations. The corporate’s total goal is to get rid of roughly 80% of guide duties for international IT groups. The following layer includes software program, masking worker accounts, licenses, entry, passwords, and associated processes all through the worker lifecycle. Safety might be addressed afterwards.
“{Hardware} is the hardest take a look at for IT automation as a result of it touches the bodily world. If we will run that course of throughout 180 nations, we will automate the layers above it. The following step is a device that removes 1000’s of small selections and exceptions from IT groups’ plates. As an alternative of dealing with each ticket manually, IT will management the method, step in solely the place human judgment is definitely wanted, and give attention to constructing methods slightly than pushing operations,” stated Albert Podraza, co-founder of Tequipy.
The platform is utilized by 150+ corporations worldwide, together with Booksy, Connecteam, Gigs, ICEYE, RemoFirst, and Taptap Ship.
