We're proud to announce that we have raised €600.000 from Techfund One to accelerate the roll-out for our subscription and 'as-a-service' platform. We couldn't be happier with the timing. As industries are moving towards sustainable & circular business models, the opportunity to power these companies in their transition is big.
Today's transactional economy is unsustainable. Every time a product is sold, ownership changes hands. Owning a product comes with responsibilities; it's a relationship with a start and end. We depend on the owner of a product to do the right thing when a product is no longer needed: recycle, refurbish or resell.
The majority of the time, products don't find a new owner or get retired properly. We are losing precious materials that can easily be reused. Future generations depend on a successful transition from a transactional to a circular economy. We believe subscriptions & service business models are the key to accelerate this change.
In today's world you buy a product, and you own it. It's yours, you decide what happens to it. But should we want to own everything? For every product you own, you carry the burden to do the right thing when you don't need it anymore. Sell or recycling should be the options that are considered. But more often than not, it ends up in a basement collecting dust.
It's even more unlikely that the product will end up back with the producer. And that is a shame, because they are best positioned to decide what happens with the product next: refurbish, recycle or upgrade.
Retaining ownership of products with companies centralises responsibility with them. It also creates the incentive to increase product quality, make them last long and make it easy for them to recycle, refurbish or upgrade.
It's the fundamental concept to accelerate the move to a sustainable and circular future. But, how to make money if a product is no longer sold?
Many industries are transforming to service & subscription based business models.
The software industry is a particular great example. In the past 10 years, the majority of software businesses have moved to a 'as-a-service' model. Instead of buying a multi year license for a copy, software is offered as a service, paid for on a monthly basis.
All of this lowered the barrier for new entrants, and made the space more customer centric. A similar trend is now seen in many other industries and markets. Mobility has been the first big consumer industry where mobility as a service is becoming popular. Zipcar, Bird and Lime are just the big names that serve as a good example.
The model is simple: a vehicle(car or scooter) is a component used to deliver a service. Instead of selling a scooter, service providers sell access to a scooter. Customers subscribe or pay per use within the model, making it a flexible and carefree option to owning the scooter.
The service model comes with big benefits. It's infinitely flexible, and gives customers freedom of choice. Companies become more accountable too, provide a bad service experience and customers will be on the lookout for a better option.
The transition to a service based business model will be bigger than e-commerce. Companies are not 'just adding a channel' but actually have to adapt all their internal systems to implement and execute on a service model. What is happening now is just the start.
We're headed to become the end-to-end solution for companies to join this movement. Over two years in the making, we get 'as-a-service' propositions up and running fast, without the big investments and budgets that are common in this market.
We can get to work, even when your company is not ready yet. We cover logistics, recurring payments, subscriber management, service scheduling and more. Through partners we offer credit checks and debt collection to mitigate potential fraud.
Download our full press release. Contact information for further inquiries is included in the press release. Interested in a demo or inquiry? Talk to our team.
