The London-based tech subscription startup Raylo has secured a £110 million ($135.64 million) loan.
As reported by tech funding news on Tuesday (Jan. 31), the debt facility is provided by NatWest bank and Quilam Capital. According to the article, Raylo will use the funds to fuel its growth and expand its product portfolio.
“We are thrilled to have the support of NatWest Bank and Quilam Capital as we continue to grow and innovate,” said Karl Gilbert, co-founder and CEO at Raylo.
He added that “this financing supports our strategy to expand our platform and provide even more customers with affordable and sustainable access to the tech products they want,” per the article.
Another key player in the tech subscription market is the Berlin-based company Grover, which has expanded across four European markets and picked up over a million registered users since it was founded in 2015.
In September, the firm announced that it is bringing its rent-a-gadget model to the U.S. too, aiming to attract consumers with the promise of a monthly electronics subscription as an alternative to ownership.
Platforms like Raylo and Grover argue that the subscription model is more sustainable than owning technology because they are able to reuse electronics when consumers no longer want them.
What’s more, Grover has taken the concept beyond consumer electronics and branched out into the business-to-business (B2B) market.
As Sam Selldorff, the company’s vice president of B2B, explained to PYMNTS in an interview, businesses are increasingly attracted to the “device-as-a-service” model because it gives them more flexibility to scale and means they can equip employees with the technology they need as and when it suits them.
She said that businesses are “moving away from an office-centered structure [and focusing] more on digitalization within the organization, and both of those things mean that you need new tech and new ways of working,”
As such, she said that companies are increasingly rethinking hardware procurement and questioning the need to purchase new equipment every few years.
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