Amsterdam-based rental platform, BIYU, announced on Wednesday that it has secured €1.9M in a Seed round of funding from impact investor Urban Impact Ventures and tech-for-good investor Arket Ventures.
Angel investors Mahmoud El-Rashidi (IMC), Uri Boness (Elastic), Joost van de Wijgerd (BUX), Chris Bouwer, Rick Blankenstein (Whitestone Investments), Jasper van den Driest (former CEO of Gideon), and Ruben Timmerman (Springest), also participated in this round.
The current round brings the total seed investment raised by BIYU to €2.6M.
Besides the funding announcement, the startup also revealed a crowdfunding campaign on SEEDRS, allowing everyone who wants to be a part of the circular economy
Fund utilisation
The Dutch company says it plans to launch the rental platform without membership in 2022 and intends to open ten new BIYU hubs across and outside the Netherlands by 2023.
According to Circle Economy, a non-profit organisation pushing for the circular economy, household goods, products, and consumption are linked to 72 per cent of global emissions, and more than 91 per cent of what we take from the earth is wasted.
Frans Biegstraaten, co-founder of BIYU, says “The company is designed for circularity, catering to Millennials and Gen Z that don’t want to own things anymore. BIYU allows for hassle-free access to the best products from the best brands and is next to maximising product utilisation and recycling, also eliminating the need for cheap inferior products.”
BIYU: What you need to know
Founded by Martijn Tjho and Frans Biegstraaten in 2021, BIYU offers rental equipment services for gardening, party, cleaning, and kitchen.
The company provides access to a number of products from leading brands for a fixed monthly fee. It includes products such as power tools from Festool, DJ sets from Pioneer, gardening tools from STIHL, high-pressure washers from Kärcher, and more.
The company’s offering helps build a circular future, allowing more and more people to access, instead of buying, the products they occasionally need.
“We envision a circular future where we share resources and where nothing goes to waste,” says Martijn Tjho. “Together with manufacturers like Festool, Kärcher, STIHL, Makita, and many other leading brands, BIYU is focused on creating a closed-loop where asset utilisation is maximised and where products reach the end of their life-cycle return to its manufacturers for recycling.”
Urban Impact Ventures
Urban Impact Ventures is a Dutch impact venture capital investor that invests in entrepreneurs supporting the sustainable transformation of cities with a focus on decarbonisation and circularity.
The VC launched its inaugural investment fund in March 2022, and is open for new investors until September 2023.
Hans van Houwelingen, Urban Impact Ventures Managing Partner, says, “We believe that BIYU is one of the most promising initiatives in the circular economy space, reducing the use of resources and the generation of waste within the urban environment. We are delighted to back an impressive team with the potential to build a category leader in a large market covering a wide range of high-quality consumer products. We very much look forward to supporting the BIYU team in making the sharing economy the cornerstone of our future society.”
