Machinery Partner Raises Seed Round to Disrupt Heavy Machinery Procurement & Financing



Machinery Partner, a company offering novel procurement, financing and support for small businesses needing heavy machinery, closed a $4.5 million series seed round. The oversubscribed round was led by One Way Ventures (from Boston and focused on backing immigrant founders) and Euclid Ventures (from the West Coast and focused on B2B marketplaces), with participation from PJC and Techstars Ventures. Funding will be used to accelerate sales as well as technology development.

The round also included prominent angel investors including early Uber employees, dozens of founders of Venture backed companies and Nicole Glaros, the chief investment strategy officer of Techstars. Notably, One Way and Euclid wrote the largest checks in the history of their respective funds.

Machinery Partner aims to disrupt the $200 billion global heavy equipment industry by offering a unique, direct-to-customer model for financing and service. By eliminating dealers and other middlemen, Machinery Partner is able to pass along double-digit savings. And because Machinery Partner rates risk according to the business and its potential, rather than the credit score or asset base of the applicant, small and new businesses can now obtain the equipment needed to grow their business and compete with bigger players.

“To say the current equipment procurement model for small business is broken would be an understatement. In fact, it’s rigged against them,” Ciaran Gillen, co-founder and CEO, said. “From dealer networks, to service practices, to leasing and financing – everything is harder, costlier and less efficient for the small businesses that are the backbone of the economy. We are on a mission to democratize access to heavy equipment for these small and emerging businesses in the U.S. and around the world.”

Founded in Ireland by Ciaran Gillen, a veteran of selling heavy equipment in global markets, Machinery Partner relocated to Boston to be part of the Techstars accelerator program. Before the dust had settled, then-Techstars Boston Managing Director Clement Cazalot left the company to invest and join Machinery Partner as co-founder and chief operating officer along with long-time entrepreneur, investor and former Zipcar Executive Matt Malloy as chief marketing officer.

“The team at Machinery Partner has tapped into a huge market – perhaps the last one yet to be disrupted by technology and innovation – and is poised to empower thousands of small businesses to achieve their goals,” said Semyon Dukach, founder and General Partner of One Way Ventures. “Their approach removes the inefficiencies, unfair biases and inside-dealing of this industry – the very definition of disruption.”

Machinery Partner’s model includes innovation across the lifecycle, including procurement, financing and service.

Machinery Partner’s entry market can best be described as “companies in the business of breaking rocks.” The company sells and serves a wide variety of crushers, screeners, conveyors, feeders and breakers. The average customer purchases between one and four pieces of equipment at an average sale between $100,000 and $1 million. The company expects to expand its model to other use cases and industries defined by heavy equipment needs.


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