loading...
Topi makes the case that leasing phones and laptops beats ownership – lower upfront costs, tax advantages, and hardware that never goes stale.
ENTRY ANGLES
Partner with existing equipment retailers to embed rental option alongside buy button · Build rental functionality into corporate procurement platforms · Add equipment trade-in/buyback guarantees at point of purchase
VERTICALS
CAPABILITIES
Integration with existing retail/procurement platforms, Understanding of corporate purchasing workflows and decision-making, Ability to manage rental logistics and hardware lifecycle
Topi is making the case that companies should stop buying equipment and start renting it.
The logic is sound from multiple angles:
- No large upfront capital outlay – rental costs flow from operating revenue. - Rental payments are fully expensed, reducing taxable income. - Employees always work on current hardware – companies simply cycle to the next rental period when the old one ends. - No dead assets sitting on the balance sheet or gathering dust in a storage room – Topi takes the old equipment back.
Rental pricing is competitive. A MacBook Pro rents for €40–60/month; an iPhone 15 Pro for €34/month; a Lenovo ThinkPad for €28–49/month. Terms range from 6 to 36 months depending on the device and company preference. At end of term, companies can return, upgrade, or purchase at residual value.
All equipment provided is new. Returned devices go to Topi's certified resale partners for the secondary market.
Topi's real structural advantage: it doesn't source equipment itself. Retail store partners supply it. Topi serves as the operational and financial layer – guaranteeing payment to stores immediately, then managing monthly collections from companies directly, including default protection. Topi's margin is the spread between the equipment's purchase price and the total rental payments plus residual value.
Stores can also opt into a revenue-sharing arrangement, financing deals through their own partners rather than taking the upfront payout. Either way, they gain a competitive edge: the ability to offer customers "Rent via Topi" alongside the standard "Buy" button – in their online store, at physical locations, or through a sales conversation. Topi provides a simple API that drops the rental option into any customer touchpoint.
Topi's first raise was $4.5M in late 2021. It raised $15M in equity and $30M in debt in August 2022, [covered here](/review/zarabotat-na-neizbezhnom). It has now raised €50M – all in debt, no equity dilution.
This shift from equity to debt financing signals exactly what it should: Topi's unit economics are mature enough that it knows when and from what it will repay. The business works.
Topi isn't the biggest player in this market. Grover ([related review](/review/vzjat-v-kredit-ili-v-arendu)), a European competitor, has raised $2.3B – over $2B of it in debt, the same signal of business health. Grover's model differs: it owns the equipment directly, manages its own refurbishment and re-rental cycle, and serves both businesses and individual consumers through its own website.
Circular ([related review](/review/shans-poka-drugie-ne-prosekli-fishku)), a Y Combinator 2022 alum operating in Southeast Asia and Australia, runs a Grover-like model for its region and raised $7.6M last fall.
Equipme ([related review](/review/chto-ugodno-kak-servis)), which raised $3.8M, approached the market from the procurement side – building a platform through which company employees can request software and hardware, making equipment procurement more manageable while defaulting to a rental model powered by Topi-style partners. Equipme pushes the same "Everything-as-a-Service" thesis, but embedded inside the procurement workflow rather than offered as a standalone rental marketplace.
The rental-over-purchase model for business equipment is inevitable. The case is too strong on too many dimensions – cash flow, accounting treatment, hardware currency, balance sheet hygiene – for it not to become the default.
B2B is the right place to build in this space. Average contract values are larger, purchase frequency per customer is higher, and default and fraud rates are lower than in consumer markets.
The real question isn't whether to pursue this. It's how to embed into existing corporate purchasing behavior without friction.
Topi's approach: partner with the stores where companies already buy equipment, and inject the rental option directly into that existing purchase flow. When a company sees a "Rent" button next to "Buy" in a store they already use, the switching cost to try the new model disappears.
Equipme's approach: build it into the procurement platform itself, making rental the path of least resistance for every equipment request.
Both methods exploit the same insight: the most effective way to introduce a new business model is to embed it inside existing behavioral patterns rather than asking people to change workflows. Croissant ([related review](/review/reshaem-staruju-problemu-no-vryvaemsja-na-novyj-rynok)), which raised $24M in its first round last summer, applied the same principle to resale fashion – adding a trade-in offer to the checkout flow of partner stores, so sellers can guarantee buyers a future buyback at the moment of purchase.
The entry choice is concrete: embed the rental option at the point where companies already buy equipment (Topi's approach through retail partners), or embed it inside the procurement workflow they already use (Equipme's approach). Both work. The real decision is whether you want to own the customer relationship through a financial product or through a software product – and which of those two positions is more defensible in your target vertical.