A German company brings sustainable tech rentals to the states
By Natalia Clement
Staying up-to-date with technology requires emptying your wallet after every new launch, whether it be the latest iPhone or 4K television. Grover is trying to change that. The German tech rental company, with its U.S. headquarters in Miami, offers consumers and businesses an opportunity to acquire a wide range of technology for a fraction of the cost through subscription-based rentals. Rather than an indebting “buy now, pay later” approach, consumers decide how long they want to use the product and then return it. Grover refurbishes the device for its next rental.
Sustainability is a key selling point for the company. Depending on the category, Grover rents out products two to six times. The record-holding device, a GoPro, has been used 27 times. Since the company was founded in 2015, it has circulated more than one million devices and refurbished over 300,000 tech products. According to their internal impact model, Grover estimates they have saved the purchase of around 100,000 new devices.
“We’re in the business of allowing customers to reuse devices across multiple life cycles,” Grover’s U.S. General Manager Andrew Draft explains, “as opposed to the linear path of consumption where when you’re done with it, you don’t really know what to do with it.”
In the last 15 months, setting up a U.S. headquarters in Miami has been the main focus for Grover’s scaleup. The company currently serves Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Spain, and America, and its asset portfolio in the States alone is worth over $30 million, according to Draft. With an estimated 250 million digital consumers in the U.S., entering the market here is a lucrative endeavor, albeit slightly different from the company’s approach in Europe since its launch eight years ago.
American consumers behave differently, Draft explains, carrying more credit cards and more debt than their European counterparts. This makes Grover extremely attractive, especially during times of inflation. All areas of the company – from marketing to shipping logistics – have gone through Americanized tweaks. Case in point: pushing “halftime show” promotions for home entertainment products ahead of the Super Bowl and providing faster shipping times to compete with Amazon.
In an effort to deepen customer satisfaction and provide added value, Grover recently piloted an eSIM add-on for smartphones in the U.S. that allows users to activate a flexible cellular plan without having to use a physical SIM card. Customers can be online the moment their smartphone arrives. Draft says one-third of Grover’s volume globally is in the smartphone space.
Its fastest-growing global segment is business-to-business rentals, a relatively new offering launched alongside business-to-consumer subscriptions in the U.S. The company focuses on working with small to medium-sized businesses and startups “who are staffing up relatively quickly, may be short on cash, or just want to use their cash wisely,” says Lisa Skowron Mota, the chief revenue B2B officer in the U.S. Stateside, Grover has made its biggest strides in the tech, consulting, and education sectors.
The global rental company’s estimated annual recurring revenue was over $200 million for 2022, with a total value of $1 billion after receiving $330 million in equity and debt funding last April, followed by an additional €270 million from London-based global investment manager M&G in September.
As to why Grover chose Miami as HQ for its U.S. operations, Draft points towards the relative proximity to Germany as well as the influx of tech talent and capital flooding the city. “Countless businesses have relocated here in the last several years and it was important to be part of the excitement and tech ecosystem that’s been building up in Miami,” he says.
