By Ty Findley, Co-Founder & General Partner
Running an independent industrial equipment rental business is not easy in 2025 – in addition to fighting for share in a fragmented market and living in the shadow of behemoths like EquipmentShare, these SMBs are generally stuck managing operations with cumbersome offline tools or using legacy incumbent solutions that are heavily manual and under-digitized. Equipped with these outdated systems, rental operators are then asked to manage complex businesses that face inconsistent demand streams and difficulty attracting quality new leads. These challenges often lead to cash crunches and inconsistent revenue streams. For many independent rental operators, a major barrier to doing steady business through streamlined transactions is simply a lack of digital storefront to source potential customers. This can be a major missed opportunity given that more than 53% of contractors now expect to be able to rent online (according the American Rental Association 2023 Contractor survey). As another benchmark, rental behemoth United Rentals derives 70% of its revenue from online tools.
In the $80B+ US equipment rental market, 53% of contractors say renting online is a must
And even if qualified leads do come in, industrial equipment rental operators can find themselves without the digital infrastructure to effectively coordinate the multi-step end-to-end rental process with a customer. This means that many of the actions associated with a rental transaction, which are key to building strong relationships between buyer and seller, occur with pen and paper at a physical brick and mortar building. When it comes to documents to support these transactions, rental operators must often manually gather the necessary paperwork to execute a rental agreement, a process which can be incredibly time consuming and prone to omission. Additionally, savings opportunities are missed, as it can cost as much as 20% less when renting from an online marketplace due to the large selection of suppliers, transparent pricing, and negotiated discounts. Overall, this is a cycle that is rife with inefficiencies and vulnerable to error – and also ripe for fresh thinking and modernization.
Big Rentals provides a dual-sided platform that combines a nationwide rental marketplace with tech forward operating software for independent industrial equipment rental businesses
Enter Big Rentals, an AI-powered rental marketplace and purpose-built software suite for SMB industrial equipment rental companies to find more customers and streamline operations. A comprehensive offering that includes a digital storefront, workflow automations, and automated document collection in addition to telematics data and dashboards to help an operator analyze a fleet, Big Rentals unlocks both revenue and efficiency gains for industrial equipment rental companies and their customers. With a marketplace that connects supply and demand to catalyze rental transactions, facilitated through a proprietary digital execution system that optimizes match quality, and a SaaS platform that leverages AI-enabled automation tools for quoting, scheduling, and payments, Big Rentals dramatically uplevels the equipment rental process for industrial equipment SMBs and their customers.
Big Rentals Co-Founder & CEO Pablo Fernandez, a 3X founder with depth in industrial equipment rentals and fintech
Launched in 2024 by co-founders CEO Pablo Fernandez and COO Ryan Keen, Big Rentals was born out of pain points the co-founders experienced themselves in scaling their own industrial equipment rental business. This direct contact with the daily challenges equipment rental SMBs face to keep their businesses afloat motivated them to create an all-in-one platform that empowers independent rental businesses to digitize operations, manage inventory, and connect with customers nationwide. They have delivered on bringing this game-changing solution to life and have developed a robust product roadmap for Big Rentals that will expand the platform into the construction equipment rentals market (and beyond).
Ironspring Ventures is proud to invest in Big Rentals’ $2.8M Seed round alongside lead investor SNAK Venture Partners with participation from Forum Ventures, LAUNCH FUND, NuFund Venture Group, and a strategic industry investor. Today, more than 350 rental companies in 200+ cities trust Big Rentals to help them grow, and we’re excited to back Pablo and the entire Big Rentals team as they bring a powerful tech solution to an underserved yet vital segment of the industrial equipment rental market, supercharging industrial SMBs to do more business through AI and digital tools.
Visit the Big Rentals website: bigrentals.com
