LECTURA introduces klickrent, a German start-up providing digital rental platform for construction machinery

Learn more about klickrent in our interview with the company’s Co-MD Tobias Sudbrock. We spoke about the ideas to found the company, the company’s product portfolio, range of customers, markets of interest and much more.

Advertisement

L: When and by whom was your company founded and how did you come up with the idea?

TS: Klickrent is a subsidiary of Zeppelin GmbH. It was developed and founded in 2015 as the result of a nightmare competitor scenario. With klickrent.de, Zeppelin was the first company in Germany to establish an asset-free, digital platform for renting construction machinery and equipment on the market.

After two years as an independent company, Zeppelin brought klickrent into its incubator Z Lab in 2017 for further development. Within this framework, Tim Hinrichsen (sales) and I, Tobias Sudbrock (digital product development and processes), developed klickrent's new business model, with which we are still working successfully today: klickrent does not offer its platform to rental companies, but acts as an asset-free rental company and invoicer itself. This way, klickrent customers get everything from a single source. The rental companies have become klickrent partners. Today, they are part of a network that offers over 4,000 rental stations nationwide.

With this business model, klickrent reached market readiness. In October 2021, Zeppelin took the project as a spin-off GmbH (limited liability company) and made Tim Hinrichsen and me managing directors.

L: What problem(s) is your tool/product solving? Can you identify the range of your customers?

TS: Klickrent makes rental processes in the construction industry more efficient, easier, better and cheaper with the help of the digital platform and digital processes. With our business model, we provide our customers the most suitable offer at the best price in the quickest way possible.

We act as an asset-free rental company and offer the entire portfolio of cranes, work platforms, containers, construction machinery, power and lighting technology, refrigeration technology, construction heaters and storage technology available on the German market through our network of over 4,000 partners. The partner network is digitally connected to our platform. We query all availabilities and prices in real time. By bundling customer orders with our partners, we have a very high purchasing volume. This gives us margins that we also pass on to our customers.

With our combination of personal advice, efficiency, flexibility and price, we are unbeatable as a digital service provider. This makes klickrent an economically attractive and reliable partner for construction companies.

We mainly serve German and international companies from the construction industry with their construction projects in Germany and Austria. However, our customer base also includes, for example, companies from the areas of trade fairs and events, assembly, shipping, but also municipalities and industry.

L: What markets/regions do you focus on and where would you like to expand?

TS: We serve German and international clients with projects throughout the German market. This year we started expanding into other European countries and are working on the further internationalisation of klickrent.de. The first market where we are currently establishing klickrent is Austria.