Victoria Fischer and Nick Huijs believe you don't have to own everything to use it. Renting a car is widely known, but you can also rent strollers, e-scooters, and many other products. With their company, circuly, they offer companies software to expand their business model from selling to renting their products.
Sometimes you have to take detours to arrive at valuable insights. Nick Huijs developed a business model in the Netherlands for renting strollers, inspired by the circular economy approach. The idea behind it: Every stroller is only needed for a limited time and is usually still in very good condition afterward. So why should parents buy strollers when they can rent them, the business graduate and computer scientist reasoned. "Use instead of own," so that products and materials remain in circulation for as long as possible, was Huijs's motto. However, he discovered that a product subscription model is enormously complex – from subscription management and recurring billing to tracking the rented strollers and processing returns. And he became convinced that existing online shops were not designed for subscription models.
Then, at the Founders Foundation, an innovative startup center in Bielefeld, he met Victoria Fischer, who was working on similar issues and pursuing sharing economy approaches. "It was important to us to build something that offers sustainable added value for society and is simultaneously so economically attractive that we fundamentally revolutionize the way we consume," explains Fischer. Together with Huijs, she founded circuly in 2020.
“This makes renting very easy and allows companies to bring more sustainability to their e-commerce.”
Circuly is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution for managing, automating, and scaling the processes of a subscription-based business model for physical products. Essentially, any product with a limited lifespan—usually around three months to two years—high acquisition costs, and/or significant service requirements is suitable. The spectrum ranges from strollers and e-scooters to furniture and medical devices. While Huijs and Fischer believe that conventional online shops are primarily designed for selling, Circuly has developed software that focuses on the rental aspect and complements and integrates all business processes in such a way that companies can establish a circular business model within just a few months. This allows manufacturers to concentrate on their core business, while the software, which integrates seamlessly with existing shop systems, payment structures, and ERP programs, creates a platform for all subscription operations.
From renting and exchanging products to tracking returns, processing payments, and sending invoices. "This makes renting incredibly easy," emphasizes Huijs, "and in doing so, we bring sustainability to e-commerce." Huijs and Fischer believe that the easier it becomes for companies, and therefore for customers, to rent products instead of buying them, the sooner consumer behavior will change, thus reducing the waste of valuable resources.
Huijs and Fischer developed their business model at the Founders Foundation in Bielefeld, which specializes in supporting founders and promising startup ideas. Circuly, which has now grown to 15 employees, remains headquartered there. "The Bielefeld startup ecosystem offers us a strong network here," Huijs says. Circuly also collaborates with Bielefeld University . He and Victoria Fischer also benefited from the NRW Startup Grant in North Rhine-Westphalia , and the entrepreneurs were able to find business angels and other investors in NRW, whose financial support has propelled them toward growth.
This success story of an innovative transformation was published in November 2023. No updates or reviews of the information have taken place since then.
The publication series “Transformation through Innovation” aims to illustrate how companies in North Rhine-Westphalia have been able to write successful innovation stories thanks to the framework conditions created by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
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