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Used equipment specialist Equippo has received “substantial investment” from Wallenius Wilhelmsen Group - the Norwegian-Swedish equipment and vehicle transport company – alongside Swiss venture capital firms btov Partners and Venture Incubator.

The funding – the precise amount was not disclosed – will give the investors a minority shareholding in Equippo and allow the company to expand its presence in Europe and develop a new software product for construction and rental companies.

A Cat dozer on its way to France following an Equippo online transaction. (Photo: Equippo)

The company, which has offices in Germany, France, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Belgium, uses artificial intelligence systems to determine used equipment prices and also for inspection services, and operates a worldwide return shipping policy.

The company also announced the launch of a new software product, the “fleet value cockpit”, a telematics device which sends machine data to Equippo for processing and conversion into data on machine market value.

CEO and Co-Founder Michael Rohmeder, said; “Our price evaluation technology uses condition data from our inspection app and real-time market information. It’s already superior to other tools, and it’s an ideal use case for machine learning.

“Our new product will make this technology available to construction and rental companies, with a direct impact on their fleet profitability by optimising pricing and the time of sale.”

Mike Hynekamp, COO of Wallenius Wilhelmsen group, added; “We are very keen to support disruptive start-up companies...with such investments, as well as our experience.” He said the investment should be viewed in the context of the group’s “lifecycle logistics strategy”.

He added that Wallenius strongly believes that Equippo’s “jobsite to jobsite approach” had the potential to change the used equipment market.

Equippo was founded in 2014 with the aim of simplifying the buying and selling of used construction equipment. It’s key technologies are its price evaluation software, inspection app, logistics related technology and transaction management software.

Its prime equipment categories are excavators, dozers, wheeled loaders, dump trucks and road construction machinery.