Ooodles Raises £2M to Make Technology Rentals the Default for Business Hardware

Ooodles, a UK technology rental company, has raised £2 million from Altitude, Traditum Private Equity, and other investors to develop its platform for renting technology devices to businesses. The company provides companies with access to laptops, desktop computers, smartphones, and other technology hardware on a flexible subscription basis — enabling them to equip their teams with up-to-date devices without the capital expenditure, depreciation risk, or asset management overhead associated with purchasing hardware outright.

The business case for device rental over purchase has strengthened significantly as technology refresh cycles have shortened. A laptop purchased today will typically need to be replaced within three to four years as software requirements advance, hardware fails, or the device's performance becomes insufficient for current applications. For a business that owns its devices outright, this creates a recurring capital expenditure cycle with the additional complication of managing end-of-life disposal of old hardware. Subscription or rental models convert this to predictable operating expenditure, include refresh at the end of the rental term, and typically include maintenance and support as part of the package.

For fast-growing companies and those with variable headcount — including businesses that take on project-based staff, companies scaling rapidly, or organisations with seasonal workforce peaks — the flexibility to scale device numbers up or down without large capital commitments is particularly valuable. Rental also simplifies the management of a distributed workforce, where devices may be shipped directly to new employees' home addresses and returned at the end of employment without requiring physical collection or IT involvement.

Ooodles is building the platform that makes this rental and lifecycle management process as frictionless as possible: ordering, configuring, delivering, and eventually collecting and refurbishing devices through a digital-first service. The funding will be used to develop the platform, expand the device catalogue, and grow the client base among UK SMEs and scale-ups.

Sources

• Ooodles — company website