Fireman from 15 years of age Martin Hunt, currently 26 years old, knew the pain of small communities with tight budgets buying fire equipment.
One day in 2023 he talked to one of his friends of firefighters, who asked if Hunt knew about a higher way.
“When I could not find anything, it became clear that there was a need for a improved, nationwide expensive market, difficult to overcome equipment such as firefighters,” said Hunt in TechCrunch. “A few months later I left work without a product or financing for the construction of a solution.”
Joined forces with a friend of College Alex Sengul and launched GarageThe market, which sells specialized equipment widely used in local governments and public security. It automates most of what was once a manual process, akin to rating, freight quotes and payment solutions.
“Many of our clients are officials, firefighters, fleet managers and public work directors who do not have an administrative capacity to deal with endless documents and logistics coordination,” said Hunt, general director of the company. Sengul serves as CTO.
The company announced a series A series price $ 13.5 million on Wednesday and under the leadership of Infinity Ventures.
At the moment, Hunt said that fireside brigades depend on online auction sites, akin to Govdeals, Facebook groups, and even, still classified promoting in newspapers to find equipment if they need to buy previously their equipment.
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At the same time, cities are trying to sell old equipment to collect money for latest deliveries. Hunt said that many communities cannot sell throughout the country either, because the sale of a fire truck to the buyer’s buyer often turned out to be logistically.
The general platform of Garage products works in this manner: sellers use the AI Garage tool to evaluate their equipment. Then he mentions the product by offering the auction format or “Buy Now”. Buyer sending sales, asking for immediate quotes about such matters as warranty and freight. After meeting the agreement, the garage supports facilities and uses artificial intelligence to help coordinate delivery.
“In the case of transactions of this size, often over USD 100,000, security is a serious problem, especially in the case of the number of fraudsters that lurk on platforms such as Facebook Marketplace,” added Hunt.
He described the strategy of raising funds as a “catalytic” and said that he and Sengul met their major investors after participating in the winter cohort ’24 YC. The founders collected a $ 4.5 million round of seeds run by the initiated capital, and then were introduced to Infinity Ventures.
Others in the round include Benchstrength, Wayfinder Ventures and FJ Labs. Until now, the company has collected $ 18 million.
Fresh capital can be used to expand the team and the market. Hunt said that the product is currently used in all 50 states, calling cities akin to Burlington, Vermont and South Charleston, Western Virginia, as customers.
“We hope that the improvement of access to inexpensive, critical mission equipment improves public safety in areas that need it the most, while allowing funds for further and will remain in the hands of people serving our local communities,” said Hunt.