Over almost 10 years at Techstars Boston, Clement Cazalot met about 10,000 startups, or 1,000 per class. Among all of those, it was an immigrant-founded venture in the accelerator's latest cohort that persuaded him to join its ranks.
This past May, Cazalot said he was leaving his role of managing director of Techstars Boston to go, in his words, "back into the arena." The startup he joined as co-founder and chief operating officer is Boston-based Machinery Partner, which on Thursday announced the completion of a $4.5 million seed round.
Founded in 2018, Machinery Partner helps small business procure, finance and service heavy machinery. Headquartered at Venture Lane's co-working space in Boston's Government Center, the profitable startup operates with a team of 10 or so people and maintains an office in Ireland.
Born and raised in Belfast, CEO Ciaran Gillen relocated to Boston to join the Techstars program, which he completed this past February.
"He is one of the best first-time CEOs that I have had the chance to work with," Cazalot said of Gillen.
At Techstars, Gillen also met another local entrepreneur, who later joined Machinery Partner as a co-founder: Matt Malloy, a former vice president at Zipcar and current CEO of Dorchester Brewing Co.
Malloy, who was a mentor for Gillen's team through Techstars, is working on Machinery Partner's sales and marketing plans while still leading the brewery. He also met "hundreds" of startups in his almost 10 years at Techstars, he said in a separate interview, and called the decision to join Machinery Partner was "a no brainer."
"It was the right time, the right place, the right vision," Malloy said.
Plans
One Way Ventures, a Boston-based venture capital firm that only backs companies with at least one immigrant founder, and California's seed-stage VC firm Euclid Ventures led the round, which saw participation from PJC, Techstars Ventures and a number of angel investors including unnamed early employees at Uber Technologies Inc. (NYSE: UBER).
In a follow-up email, Cazalot said One Way Ventures cut a $1.7 million check from its second fund. The firm closed its $57.5 million Fund II earlier this year.
Machinery Partner helps small businesses, particularly in the industrial recycling space, buy new industrial machines such as conveyors, crushers, mixers or excavator screening buckets. The company might sell new machinery directly to customers, or lease such machinery, or work with customers to find financing options. It is also developing a web-based data dashboard to help customers ensure optimal performance of the equipment.
"Most of our customers are actually buying multiple machines from us," Cazalot said. "Every business is unique and should be treated as such. Our very consultative approach allows us to decide, in some cases, if a company has a lot of debt, it makes more sense for us to own (the machine); In other cases, it will make more sense for them to own it."
Cazalot, who's also an investor in Machinery Partner, said the company plans to grow its team to 30 or 40 workers within the next 12 months, adding people on the financing, sales and engineering side.
"Machinery Partner sits on a shifting time of macroeconomic factors around infrastructure, material shortages and a push towards recycling," Gillen wrote in an emailed statement. "This is the perfect storm for success in this market. Our raise will allow us to write the playbook and scale to help more small and growing businesses all over the U.S."
