The Berlin-based startup WAY has secured €1.2 million in pre-seed funding to overcome the challenges associated with procurement. The funding round was led by Pitchdrive, a Belgian venture capital fund, with participation from IBB Ventures, FvS Investments, and HR VC allygatr. Notable SaaS angel investors, including David Padilla, CEO of Kenjo, Jan Schächtele and Christoph Hardt, founders of Comatch, Denis Bauer, CTO of Joblift, and Helge Plehn, CTO of Circus Kitchen, also contributed.
WAY plans to use the funds to further enhance its innovative IT platform. The company aims to develop its new service, which combines the easy and cost-effective procurement of devices such as laptops and smartphones with a platform that automates manual IT tasks.
The platform provided by WAY alleviates the burden on involuntary IT managers, such as founders, HR professionals, and office managers. Users can rent or purchase devices through WAY, and the platform takes care of essential IT processes such as device setup, inventory management, offboarding logistics, and granting tool access to employees. Thanks to integrations with major HR tools, Slack, and Microsoft Teams, new employees can be equipped with a device and necessary tools in less than a minute.
Jonas Baum, co-founder and CEO of WAY, highlighted the challenges faced by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in professionalizing their IT systems. He emphasized that existing solutions are often expensive, designed for larger companies with internal IT departments. WAY aims to ensure that companies avoid common IT pitfalls right from the start.
WAY’s services are mostly free, though premium add-ons offer additional automation and security features. The platform caters not only to smaller companies but also to larger organizations with existing device fleets. WAY offers an AI-powered tool that enables effortless integration of IT inventory, eliminating the need for tedious Excel spreadsheet uploads.
The Berlin-based startup was founded by Jonas Baum and Cedric Bals in early 2023. Bals, who previously worked as an IT student, witnessed the struggles faced by traditional SMEs with their IT systems. Later, he encountered similar challenges at modern startups and scale-ups. This experience led to the development of WAY as an intelligent solution to IT issues. Baum and Bals are experienced entrepreneurs who have successfully founded both VC-funded and bootstrapped companies in the past.
