PreferRent to expand beyond Baltics

Latvia-based online rental portal PreferRent will expand beyond the Baltic market next year and establish operations in Sweden, Finland and Poland, and possibly some other markets.

PreferRent launched in January 2020 as a sharing platform for rental companies in the Baltic States, and in June 2021 expanded this service to create a full rental marketplace.

Online rental marketplace PreferRent will expand beyond the Baltics in 2022.

The website aims to provide equipment users with a single source of equipment from multiple rental companies or equipment owners, and gives rental companies a channel to share fleet on a re-rent basis.

In addition to expanding its geographical spread next year the company aims to add to its services, including a transport logistics platform and further IT tools such as fleet management, equipment tracking and accounting.

The business was founded by investor and IT specialist Deniss Mironcevs, who is Chairman and owner, and the CEO is Mišels Zavadskis, the former head of sales at rental company Storent who joined in April this year. Simas Kazlauskas, who was previously a salesman at Pekkaniska and split-rent and fleet manager for Storent, came on board in 2020 as head of equipment rental.

Zavadskis tolds International Rental News (IRN) that the platform now has 103 participating companies, either rental companies or businesses which have rental as a secondary activity. Rental transactions valued at €1.4 million have passed through the platform since June, with around 6,000 equipment reservations with 2,300 registered users.

“The ultimate purpose is to provide equipment rental companies, and companies with rental activities as secondary activity, with a powerful online sales channel, equipment sharing platform, digital document signing environment and other solutions allowing them to increase their efficiency”, said Zavadskis.

“At the same time, users enjoy an easy to use ‘all in one place’ platform, and can leave their feedback and may receive cashback for placed orders - if rental companies offer cashback.”

He added that Storent is among the users of its platform in the Baltics; “The Covid impact and restrictions helped us to accelerate cooperation with them and with other rental companies in the region.”

PreferRent charges a 5% commission on transactions.