The Berlin-based startup WAY has raised €1.2 million in a pre-seed funding round. The round was led by the Belgian VC fund Pitchdrive, accompanied by IBB Ventures, FvS Investments, and HR VC allygatr. Additionally, notable SaaS angel investors participated, including David Padilla, CEO of the HR platform Kenjo, Comatch founders Jan Schächtele and Christoph Hardt, Joblift CTO Denis Bauer, and Circus Kitchen CTO Helge Plehn.
The founders intend to use these funds to further develop their innovative IT platform. WAY aims to further develop its new service, which combines the simple and affordable procurement of laptops, smartphones, and the like with a platform that takes over manual IT tasks.
WAY relieves all involuntary IT managers like founders, HR, or office managers. Devices are rented or purchased from WAY; the platform automatically takes care of all manual IT processes such as setting up devices, inventory management, offboarding logistics, and even activating tool access for employees. Equipping new employees with a device and all necessary tools takes less than 60 seconds, thanks to integrations with all major HR tools, Slack, and Microsoft Teams.
“Even tech-savvy SMEs often professionalize their IT too late because existing solutions are too expensive and designed for large companies with internal IT departments,” said Jonas Baum, co-founder and CEO of WAY. “Our goal is to ensure everything is done right from the start, and no company ever has to experience the infamous IT pain again.”
WAY is free for many features. Premium add-ons provide a higher degree of automation and security. The service is not just for smaller companies but is also aimed at larger organizations with existing device fleets. WAY offers an AI-powered tool for quick and effortless integration of IT inventory – without the hassle of uploading Excel spreadsheets.
Jonas Baum and Cedric Bals founded WAY in early 2023. As an IT working student, Cedric Bals noticed how overwhelmed traditional small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) were with their IT. Later, Bals experienced the same problems at modern startups and scale-ups. This led to the creation of WAY as a smart solution for IT problems. Baum and Bals are both experienced entrepreneurs who have previously successfully founded both VC-funded and bootstrapped companies.
