A sharing marketplace for business

Bringing the sharing economy to SMEs, Floow2 enables businesses to rent out equipment such as forklift trucks and earth-diggers to other organisations

The number of sharing marketplaces targeted towards consumers is perhaps rapidly reaching saturation point. Airbnb is a popular choice for travel rentals, and we recently wrote about The OX, a sharing marketplace for camping goods. Looking to switch tact, we’ve now come across Floow2. Designed for B2B use, the platform is enabling businesses to rent out equipment such as forklift trucks and earth-diggers to other organisations.

The service – which is currently offering a free 90 day trial — is designed to enable businesses to generate revenue from assets that would otherwise be lying dormant. Specialising in lifting vehicles, diggers and a range of other transports and machinery, organisations can post details of their unused assets on the Floow2 website. Other businesses can then browse the marketplace for machinery and vehicles in their area and make an approach, at which point Floow2 steps in to ensure that the equipment and services rented out are shared safely and quickly. According to a recent report, Floow2 already has contracts in place with a purchasing consortium (which organizes group deals) and a sustainable building agency — both of which will offer the marketplace to their members. Floows2’s founder, Kim Tjoa, is also talking to industrial parks with the hope that they will encourage their resident companies to participate.

With airlines and healthcare providers already sharing expensive equipment, is B2B now the new frontier for the sharing economy?