Investing Across the Circular IT Ecosystem

What You Should Know

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Baird Capital recently attended Circular Tech Expo, the UK’s flagship event for enterprise technology lifecycle and circular innovation. The event brought together companies and decision makers shaping how enterprise technology is managed and optimised at scale.

The event provided an opportunity to connect with founders across the circular IT ecosystem. Our current investment focus is on specialist service providers that help enterprises’ efforts to maximise the value of their technology assets through lifecycle management, secure disposition and recommerce.

Baird Capital has a history of investing in businesses that help customers unlock value from assets throughout their lifecycle. One example is ecube, a former Baird Capital portfolio company that specialized in end-of-life aircraft disassembly and component reuse. The investment reinforced a broader theme that extends well beyond aviation: assets that have reached the end of their initial use often retain significant value when supported by the right recovery, refurbishment and resale infrastructure.

Events like The Circular Tech Expo provide insight into how markets are evolving and where new opportunities may develop across IT asset management, IT asset disposition and technology recommerce.

Here are a few trends continuing to influence the market:

• Extending Asset Life and Recovering Value: Repair, refurbishment, redeployment and resale help enterprises to extend the useful life of their existing hardware, to reduce replacement costs and to recover value from equipment they no longer need.
• Strengthening Supply Chain Resilience: With growing focus around supply chain disruptions due to geopolitical conflict, extreme weather and macroeconomic instability, circularity can provide alternative procurement options when new hardware becomes more difficult to source.
• Growth of Recommerce Marketplaces: By aggregating supply and demand online, B2B marketplaces broaden access and enable the scaling of circular IT solutions. Many also bundle value-added services such as device testing, condition grading and logistics, further supporting the secure recirculation of hardware.

Are you building in the Circular IT space but didn’t get a chance to connect with us at Circular Tech Expo?

We welcome conversations with founders, management teams and advisers across the IT lifecycle services ecosystem to explore opportunities on how Baird Capital can partner with your company to support the next phase of growth. Learn more about our Industrial Technology & Sustainability Investment Thesis or contact a member of our team.