By Riley Kaminer
Nine years ago, Michael Cassau founded tech rental marketplace Grover. The startup unicorn that raised around $2 billion entered the US market through Miami two years ago.
Cassau exited Grover at the end of last year. And he has wasted no time, starting a new company at the beginning of this year, bringing Christopher Silva (co-founder and CTO; former CTO at Grover) and Mitja Sadar (CFO; former SVP of Finance at Grover) along with him, among other former Grover colleagues. And the startup is based in Miami, of course.
So, how does it feel to start from scratch yet again? “It’s super exciting, I love it,” Cassau told Refresh Miami. The proliferation of finance and operations platforms that have sprung up over the last nine years since the Grover launch have made it easier than ever to launch a startup, he added.
The new company is called SKROL and it is developing an AI-powered platform to transform the world of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). The roughly 10-person team is developing a suite of tech-powered tools to help them identify top businesses to acquire. Then, SKROL will infuse the latest and greatest tech and processes to supercharge these SMBs growth. SKROL is interested in most kinds of SMBs – especially brick and mortar companies – with just a handful of exceptions including restaurants, FBAs, and Shopify stores (they’ll leave that to OpenStore).
Cassau was inspired to launch SKROL by contemplating society’s greatest problems – things like access to financing (which Grover helped to tackle) and climate change. But one major problem stuck out: our world’s rapidly-aging population. Many of these people are business owners with a limited or no succession plan.
“The issues of workforce talent and an aging population are closely related,” Cassau explained. “With access to advanced data technologies and AI, it becomes clear that there’s a need to develop a solution that allows business owners to retire peacefully, ensuring a smooth succession. Instead of individuals spending years searching for a business to buy, a centralized company could use technology and AI to efficiently evaluate, analyze, and identify businesses for sale.”
Investors are already buying into SKROL’s vision, with the company having already raised a pre-seed and with its sights set on further debt and equity fundraises. One of those investors is David Rosskamp, the founder & managing partner of Magnetic. “We have embarked on an exciting and unusual journey with SKROL to tackle a profound challenge: modernizing the core sectors that form the backbone of local economies in the EU and USA,” Rosskamp said in a statement.
“We are not just solving the issue of technological stagnation in small local businesses, which are essential for daily life and urban infrastructure,” Rosskamp continued. “But are doing so by integrating them into the SKROL infrastructure with significant entrepreneurial freedom. This allows these businesses to gradually implement modern technological solutions, potentially exceeding their previous operational limitations and achieving self-sustainability.”
Beyond leveraging tech to find, acquire, and scale SMBs, Cassau hinted at a possible B2B play of selling some of their proprietary technology to companies that SKROL does not own. Really though, this is just the tip of the iceberg: Cassau’s ambitions are nothing short of world domination (at least when it comes to SMBs).
“I’m very excited about modernizing the businesses that are the backbone of the global economy,” Cassau said. “I’m particularly thrilled that many real businesses, particularly small and medium-sized ones, will soon have a platform and a voice. Unlike major corporations like Amazon that dominate conversations, these smaller businesses, which truly support the global economy, need representation. I’m enthusiastic about the prospect that SKROL will advocate for these business owners worldwide and contribute to the future of the global economy – something that’s long overdue.”
READ MORE IN REFRESH MIAMI:
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