The U.S. equipment rentals market is massive, yet it still runs on systems that feel stuck in another era. Many local rental shops and small construction suppliers continue to juggle spreadsheets, paper logs, phone calls, and legacy tools that make everyday work harder than it needs to be. Big Rentals stepped into this space after noticing how much time and revenue small operators were losing to old processes.
Their answer is HQ Rent, an AI-powered platform designed to pull scheduling, payments, and fleet management into one clean workflow. Instead of wrestling with scattered tools, rental businesses can now control everything from a single dashboard.
According to co-founder and CEO Pablo Fernandez, the company was created to give independent operators the same kind of modern technology that national chains have used for years. He explained that small rental providers often have to stitch together outdated systems that weren’t built for speed, accuracy, or scale.
Big Rentals wanted to change that by giving these businesses the chance to run efficient, professional rental operations without the typical enterprise price tag. With automation handling tasks that usually slow teams down, operators can focus more on growing their businesses instead of managing chaos behind the scenes.
Big Rentals has now secured $2.8 million in seed funding to push that mission forward. The round was led by SNAK Venture Partners, with support from Ironspring Ventures, Forum Ventures, Jason Calacanis’s LAUNCH Fund, NuFund Venture Group, and a strategic industry investor.
The new capital gives the team room to expand deeper into construction and heavy equipment rentals, two sectors known for high demand yet poor digital adoption. It also helps Big Rentals continue improving HQ Rent so operators can access a smoother, more intuitive software experience.
Fernandez launched the company in 2023 after seeing how much small rental businesses struggled to compete with bigger players. While the national brands had modern systems, automated workflows, and polished customer interfaces, the local shops were left on their own with tools that hadn’t evolved.
Big Rentals emerged from a simple idea: if small operators could access the right software, they could level the playing field and even outperform larger competitors. By pairing a national marketplace with advanced rental management tools, the company created a model that helps businesses attract customers and manage operations in one place.
This approach earned Big Rentals comparisons to “Shopify for equipment rentals.” The idea fits because the company focuses on giving independent operators a complete toolkit they can use to build, brand, and scale their businesses without needing deep technical knowledge. The AI engine behind HQ Rent plays a major role here. It automates tasks like fleet tracking, scheduling, invoicing, and customer management. Instead of spending hours updating spreadsheets or dealing with double bookings, operators can move faster and avoid costly mistakes. The system makes running a rental business feel manageable, even for teams with limited resources or limited staff.
Competition in this market is rising as more companies build marketplaces for construction and equipment rentals. Platforms like BigRentz, Klarx, Klickrent, and Tracktor help connect renters with suppliers, yet most still stop at the marketplace layer. Few offer the kind of end-to-end operational tools that Big Rentals packs into its platform.
That gap gives the company an edge because independent operators don’t just need introductions to new customers, they need smarter systems that handle everything after the booking. As work across the construction industry becomes more time-sensitive and data-driven, having a single platform that manages both sides of the business becomes a major advantage.
With its new funding, Big Rentals is preparing for its next phase of expansion. The team plans to grow its nationwide partner network and bring more construction and heavy-equipment rental companies onto the platform.
This move helps strengthen the marketplace while giving operators access to a larger pool of customers. It also supports Big Rentals’ goal of becoming the go-to digital backbone for equipment rentals across the U.S. Every improvement to HQ Rent pushes the company closer to that vision, and the next wave of updates will focus heavily on refining the user experience, simplifying daily workflows, and improving AI-driven automation.
Investors see an opportunity for Big Rentals to reshape an overlooked but essential part of the economy. Sonia Nagar, Co-Founder of SNAK Venture Partners, said the company is building a category-defining marketplace backed by a team that understands both the industry’s challenges and the potential of modern software.
She will also join the Big Rentals board as the company scales. Her involvement highlights how much confidence investors have in the team’s ability to modernize a sector that has waited far too long for innovation.
As construction companies continue to digitize operations and customers expect faster service, tools like HQ Rent can help small rental operators stay competitive. Instead of facing high upfront costs and complex interfaces, they get affordable, accessible software that matches the quality and power of big-brand systems.
Big Rentals is betting that the future of equipment rentals will be built on speed, automation, and ease of use, and the momentum behind the company suggests the industry is ready for that shift. The next few years will show how much impact a single platform can have on an entire segment of the construction economy, but the early signs point to a major transformation already in motion.
