California- and Halifax-based Frenter has signed a deal to incorporate its maintenance and analytics software for heavy equipment into Austin, Texas-based Boom and Bucket’s equipment rental marketplace.

The system will offer users estimates of equipments’ value based on its usage and maintenance history, tracked by Frenter, whose users in turn will be able to list their equipment on Boom and Bucket from within the Frenter platform. Buyers of machinery outfitted with Frenter’s hardware and software suite will also be able to access the information about their vehicles’ usage and maintenance history.

The two companies were founded the same year, in 2020. Frenter CEO Zach Laberge launched the business in Halifax, and though he recently relocated to San Francisco, many of the company’s operations continue to be based in Atlantic Canada.

He said in an interview Tuesday that the deal is the result of a multi-year professional relationship with Boom and Bucket CEO Adam Lawrence that grew out of their status as peer companies.

“Adam and I share similar investors in the States, and so I had known about him, and known what he was working on,” said Laberge. “They were at a similar stage — seed-stage — with us both raising in the mid-seven figures.”

Frenter deployed its first units last fall, with the help of a $1.4 million funding round that was led by Silicon Valley’s 1517 Fund and included returning investor Jason Calacanis of Uber fame, as well as Nova Scotia telecom magnate Bill Barrett, Saint Mary’s University’s Venture Grade student investment fund and others.

Laberge originally founded Frenter as an online platform for users to rent out small equipment like power tools. The business has since gone through a couple of pivots, made two acquisitions of other startups and raised a total of about $2.3 million across multiple funding rounds. Its current product lets heavy equipment operators and rental companies track and manage their fleets in real time with the help of GPS and telematics data, remotely monitoring the security and general utilization of heavy equipment.

“We tried to figure out how we could work together, and ended up realizing that it made a lot of sense … for us to let them have data and history, and the story behind each piece of equipment,” said Laberge. “For us, it basically unlocks this full supply chain. Frenter can help you source new equipment, because we know what the most efficient type of equipment you have is.

“We can also help you sell your inefficient equipment, and tell you what it’s worth, live, based on the amount of hours and work.”

Those value estimates, he added, are based on transaction data from Boom and Bucket’s marketplace.

So far, Frenter’s 15-person team has focused its efforts largely on equipment rental companies. Laberge is now also eyeing customers in the mining and forest sectors.

“It’s fun to start to see the vision that we set out to do many years ago,” said Laberge. “I used to talk about wanting to build out our ecosystem, wanting to build out all these tools. Now we’re actually starting to see it.”