Overview
Firstbase helped employers equip distributed workers. Its software tracked hardware while its service handled the physical work of sending, supporting, and recovering it. The company grew from a problem its own remote team faced, raised venture funding during the shift to remote work, and was acquired by AppDirect in 2024. Firstbase continues as an AppDirect company. It is separate from Firstbase.io, the company incorporation service. AppDirect
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Founding Story
Chris Herd's earlier company worked in financial technology and went remote in 2018. Shipping equipment to employees and getting it back proved difficult. The team built internal tools, then pivoted to the equipment problem in late 2019 as the original business ran short of time and money. In March 2020, Herd told TechCrunch, 600 companies were on the waitlist. A waitlist showed interest; it did not establish 600 paying customers. TechCrunch
Herd connected the business to his experience of missed family milestones and his decision to work remotely. The pandemic made equipment for distributed teams a more immediate operational problem for employers. The sources disagree on a founding year for the company versus the pivot, so this account does not assign a single founding year. Firstbase
Timeline
- 2018–2019: The earlier fintech business went remote, built internal tools, and pivoted to equipment management in late 2019. TechCrunch
- April 2021: Andreessen Horowitz led a $13 million Series A. Customers could buy software alone or use its equipment service too. TechCrunch
- March 2022: Firstbase announced a $50 million Series B led by Kleiner Perkins, with existing investors including a16z participating. It reported 20-fold revenue growth since its Series A, without disclosing the base. Firstbase
- December 2024: AppDirect announced it had acquired Firstbase. The companies did not disclose the purchase price. AppDirect
What They Built
An employer could give a new hire a catalog of approved equipment. The worker selected items and entered delivery details; Firstbase coordinated shipping and later maintenance and retrieval. The administrative side tracked assets and orders across the employee lifecycle. This was more than a dashboard: a missing laptop or a failed return had to be resolved in the physical world. Firstbase support
By 2022, Firstbase also offered financing for hardware and furniture. Herd told TechCrunch that customers wanted integrations with existing device-management and human-resources systems, rather than another replacement for those systems. That choice let Firstbase focus on the movement and ownership of physical equipment while customers retained their existing security tools. TechCrunch
Market Position
The remote-work shift made an existing operational problem visible: offices could no longer serve as the default place to issue and recover a laptop. Firstbase sold to both remote and hybrid employers. Its challenge was to coordinate software with procurement, delivery, and returns across locations. The company reported growth, but did not publish enough revenue or cost data to establish profitability. TechCrunch
The category remains active. Deel offers equipment delivery and recovery alongside its broader HR services, while Workwize and GroWrk also serve distributed IT teams. They overlap in lifecycle logistics, though their purchasing, geographic coverage, and service terms differ. Deel
Business Model
Firstbase offered software on a subscription basis, with hardware provisioning and support available as additional services. Financing added another way to pay for equipment over time. Physical fulfillment can increase the value of a subscription, but also adds shipping, inventory, and support costs. Public sources do not provide enough information to calculate the company's margins. TechCrunch, TechCrunch
Outcome and evolution
AppDirect said its acquisition added hardware lifecycle management to its technology commerce platform. Firstbase's brand and support materials remain available under AppDirect. The available announcements do not establish the financial return to Firstbase's investors or why the company chose to sell. AppDirect, Firstbase
Key Lessons
Firstbase found a market by turning its own recurring equipment problem into a service. A workflow that ends at a dashboard would have left the hard return and delivery steps to the customer. Integrating with established management tools also addressed an enterprise constraint: buyers already had systems responsible for devices and people. The unresolved question is whether the logistics and financing economics could support durable margins at scale.
Sources
The links above include contemporary reporting, Firstbase's funding and support materials, and AppDirect's acquisition announcement.