Investor overview
The first software-driven
blade management platform
for industrial shops.
$2.2B market. 200,000+ shops. Served today by 3,000+ single-operator sharpening shops with no software, no tracking, and no recurring model. We fix that.
Key metrics
The problem
Every cabinet shop, woodworking operation, and CNC routing facility runs on cutting tooling — circular saw blades, router bits, planer knives, shaper cutters. These tools dull with every use. Dull tools cause tearout on expensive hardwood, inconsistent sizing, machine wear, and — at the extreme — structural failure that throws a carbide tip at 4,000 RPM.
The current solution: shops drive blades to a local sharpening operator, wait, drive back, and hope the edge is consistent. There is no tracking. No spec sheet. No retirement criteria. No visibility. The average shop owner cannot tell you how many times their best blade has been sharpened.
Business model
Managed Service SaaS
Pay-as-you-go: $30 per pickup + $15 per blade sharpened. No monthly fee. Revenue scales directly with usage.
Gross margin
55–65%
Customer lock-in
Medium — switching requires rebuilding spec sheets and service history
Blade-as-a-Service
Flat monthly fee covers tooling supply, all service, and replacement. We own the inventory.
Gross margin
45–55%
Customer lock-in
High — customer must re-purchase inventory to leave
Tooling Supply
Blades sold through Ciklek at 10–20% below retail (volume distributor agreements). Pre-registered.
Gross margin
20–30%
Customer lock-in
Low standalone, high when bundled with service relationship
Service margin
We negotiate bulk rates with service centers. We charge customers our retail rate. Delta is ours.
Gross margin
35–50%
Customer lock-in
Built into the platform — customers don't see the service center
All revenue streams compound: a PAYG customer using the platform more generates more pickup and per-blade revenue, and can grow into BaaS. Average revenue per customer increases over the relationship without additional sales effort.
Why this wins
Data moat
Every blade gets a spec sheet: hook angle, bevel, carbide grade, tolerances, service history, plate thickness over time. After 3 years of service, we know more about a shop's tooling than the shop does. No competitor can replicate that data.
Operational lock-in
We run the batch logistics. We have the service center relationships. We generate the work orders. The shop's entire tooling operation runs through us — switching means rebuilding all of that from scratch.
BaaS structural churn prevention
In the Blade-as-a-Service model, we own the tooling inventory. A customer who wants to leave has to buy back their entire tooling inventory — typically $15,000–$50,000 of equipment. Contractual churn becomes structural churn.
Fragmented incumbent landscape
The US blade sharpening market is served by 3,000+ single-operator shops. None have software, tracking, or recurring logistics. They compete on price. We compete on service and visibility. Different market entirely.
Multiple expansion vectors
Beachhead: cabinet shops. Expansion verticals: flooring contractors, sign/CNC shops, metal fabrication, plastics. Geographic expansion follows service center partnerships. International is a Phase 3 problem.
Asset-light until BaaS
The managed service tier requires zero owned inventory — we are pure software + logistics. BaaS requires tooling capital, which can be financed against contracted recurring revenue. We can scale the SaaS tier profitably before touching BaaS.
Go-to-market roadmap
Months 1–6
20 shops, one metro, $8K MRR
- 1 field rep, blade audit as primary sales tool
- Prove unit economics and churn assumptions
- Establish first service center partnership
- Build NPS baseline with obsessive early customer service
Months 7–18
150 shops, 3 metros, $60K MRR
- 1 rep per metro
- Launch BaaS with top 10 existing customers
- Launch blade supply program with distributor
- First trade show (regional IWF or AWFS)
Months 19–36
$300K+ MRR, national, second vertical
- Expand to sign/CNC shops and flooring contractors
- Second service center partner for turnaround time
- Enterprise BaaS contracts with multi-location operations
- Series A if BaaS inventory financing needed
The platform
Web dashboard
6 role-based dashboards — owner, operations, accounting, customer service, engineering, account management. Full order lifecycle, invoice management, batch tracking.
Customer portal
Every customer sees their tools, service history, upcoming pickups, invoices, and retirement alerts. Self-service and always on.
Mobile app (driver)
Driver scans blades at pickup and delivery. Offline-capable. Route-optimized via Google Maps. Real-time sync.
Spec sheet engine
Per-blade technical spec: hook angle, bevel, carbide grade, tolerances, preferred grind wheel. Generates work order PDF for every batch shipped to service center.
Service batch system
Multi-shop batch management. Blades from 15 shops go in one box with one work order. QR codes route each blade back to the right customer on return.
Safety & retirement
Plate thickness tracked per service. Max cycle limits enforced. Retirement alerts before a blade fails. Condemned tools auto-flagged and removed from circulation.
Request the investor deck
Full financial model, cap table, market analysis, and product roadmap available under NDA.
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