How HPE Unlocked the AI Growth Market with Gynger

For 28 years, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) built its reputation on serving premium technology infrastructure to industry leaders across the globe. When they began expanding their suite of GPU infrastructure (or server) offerings, their traditional customer base - established, well-resourced companies - could afford HPE's premium-grade compute solutions outright or seamlessly qualify for HPE's in-house financing. But as AI technology accelerated, high-growth startups and mid-market companies emerged at the forefront of innovation in the space, and HPE faced a new challenge: target companies in these emerging markets couldn’t afford their upfront sticker price or meet requirements for traditional financing support.

The answer to this challenge came in the form of HPE's Partner Ready Service Provider (PRSP) program and a strategic partnership with Gynger. By embedding Gynger’s flexible payment options into their GTM program designed to target high-growth SMBs in the AI space, HPE was able to lower financial barriers to GPU compute, transform their PRSP program into a growth accelerator, and strengthen their foothold in the emerging AI marketplace.

Key Results:

• Multi-million dollar GPU deals closed
• 30% reduction in average deal cycle time
• New market access to AI startups, GPU sellers, and mid-market innovators
• Pipeline pre qualifications that gave account executives confidence to pursue high-value opportunities and mitigate risk

Expanding Beyond Well-Established Buyers

Derek Howard spent nearly three decades at HPE, and 14 years ago, he helped design what would become a cornerstone of the company's modern partner growth strategy: the Partner Ready Service Provider (PRSP) program. Years later, when he was asked to lead it, Howard had a clear vision.

The PRSP program had been evolved to support selling and co-marketing HPE’s high-quality GPU solutions to emerging AI builders in need of compute and to empower mid-chain GPU field sellers to bring their own GPU solutions to market more effectively.

"We are interested in empowering our GPU seller partners and end GPU solutions users," Howard explained. "On top of our premier GPU solutions, we support high-performance AI solutions providers by lending out our enterprise infrastructure and influence to help them accelerate towards their business development goals, elevate their brand, and build their AI solutions confidently."

It was an ambitious program designed to position HPE at the frontier of AI innovation. But there was a hurdle.

The Traditional Customer Profile

HPE had long been the go-to technical infrastructure provider for industry leaders everywhere. This traditional ICP had the scale, capital reserves, and financial profiles to make six or seven figure acquisitions of HPE’s products outright or easily qualify for HPE's in-house financing services, which were designed with a traditional credit and financial evaluation approach.

But at the forefront of the AI landscape and GPU marketplace, prospective PRSP partners looked different. AI innovators hungry for GPU compute were in high-growth stages of development with limited capital resources at their disposal.

The Emerging Market Opportunity

"There is a lot of exciting stuff happening in the AI world right now, a lot of it is driven by younger, leaner companies," Howard explained. "HPE has always been at the forefront of innovation and is eager to be a part of this frontier. So we developed a GTM program designed to empower those kinds of solutions providers and meet the needs of the market."

These high-growth AI startups and mid-market innovators represented a significant market opportunity, but they didn't fit HPE's traditional customer profile. They were earlier-stage companies building breakthrough technology, often backed by venture capital but lacking the operating history and credit profiles that HPE's established financing standards required.

The Financing Gap

Due to the nature and age of GPU technology, HPE's compute solutions came with enterprise-grade price tags, often running into the hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars for the compute power required to build, test, and scale sophisticated AI applications.

"Our ideal customers were getting priced out due to the hefty sticker price associated with the amount of compute power they needed to build, test, run, and scale their solution," Howard recalled.

For AI builders in high-growth markets, this meant that product development and operations were highly capital-intensive and that financial barriers to scaling became an unrelenting reality. Unlike HPE's traditional customers who could absorb these costs or easily qualify for in-house financing, emerging companies in the AI space needed significant compute resources but couldn't commit large amounts of upfront capital.

To complicate matters, HPE's internal financial services arm enforced conservative financing standards designed for enterprise-grade customers which in effect became exclusionary to the earlier-stage AI companies the PRSP program wanted to target. “The traditional underwriting criteria simply didn't account for venture-backed growth companies that had limited operating histories but also significant market potential,” Howard noted.

The Search for a Modern Solution and Discovering Gynger

Derek Howard and the PRSP team knew they needed to address the financial barrier to their GPU GTM program if they wanted to expand into high-growth AI markets and truly serve a burgeoning industry. They were motivated not just by sales targets, but by a larger vision of bringing HPE's enterprise-grade infrastructure to the next generation of innovators. "I wanted the program to be a true conduit for growth and change in the AI space," Howard explained. 

It was clear to Howard that HPE had what the AI market was hungry for. What HPE needed now, was to deliver access.

‍"That's where Gynger came in."

Gynger brought critical advantages that traditional alternatives couldn't seem to match: 

1. Speed to approval - Applications that would have taken traditional financing solutions weeks or months to process could now be processed in 24 hours with Gynger.
2. Industry-tailored assessment - Gynger's approach to evaluating creditworthiness data was focused on factors and benchmarks unique to growth-stage technology companies which ensured they could be approved for the payment terms they needed.
3. Embedded experience - Gynger’s financing and flexible payment offerings integrated seamlessly into technology vendors’ sales process without adding friction for HPE or its buyers.

But the real test of Gynger’s value to HPE would come as actual deals began to flow. And soon, Derek Howard had the opportunity to test his newly minted model.

Enter Bridgetek: A Deal That Proved the Model

Founded in 2024, Bridgetek set out to solve a problem facing countless enterprise and mid-market companies: how to go about building, training, and implementing native AI solutions without getting overwhelmed by technical complexity.

Their flagship offering, AI Lightning, is a turn-key native AI development solution designed to help companies map business processes, analyze data, and develop custom AI agents tailored to their specific needs. “We wanted to help growing businesses and legacy organizations do more with less in an increasingly AI-powered, highly competitive business environment,” explained Co-Founder and CEO, Richard Sexton. 

But to deliver on that promise, Bridgetek needed significant GPU compute power—the kind of robust, enterprise-grade infrastructure that could support multiple client builds and scale alongside their business, but with a pricing structure they could scale with. In an expanding market of GPU service providers, Bridgetek had options, but they were focused on finding more than just compute power. As a young but rapidly growing company, Bridgetek searched for a premium, turnkey solution that could adapt and grow with them, thus arriving at HPE as their optimal solutions provider.

The $1M Need

To power and deliver the premier services of it’s AI Lightning product to customers, Bridgetek needed roughly $1M worth of GPU capacity. "They were squarely in our target ICP and extremely interested in our GPU solution, but they needed a financing solution to make it a real possibility," Howard recalls. "When HPE leveraged Gynger to offer flexible term options to Bridgetek, we closed the deal swiftly."

Embedded Financing That Accelerates Deals

"With Gynger, HPE had the lowest barrier to entry, which was a key element of our decision," Sexton at Bridgetek concluded. From Bridgetek's perspective, Gynger helped to solve multiple challenges simultaneously. 

The Buyer Experience: Bridgetek

Access to premium infrastructure: The flexible payment structure Gynger provided made HPE's top-of-the-line GPU solution accessible without requiring Bridgetek to commit $1M in upfront capital. This meant they could access the premium compute infrastructure they needed rather than settling for a lower-quality, cheaper alternative. "We found flexibility and optionality with Gynger and HPE that we could not find anywhere else," Sexton noted. “And with HPE’s out-of-the-box GPU package, we could build with the speed and quality we wanted, with the support we needed.”

Capital for strategic growth: By spreading out the cost of compute over time, Bridgetek was able to preserve working capital for other strategic investments into its growing business, like talent, product development, and critical go-to-market initiatives. 

Predictability and simplicity: "Gynger is great for many reasons," Sexton explained. "Its simplicity and predictability are the first qualities that come to mind." Gynger’s experience-forward design ensured Bridgetek could seamlessly apply for and leverage Gynger flexible payment solutions without complication, disruption, or delay.

Flexibility for custom builds: The financial flexibility Gynger made possible ensured Bridgetek could scale its infrastructure alongside their business needs. Rather than over-purchasing or under-provisioning, Bridgetek could adjust its GPU capacity as it brought on new clients and expanded its AI Lightning service with its natural business growth.

The Vendor Experience: HPE

Gynger’s wrap-around embedded financing solution helped HPE tap into the emerging AI marketplace in several fundamental ways.

Deal confidence: Rather than spending weeks navigating internal financing approvals or watching prospective customers walk away due to pricing concerns, HPE's account executives could now present flexible payment options as a part of their sales conversations.

Pipeline prequal: With Gynger, the PRSP program at HPE could swiftly and systematically evaluate the creditworthiness of its sales pipeline. This allowed the sales team to focus their energy on qualified opportunities and reduce risk down funnel.

Shorter deal cycles: By removing the friction of payment negotiations and lengthy financing approvals, HPE saw deal cycles shrink by approximately 30% thanks to Gynger. "Time is a killer of all deals," Howard observed. The HPE’s ability to offer customer-friendly terms without sacrificing the security of upfront payment meant deals that might have stalled out could now progress to close in record time.

Getting paid upfront: While customers gained payment flexibility, HPE’s PRSP program maintained healthy cash flow. Gynger ensured HPE was paid upfront, eliminating the need to weigh collection risks as they closed deals.

Measurable Success and a Stronger Program at HPE

Multi-million dollar GPU deals closed

The Bridgetek success was just one example. With Gynger embedded in their sales process, HPE has facilitated millions of dollars in GPU infrastructure deals with other GPU partner sellers and AI companies.

30% reduction in deal cycle time

By removing payment friction and cost barriers to sale, HPE has been able to increase the speed of their average deal cycle, which has given them a critical edge in a competitive GPU marketplace. This speed also helped them accelerate towards their GTM goals and continue to build their program more efficiently.

New market access

Leveraging Gynger’s industry-nuanced credit evaluation process allowed HPE to unlock an emerging AI market segment that was previously inaccessible. High-growth AI startups and mid-market innovators who didn't meet traditional credit assessment standards of HPE’s in-house financing arm now had a viable path to access HPE's infrastructure.

Pipeline and program scaleability

What started as a tool to close individual deals has become integral to the PRSP program's infrastructure. At the top of the funnel, the PRSP program could now differentiate itself from other GPU offerings in the market by offering flexible terms. Down funnel, Gynger’s integrated pipeline evaluation motion allowed HPE's sales organization to prioritize and streamline their deal flow more effectively.

Key Takeaways and Conclusions

The HPE and Bridgetek story demonstrates several critical lessons about modern B2B technology markets in the age of AI:

1. Payment terms are marketable product features: In markets with capital intensive offerings and growth-stage buyers, payment flexibility isn't a nice-to-have - it's often the difference between winning and losing deals. HPE recognized that to compete for business beyond their traditional customer base, they needed to match their product innovation with a thoughtful commercial model that met the needs of their target market.

2. Emerging markets require modern infrastructure: Traditional financing models built for companies in legacy industries weren't designed for the development speeds and risk profiles of high-growth technology markets. HPE ultimately benefited from a partner like Gynger who understood the real needs of growth-stage companies, could evaluate creditworthiness by leveraging the appropriate data points, and could move at the speed these customers demanded. 

3. Win-win commercial models drive growth: The magic of the Gynger model is that it creates value for both sides of the acquisition equation. Technology vendors get paid upfront and accelerate deals, while buyers gain access to critical infrastructure without depleting critical OpEx. By holistically meeting the needs of every participant, Gynger makes deals simpler, technology more accessible, and valuable relationships easier to sustain. 

‍

Discover Gynger’s Multiplier Effect

HPE soon began to see Gynger as not just a financing tool but as a strategic component of their PRSP program. By embedding Gynger as a part of their offering, the PRSP program unlocked benefits beyond individual deal wins that had lasting impacts on their go-to-market motion, including enriched co-marketing relationships, seamless pipeline qualification, and competitive differentiation at top-of-funnel.

Learn more about how Gynger helps tech vendors accelerate receivables and empower their buyers at www.gynger.io or chat with a member of our team today.