Itembase

itembase, Inc.
Industry Software as a service, E-commerce
Founded November 2011
Founder Stefan Jørgensen, Ramo Karahasan, Moritz Fichtner
Headquarters San Francisco, Berlin
Area served
 Worldwide
Number of employees
 50
Website itembase.com

Itembase is an information technology company providing software as a service for consumers and business users in the e-commerce sector.

The itembase service (the company name is intentionally spelled with a lower case 'i') has been billed as an 'online shopping manager' that saves receipts, guarantees, warranties, instruction manuals and insurance policies in one place. It provides users with post-purchase support including alerts on the length of the warranty remaining on an item, estimations of a product's resale value and notifications when a new version of a previously-acquired item has been released, in addition to customer service and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ).[1]

History

itembase (http://www.itembase.com) was founded in 2011 by Danish serial entrepreneur, Stefan Jørgensen and CTO Ramo Karahasan, in cooperation with the Berlin-based professional co-founder team of Rheingau Founders. itembase is an online platform for hosting, enriching and providing product identity data. itembase helps sellers deliver their duties and buyers to easily access their rights in relation to a purchase. The platform automatically processes purchased products from various sources, including email, forwarded invoices and checkout integrations at web shops. Hereby receipts, warranties, manuals and many other data points are made available through the digital identity of the product. Sellers and buyers can free-of-charge host, send and receive their products in digital form.

itembase generates revenues by charging sellers for apps that help them increase revenues, build customer retention and sell easier and better. One example app creates a product page for an eBay auction or a web shop automatically, another automatically integrates recommendations based on all hosted products. In other words, itembase enables both small and large merchants to work with similar tools and conditions as eCommerce giants like Amazon.

The vision of itembase is to become “the online inventory for everyone and everything” and thereby disrupting the eCommerce market.

In May 2012, it won the pitch competition at the Founders Showcase event in San Francisco.[2] Early investment came from business angels like Heiko Rauch, Thomas Hessler, Jens Hewald, Markus Knoke and Florian Schulte.

Jørgensen opened an itembase office in San Francisco, noting that "the visions in the US are a lot bigger, right from the beginning."[3] Meanwhile, in Europe Itembase launched a Gmail-Connect feature to help users add items to their personal inventory in an automated fashion.[4]

In October 2013 Itembase announced a $3.25m funding round,[5] installing early Skype investor and serial entrepreneur Morten Lund as its new Chairman of the Board. Lund was joined by Tobias Johann and Curtis MacDonald. The contributors to this round were Gründerfonds, Rheingau Founders and German Startups Group Berlin AG, along with seed funds including WestTech Ventures and HR Alpha.

Itembase had tracked around $1.5 billion in gross merchandise value by the end of 2013.[6] The service is free for sellers and buyers; it generates revenue by charging online retailers for additional services. Unfortunately it sends spam to unwitting purchasers as a "reward" for their custom.

In May 2014, the venture capital arm of United Parcel Service (UPS) announced that it had invested an undisclosed sum in the company.[7] Rimas Kapeskas, managing director of the unit, which is known as the UPS Strategic Enterprise Fund, said such deals would help the US-based multinational collaborate with and learn from young companies in the e-commerce space.

References

  1. ↑ Editor. "Itembase is the online shopping manager you always wanted", SilikonKarne, Madrid, 9 September 2013.
  2. ↑ Albrecht, Chris. "Got lots of gadgets? ItemBase wants to manage them", GigaOM, San Francisco, 3 May 2012.
  3. ↑ Johnson, Bobbie. "Does Europe lack ambition? No, but some Europeans do", GigaOM, San Francisco, 15 May 2012.
  4. ↑ Wauters, Robin. "The Gmail connection: How itembase helps you build a digital collection of your belongings", The Next Web, Amsterdam, 25 April 2013.
  5. ↑ Kuepper, Michelle. "Berlin-based personal inventory platform Itembase lands $3.25m funding boost", Venture Village, Berlin, 24 October 2013.
  6. ↑ Severt, Natalie. Itembase: how e-retailers can provide better after-sales services. Evigo, 4 December 2013
  7. ↑ Knight, David. Itembase announces strategic investment from UPS. Silicon Allee, Berlin, 16 May 2014
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