3U HOLDING AG: weclapp SE: ITscope GmbH and weclapp SE set out for joint growth

Frankfurt (pta005/12.07.2021/07:00 UTC+2)

• Cloud-based technologies widen the range of services offered by weclapp
• Products, brands and customer relationships will be continued as part of the weclapp Group
• Additional potential from cross-selling and upselling
• Strategic synergies through scaling, internationalisation, and network expansion

Frankfurt, 12 July 2021 – The Karlsruhe-based ITscope GmbH continues and accelerates its growth as a subsidiary of weclapp SE. The service offererings of both companies complement each other and offer further potential benefits to the mutual customers in the future. weclapp SE already has a strong bond with ITscope GmbH from several years of collaboration. Both parties anticipate additional cross-selling and upselling potential from the business combination. 

Many ITscope customers use weclapp as an ERP platform. Based in Karlsruhe, the company operates a powerful cloud-based B2B commerce platform as an SaaS solution which enables service providers such as system vendors to digitalise their sales and procurement operations and to set up automated sales and purchasing processes for customers and suppliers. ITscope currently has a customer base of around 5,000 companies. In addition, more than 400 distributors (IT wholesalers) across Europe are linked up as data and product suppliers. The B2B platform is already a popular add-on in the weclapp store. In the future, the ITscope solution can be extended beyond its current focus on IT system vendors to include specific features tailored to other sectors. 

Along with this B2B platform, ITscope operates a solution that provides additional competitive advantages for medium-sized companies in online trade. ITscope offers a customer product catalogue that provides article master data for several million IT products for its users. The information comes from manufacturers and content providers who independently supply and update high-resolution images, detailed technical data and marketing texts, thus considerably simplifying the customer's Product Information Management (PIM). For their part, online retailers can access this data in e-commerce via the digital asset management (DAM) functionality and thus increase their efficiency and profitability. Customer-specific portals with user-defined products, prices and CI elements can thus be generated directly from the cloud.

Since recently, ITscope has also offered IT service providers the possibility of designing individual XaaS products (short for Anything as a Service) and bundle them with their own services as well as items from the platform's comprehensive ITC catalogue.

ׅ"We will now adapt our proven and successful cloud-based products for purchasing, sales and data usage to further industry needs and in future also make them directly available to all weclapp customers. However, the scaling of our service offering and expansion of our network will also benefit us and our customers at home and abroad. Together, we are expanding the network of manufacturers and distributors in Germany and other European countries for the ITscope network", says Alexander Münkel, managing director of ITscope GmbH.

ITscope’s business activities will be continued under the former management and under the existing brand. The Karlsruhe location will be retained, and the employees will be informed about the promising prospect of joining forces with weclapp. In the 2020 financial year, ITscope generated revenue of around EUR 3.2m, 31 % more than in the 2019 financial year (ITscope 2019 revenue: EUR 2.5m). Revenue growth is expected to accelerate further in the current year. The company is operating profitably.

"The takeover is another important part of consistently implementing weclapp’s growth strategy," explains Ertan Özdil, founder and CEO of weclapp SE, "according to which both inorganic growth and, by means of targeted platform expansions, further organic growth will be accelerated with corresponding company acquisitions. Especially the cooperation between weclapp and ITscope offers the mutual customers additional possibilities to run their business even more efficiently and profitably. We expect this to strengthen and expand our networks and our market presence. In exchange, we get the chance to scale our platforms and implement our strategy to expand our international presence with greater emphasis. Together we can now enter the Italian, French and Spanish market."

For further information:

weclapp SE 

Dr. Stephanie Nickel

Tel.: +49 6421-999-2211

Mobil: +49 177-5552955

E-Mail: nickel@weclapp.com

www.weclapp.com

www.weclapp.se

About weclapp:

weclapp SE was founded in 2008 and has been offering the cloud-based platform of the same name since 2013. Since market entry, the company has grown by an average of almost 100% every year (CAGR) and is turning a profit. With Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), it mainly addresses small and medium-sized enterprises, with integrated ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) and CRM (Customer Relationship Management) functionalities in particular. Customers thus have unrestricted access to their business transactions and data from any Internet-enabled device and from any location connected to the Internet. With storage and computing capacities in Germany and Switzerland and ISO 27001 certification, weclapp offers a high level of data security. The platform has repeatedly won awards as ERP system of the year. weclapp SE is operates out of Frankfurt am Main and maintains branches in Marburg and Kitzingen. It is a subsidiary of Marburg-based 3U HOLDING AG.

www.linkedin.com/company/weclapp 

About ITscope GmbH:

Karlsruhe-based ITscope GmbH is the developer and operator of the B2B trading platform ITscope.com and supports system houses and ICT resellers in the digitalisation of their business processes. With the digital sales solution "B2B Suite", IT system houses can set up individual purchasing portals for business customers without a classic shop system and seamlessly procure their requirements from the distribution via EDI. Their own procurement processes and IT systems can also be easily connected to the ITscope platform. The powerful, flexible ITscope API provides product data, prices, availabilities and much more for over three million ICT articles. ICT distributors and manufacturers also benefit from participating in ITscope: enquiry, sales and handling processes can be radically simplified on a uniform platform. In addition, ITscope offers insights into market movements and sales trends of the channel.

www.linkedin.com/company/itscope-gmbh/

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