French auction site Aucland Wednesday launched its UK site, and has raised 115 million francs (US$20 million) to develop localized versions of its service in Europe and Latin America.
The financing for the expansion came from Europ@Web, Bernard Arnault’s venture company.
The Spanish and Italian versions of the site are expected to be released within the next few weeks. According to Gindra, the teams are ready but the company is waiting for 15,000 more items to be listed before the official launch. The English-language version currently features about 40,000 products.
“The auction market is extremely pro-active and competitive,” explains Fabrice Gindra, chairman of Aucland. “Our time to market is critical.”
Aucland foresees future expansion into 11 European countries. Aucland is already present in Argentina through Deremate services, as well as in Brazil through the recent acquisition of ebazar. A Mexican version should be released soon.
Europ@Web says it wants to see Aucland become the European leader on the auction market segment within 2 years, and also expects the company to prepare an IPO.