BRAND-NEW
Evonik Invests in chembid to Strengthen its E-Commerce Activities Evonik has invested in chembid, the largest meta-search engine for chemicals, in order to strengthen the company’s e-commerce activities and support the development of an independent marketing platform for the chemical industry.
E
vonik’s venture
their digital offerings and
capital arm
can ultimately generate new
has invested in
customers and increase
chembid, the world’s
chemical sales via the
largest search engine
platform.
and market intelligence
Evonik will contribute the
platform for chemicals, to
knowledge gained from the
strengthen the company’s
development and operation
e-commerce activities.
of its OneTwoChem® digital
The investment supports
marketplace to chembid,
the development of an
discontinuing its own
independent digital sales
platform.
platform for the chemical
“Supporting the development
industry.
of chembid is an intelligent
The family-owned start-
way to develop our
up, which is based in
e-commerce activities
Oldenburg, Germany, was
© Evonik
initiated in 2016 by BÜFA
further and reach a broader customer base,” said Henrik
GmbH & Co. KG, and has since developed a meta-search engine that
Hahn, chief digital officer of Evonik. “OneTwoChem® taught us much
connects buyers with suppliers, and provides a dashboard of market
about digital customer experience, which is the quality of the online
intelligence such as price trends and demand patterns by analysing
interactions that a customer has with our brand. We are happy to
the search data with intelligent algorithms.
bring in our expertise in this area.”
“As sales platforms gain traction in the chemical industry, it’s
Evonik is also enhancing chembid’s offerings by making its digital
important to be a driver in the digital service space,” said Bernhard
laboratory assistant, COATINO®, available on the platform. Besides
Mohr, head of Evonik Venture Capital. “A strong, comprehensive
its product recommendation engine, COATINO® also offers a voice
and independent platform is desirable for the chemical industry
assistant for the coatings industry, providing answers to questions
as a whole. This investment supports that idea by accelerating the
about formulations and ingredients for paints.
development of the industry’s biggest meta-search engine.”
The inclusion of COATINO® on the platform will drive an increasing
The platform already has over 50,000 users a month from more
number of users to the tool and enable Evonik to accelerate its
than 150 countries, and can count on the STOCKMEIER Group as an
development.
investor since 2019.
“We are very pleased to have Evonik on board as an investor,” said
How chembid works
Felix Thalmann, chief executive officer of BÜFA. “Just like BÜFA, Evonik has a strong focus on innovation and digitalization and so has much
Like other meta search engines, chembid forwards the search query
to offer in the development of chembid. COATINO® is a great example
to a large number of domain-specific search engines and returns a
of how we can boost the quality of the services on our platform.”
unified result. Buyers can find chemical suppliers from all over the
The parties have agreed not to disclose the financial terms of the deal.
world and compare product offers. Manufacturers and distributors of chemicals who engage with chembid increase the visibility of
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N. 68 - MARCH/APRIL 2021 - international PAINT&COATING magazine
For further information: https://corporate.evonik.com