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TRADEX Technologies Inc. was a B2B marketplace e-commerce exchange founded in 1999. Entirely Java-based, its product TRADEX Commerce Center software was used for online negotiation, bidding and the secure transaction of orders from computer dealers and manufacturers.
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At the peak of the dot-com bubble in March 2000, Ariba Inc. acquired TRADEX in a stock-swap acquisition worth US$5.6 billion.
History
The software was created in 1995 under the lead of the Swiss entrepreneur Daniel Aegerter as an Internet-based system for automating purchase processes for the suppliers and customers of his Swiss company Dynabit. Subsequently, TRADEX Electronic Commerce Systems Inc. was incorporated in Tampa, Florida as a spin off from Dynabit.
On the day of its launch, TRADEX offered a wholesale marketplace for the sale of new computer equipment with 40 vendors offering 15,000 products. In 1996, TRADEX had gained 480 customers within three months In 1999, TRADEX had 180 employees, when it moved its headquarters to Atlanta, Georgia, and it had further offices in Boston, Dallas, Tampa, San Francisco, Washington D.C., London and Tokyo.
By September 1999, TRADEX had raised US$ 28 million from its investors Internet Capital Group, Sigma Partners, Apex Investment Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, First Analysis Corporation, Imlay Investments and United Parcel Service.
In December 1999, Ariba announced its acquisition of TRADEX in a stock-for-stock merger valued at US$1.86 billion prior to its subsequent stock-splits.
On March 10, 2000, the day when the NASDAQ Composite reached its highest level during the Internet boom, Ariba announced the successful completion of its TRADEX acquisition.
Products
TRADE'ex offered 3 online procurement systems for connecting distributors with suppliers: one for the vertical trading hubs, another for large enterprises and a third for the distributor channel segment. The software suite was scalable and had an object-based business engine incorporating CORBA and JavaBeans technologies.
The software TRADE'ex Market Maker received an award from the Gartner Group and InformationWeek as the Best Business-to-Business Electronic Commerce Over the Internet solution at the 1996 Internet and Electronic Commerce show in San Francisco.