Stephan Schambach (* in
Erfurt
Erfurt () is the capital and largest city in the Central German state of Thuringia. It is located in the wide valley of the Gera river (progression: ), in the southern part of the Thuringian Basin, north of the Thuringian Forest. It sits i ...
) is a German entrepreneur and
commerce
Commerce is the large-scale organized system of activities, functions, procedures and institutions directly and indirectly related to the exchange (buying and selling) of goods and services among two or more parties within local, regional, nation ...
pioneer having created the first standard software for online shopping in 1995 (Intershop). In addition to being the founder of
Intershop Communications
Intershop Communications AG is a public e-commerce company headquartered in Jena, within the state of Thuringia in Germany. Customers include large corporations such as HP, BMW, Würth, and Deutsche Telekom. Intershop operates in Europe, the ...
, Schambach also founded
Demandware
Demandware is a software technology company headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts that provides a cloud-based unified e-commerce platform with mobile, AI personalization, order management capabilities, and related services for B2C and B2B re ...
and
NewStore.
Early life
Schambach grew up in East Germany, where he graduated from Polytechnic High School. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the following monetary union, Schambach left his apprenticeship as a laboratory technician for physics and became a partner in the Hard & Soft Stanja KG in Jena.
In 1992, he founded the NetConsult Computer Systeme GmbH.
After the first in-house development "Archive 2000," the company presented the ecommerce software "Intershop Online."
NetConsult secured venture capital funding to guarantee further development and active international marketing measures. Further financial rounds enabled robust growth for more than a few hundred employees worldwide.
In 1996, Schambach established the first U.S. location for the company in
Burlingame, CA near San Francisco. Prior to its IPO, Intershop software naming rights were acquired from the Swiss Intershop AG. Meanwhile, the company was renamed Intershop Communications. The IPO took place on the Neuer Markt in 1998 and on the U.S.
NASDAQ
The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...
technology stock exchange in 2000. Schambach ceded his position as chairman of the board in 2003.
In 2004, he founded the U.S. company, Demandware Inc., and offered the first ecommerce solution as a cloud service. Demandware was listed at the
NYSE
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District, Manhattan, Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the List of stock exchanges, world's largest s ...
(New York Stock Exchange) in 2012. In 2016, Demandware was acquired by Salesforce for $2.8 billion dollars.
Present
In 2015 Stephan Schambach founded
NewStore, Inc., a tech company that sells a cloud-based omnichannel platform to retailers to manage point of sale (POS), order management (OMS),
clienteling, and inventory management. It is headquartered in Boston, MA with offices in New York City, as well as in the German cities Berlin, Hanover, and Erfurt.
In 2020, NewStore received $20M in strategic investment from Salesforce. The next year, in 2021, NewStore raised a Series B-1 financing round, receiving a $45 million investment from General Catalyst, Activant Capital, and Salesforce Ventures to support company growth.
Commitment to education
In addition to his work as an entrepreneur, Schambach has committed himself to improving the environment for start-ups and high-growth companies in Germany. This includes improving the practices of funding and exit opportunities. Furthermore, he and the Intershop Foundation are major sponsors of the E-Commerce Chair
E-Commerce Professur
/ref> at the University of Applied Sciences in Jena.
For his contribution to developing the software industry in Thuringia, Germany, he received the Order of Merit of the Free State of Thuringia in 2000.
References
* ''NewStore, Inc.''
''NewStore, Inc. Website''
''Demandware Website''
''Intershop Website''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schambach, Stephan
1970 births
Living people