Adding to the yesterday’s news on Fruugo’s service launch plans, just this morning the Finnish business media Talouselämä has published the ownership structure of Fruugo.
Risto Siilasmaa, founder and chairman F-Secure, is the biggest owner with 30,9 % share. Fruugo’s founder and Evangelist, Nils ”Nippe” Forsblom is the second biggest owner with almost 30 %. Risto Siilasmaa came aboard in the very beginning and brougth in Nokia chairman Jorma Ollila and the ex-CEO Reijo Syrjäläinen. Jorma Ollila owns 9,4 % of the company. A year ago, Seppo Sairanen (the previous main owner of FIM financial group) invested in the company, and last summer the Finnish media group Sanoma, who’s Kim Ignatius recently entered the board. Sixth biggest owner is Kalle Vuoristo, the CTO of Fruugo.
The full ownership structure of Fruugo, as published by Talouselämä:
| Ownership % | |
| First Fellow (Risto Siilasmaa) | 30,9 |
| Queensway Dev. (Nils Forsblom) | 29,2 |
| Kestrel (Jorma Ollila) | 9,4 |
| Optiopaja (Seppo Sairanen) | 6,8 |
| Sanoma | 5,9 |
| Kalle Vuoristo | 5,0 |
According to the article, Fruugo has burned around 10-15M euros so far, maybe even more. They have slightly above 60 own employees at the moment, plus tens of consults.
Fruugo is an aggregator bringing the online web stores under one service. Pan-European web commerce is still difficult, but through Fruugo the European web stores can sell their products to the whole Europe, and all consumers can buy the products of all merchant integrated with the service, using their native language and local payment methods. The business model, as we reported yesterday, is based on transaction commissions. The cut Fruugo takes is around 10 percent, more or less depending on the product category. The company believes the rate is justifiable to merchants, as using the service Fruugo will take care of payment systems, fraud management, customer service, and currency exchange.
Fruugo’s public launch is coming up in Q2, but the exact countries are not disclosed. Next Fruugo faces the challenge to make itself known to the millions of European online shoppers.
(See our previous coverage on Fruugo.)
