Executive Summary

In one sentence, what do you do?

IP Commerce provides the first cloud-computing platform for commerce; our Managed Commerce Services Platform enables payment providers and new entrants to become solution providers byenabling new workflows, services and processes on-demand.

What problem do you solve for and for whom? 

The legacy payment systems were not designed to support payment convergence or support application development, so we provide our service infrastructure & application delivery framework to payment service providers so they can:

First, enable Commerce Workflows in Software applications

• Industry Average: 56 weeks
• With IP Commerce: 5.2 weeks

The benefit of that is a greater Percentage of Successful Integrations (that get to market and become profitable)

• Industry Average success rate: <40%
• With IP Commerce the success rate is: >80%

Resulting in Time to Break Even on Integration

• Where the Industry Average is: 48 months
• While with IP Commerce its under 5 months

In summary, our Managed Commerce Services Platform reduces the cost, time and complexity of deploying commerce-enabled applications and provides positive feedback loops and economies of scale to partners.  Whether developing a payment application, or addressing the needs of a community of Software Companies as a payment service provider, we provide a comprehensive approach and workflow to integration, promotion, customer acquisition, and customer activation.  

What makes you different than anyone else in this space?  

We enable real innovation securely. What makes us different is what we enable that is different. For example today, application developers have built the following on our platform:

• TV Set-top devices for purchasing content and goods with a digital wallet
• highly integrated management solutions for single practice healthcare and for large hospitals
• SMS text-based subscription payments for parking
• non-profit donation management
• Unattended payments at kiosks
• Smart phone payment enablement
• New eCommerce workflows for social networks
• Electronic payment enablement of invoices for small businesses out of MS Word and so on.
• All of these commerce enabled app's are then made available in our marketplaces, which is an "appstore" for our partners.

So in summary, application developers can focus on the value-add & differentiation of their product versus the arduous and time consuming work of creating an underlying service infrastructure.  And we do this by partnering with existing payment providers to help them create their own vibrant ecosystem by eliminating all the friction. 

What was the feedback received from your last investor or client discussion? 

I think consistently, IP Commerce partners recognize the benefit of leveraging our Platform as a method of solving immediate market pain while positioning themselves for the future.

Provide 50 words or less that would get someone like Warren Buffet to listen to your pitch. 

Every business takes and makes payments, or they aren't in business for long! The big opportunity is to displace paper checks and cash which would create an incremental service fee opportunity of $8B annually to the payments value chain in the US alone.  But to do this, the payment infrastructure in the US needs an upgrade - certainly the "last mile" does. And that's not a trivial task but one we at IP Commerce are doing.  And we are working with over 60% of the market today to do that.  From an IP Commerce perspective, our platform approach creates a nice economic moat that other major multi-sided businesses have scaled from.  Businesses like Microsoft.

What is the one word that most of the people you talk to about your product or service use to describe it?  

Magic. 

Why are you "what's next" in payments? 

Through our end-to-end workflow we help some of the largest players in payments accelerate revenue, capture incremental revenue, reduce ongoing operating expenses, differentiate and reduce attrition.  Those are all things that are pretty important to these major payments companies. 

And we are best in class at exposing payments to developers, and there is sort of this inevitable march of payments moving into software in a ubiquitous manner and we are positioning to be the operating system for that. 

 

General Company Information

Management information
Founder(s)
Alfred ‘Chip' Kahn IV
David S. Johnson

Key members of the executive team
Alfred ‘Chip' Kahn IV
Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Frank Knuettel
Chief Financial Officer

David S. Johnson
Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer

Scott Owen
Chief Sales and Marketing Officer

Number of employees
45

Funding Stage (i.e. Angel, Series A, B, C)
Completed Series C

Where can we find you on the Web
Website URL
http://www.ipcommerce.com (corporate site)
http://commercelab.ipcommerce.com (software company support and integration tools)

Blog URL
Reflections on emergent commerce and technology
Personal blog of Tyler Hannan, IP Commerce Platform Evangelist
http://tylerhannan.com

Twitter URL
http://twitter.com/ipcommerce

Contact email
http://ipcommerce.com/About/Contact.aspx
Tyler Hannan: thannan@ipcommerce.com

Alfred ‘Chip' Kahn IV
Founder and Chief Executive Officer

IP Commerce founder and CEO Chip Kahn exemplifies entrepreneurialism, with an impressive track record of identifying business opportunities and developing innovative strategies to address market needs. Kahn has led the growth of IP Commerce since its inception. Prior to IP Commerce, Kahn founded and developed several successful companies, including Inventure Partners, a venture enterprise group that owns a portfolio of companies; Amigo Systems, Inc., a payment services provider; Application Media, a broadband media and commerce consultancy; and STS Hotel Net, an integrated media supplier.

Kahn also serves on the advisory board for BroadHop, Inc., a broadband services software company. He is a frequent keynote speaker at industry conferences and was recognized as one of Colorado's up-and-coming business leaders in 2002 with the "40 under 40" Award, and more recently as semi-finalist for Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year award. Kahn holds a bachelor's degree in Business Administration from Colorado State University.

Frank Knuettel
Chief Financial Officer

Frank Knuettel is a financial and operations executive with extensive experience in the capital markets and has helped several emerging growth companies expand operations. As IP Commerce's CFO, Knuettel is responsible for overall financial management, including further development of the company's infrastructure to accommodate its accelerated growth. Knuettel also contributes to the development of additional strategic relationships and the continued expansion of the IP Commerce network of partners. Prior to joining IP Commerce, Knuettel was CFO of Infosearch Media, (ISHM), a leading online search engine marketing firm. During his tenure at Infosearch, Knuettel managed the acquisition of a private company, building a more than 400 percent return on invested capital in eight months.

Knuettel was also the co-founder of Internet Machines Corporation, where he held several positions, including Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer. While at Internet Machines Corporation, Knuettel raised almost $90 million in equity and debt, managed significant internal growth and ultimately led the sale of the business to IDT Corp. in 2004. Knuettel is a cum laude graduate in economics from Tufts University and received an MBA in Finance and Entrepreneurial Management from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

David S. Johnson
Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer

David S. Johnson is responsible for IP Commerce's technology strategy and product delivery, and oversees the company's product management, architecture, product development, and information security teams. Johnson has served as CTO for a number of emerging technology corporations, including Inventure Partners, Amigo Systems, and STS Hotel Net. Johnson also co-founded New Media Designs (NMD), a company specializing in the development of database integrated Internet applications, BroadHop, a broadband services software company, and Application Media, a strategy leadership and solution developer for marquee global brands engaged in delivering broadband e-commerce and mobility services.

From 1995 to 2000, Johnson served as Internet services consultant for the Audio Engineering Society (AES), an international professional and standards organization, serving members in more than 50 countries worldwide. During his tenure with the AES, Johnson developed the society's Internet communications strategy, and presented workshops at numerous regional and national conventions and meetings. Johnson was co-chairman of the audio industry's first international symposium on Internet audio streaming technologies and received the 1998 AES Board of Governors Award for his work in this emerging technical arena.

Scott Owen
Chief Sales and Marketing Officer

Scott Owen brings extensive experience launching new technology products and developing a wide range of channel marketing and sales programs. Owen provides strategic vision and leadership in business development, product marketing, channel programs and partner relationships. Prior to joining IP Commerce, Owen held executive positions in the Global Alliances group for Sterling Commerce and Comergent Technologies. Owen played a key role in the growth and subsequent acquisition of Comergent Technologies, and continued that leadership at Sterling Commerce where he grew channel sales by 100% year-over-year.

Owen has led sales and marketing teams responsible for over $400M in revenue at DST Innovis and Cisco systems. Owen received a bachelor's degree in education from Seattle Pacific University, has earned a Masters of Theology degree from Dallas Theological Seminary, and received his Registered Communication Distribution Designer accreditation.