History
About You was launched in Germany on May 5, 2014. The company emerged from Collins (an allusion to American management expert Jim Collins and his book "Built to last"),[14] an e-commerce project financed and overseen by the Otto Group, which invested a three-digit million amount in the project.[15][16] Founders and managers were Benjamin Otto, Tarek Müller, Sebastian Betz und Hannes Wiese. Benjamin Otto is the son of Otto Group chairman Michael Otto; he left Collins in 2015 to become managing partner at the Otto Group.[17][18] Hannes Wiese was the former head of the Otto Group's strategy department, while Betz and Müller were independent entrepreneurs whose former companies were acquired by the Otto Group.[19][20] Before starting Collins, Tarek Müller had already attained some prominence in Germany as a young serial entrepreneur, having developed his first income-generating website at the age of 13.[21][22][23]
About You webshops were launched in Austria and Switzerland (2015), the Netherlands and Belgium (2017), Poland and the Czech Republic (2018), Hungary, Slovakia and Romania (2019), Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Croatia (2020).[5]
In 2016, the investment firms SevenVentures, a subsidiary of the German media company ProSiebenSat.1 Media, and German Media Pool bought a minority stake in the company. Three years after its founding, the investors valued About You at more than 300 million euros.[24] In July 2018, the Danish company Heartland A/S, parent of the Bestseller clothing company, acquired a 29 % stake in About You.[25] In this context, About You was valued at over one billion dollars, making the online retailer the first Hamburg-based unicorn.[26][4] Otto, though still owning the largest share of the company, now held less than 50%, and About You was deconsolidated.[27]
Since November 2017, About You has offered its e-commerce infrastructure (software for webshops), an in-house development, under the name "About You Cloud" and later, since the end of 2021 under the name of "SCAYLE - Your Commerce Engine",[28] as a licensed product to other online retailers.[29]
On December 11, 2024, Zalando announced its intention to acquire 100% of About You. On January 20, 2025, Zalando made a public takeover offer; not subject to any minimum acceptance threshold.[30] The transaction was completed on July 11, 2025. As part of the acquisition, Zalando increased its stake to 91.45% of About You shares.[31]
