Brokat

From 1996 to 2000 Brokat Technologies (formerly listed at the NASDAQ and the German Neuer Markt) was one of the German fast-growing companies of the New Economy age. In November 2001, it declared insolvency during the bust of dot-com bubble.

Brokat's product families multi-channel infrastructure software, rules management and personalization technology, mobile payment software, and e-finance applications were used by over 3,500 enterprises worldwide including Deutsche Bank, ABN Amro, Allianz, Bank of America, Blue Martini Software, Charter One, DaimlerChrysler, DBS Bank, Fidelity Investments, IBM Corporation, LBBW, MasterCard International, SE-Banken, Sun Microsystems, Swiss Post, T-Motion (a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom), and Toyota. Strategic partners, among others, included Compaq, Intel, IBM, Siemens, and Sun Microsystems. With dual headquarters in San Jose, California and Stuttgart, Germany, Brokat employed over 1,400 people in 17 countries.

Brokat Technologies (also Brokat AG; former names were BROKAT Informationssysteme GmbH and BROKAT Systems) was founded 1994 by Stefan Roever, Boris Anderer, Achim Schlumpberger, Michael Schumacher and Michael Janßen. When Brokat went public in 1998, Stefan Roever became CEO together with Boris Anderer as Co-CEO. Michael Janßen became CFO and Achim Schlumpberger became CTO. In 1999, Anderer and Schlumpberger quit their Executive positions; Anderer became Chairman of Brokat working on the US expansion and Schlumpberger became Chief Architect of Brokat core technology. Both left the company end of 2000.

The company was first headquartered in Böblingen, Germany and it moved to nearby Stuttgart in December 1997. In 1998, Brokat went public at the German "Neuer Markt". In 1999, Brokat entered the U.S. market by acquiring the Atlanta-based Transaction Software Technologies, Inc. (TST).[1] Furthermore, Intel invested 10M EUR in Brokat.[2]

End of 1999, Brokat achieved a market capitalization of more than $5 Billion. In 2000, Brokat expanded in the U.S. market by acquiring Gemstone Systems, Inc.,[3] Blaze Software, Inc.[4] and Automated Financial Systems.[5] Furthermore, Siemens invested 73M EUR in Brokat.[6] In spring 2000, Brokat also issued a high-yield bond of €125 million led by the West LB bank.

In November 2001, Brokat declared bankruptcy after it was unable to negotiate a restructuring agreement with the creditors of the high yield bond.[7] During the liquidation, the e-payment engineering core was acquired by eOne Global (a First Data company) and maintained as a legal entity called Encorus Technology.[8] The name Encorus was developed by WildOutWest and derives its meaning from Latin etymology "All together" with the goal to establish a standard for wireless/ mobile payments. Encorus focused on software and professional services for the "mobile payment" business (payment by the means of mobile phones). In 2005 the Encorus business was acquired by Qpass.[9]

The Professional Services department and the rest of Brokat was bought by Brokat's longtime opponent in the German market, Data Design AG in 2001. In 2003, Data Design was finally acquired by the Hungarian Interactive Net Design (IND).[10]