Stephan Schambach is a German entrepreneur and pioneer of E-Commerce. He was an early pioneer in eCommerce with the first standard software for online shopping in 1995. In addition to being the founder of Intershop Communications, Schambach also founded Demandware 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 to Intershop Communications. The IPO took place on the Neuer Markt in 1998 and on the U.S. NASDAQ technology stock exchange in 2000. Schambach ceded his position as chairmanship 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 in 2012. In 2016, Demandware was acquired by Salesforce for $2.8 billion dollars.
Present
In 2015 Stephan Schambach founded NewStore, Inc., which delivers an Omnichannel-as-a-Service platform that allows brands to run their retail stores on iPhones.
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 at the University of Applied Sciences in Jena. For his contribution for developing the software industry in Thuringia, Germany, he received the Order of Merit of the Free State of Thuringia in 2000.
