Focusing on refurbished and closeout merchandise -- mostly computers and consumer electronics goods -- uBid.com is one of the largest online U.S. auction sites. A good chunk of their inventory comes directly from maufacturers like Sony and IBM looking to get discounted products to Ubid's 2 million users. Earlier this year they purhased Bidville.com
Tomlinson joined uBid in May 2002 (as CFO) after having served as chief financial officer at Forbes.com. The company was started in California by the founder of PCMall but was moved to Chicago by incoming CEO Greg Jones (now at Edgewater Funds). uBid was taken public in 1998 and was then acquired by CMGI in 2000 for $407MM. In 2005 the company completed a merger with Cape Coastal Trading Corp. to become publicly traded for a second time. CMGI and the Petters Group maintained ownership stakes in the new uBid.
Dimensions: 95 people x 9 years x $90MM
Funding: PCMall, CMGI
Customers: Consumers and businesses
Location: Chicago [NW Side] + www.ubid.com
