Virtual Chip Exchange (VCE), which aims to provide a virtual marketplace for electronic components, has now launched a worldwide service and received a minority investment from Arrow Electronics Inc, the Melville, New York company that claims to be the world’s largest distributor of electronic components.
VCE, set up in Munich, Germany as a partnership between component trading company Consumer Electronic AG and Montreal, Canada-based e-commerce applications developer Mediagrif Interactive Technologies, says revenues have now grown to $1m a month from 1,100 registered members. VCE’s ambitions is to become the dominant trading hub for electronic components.
Arrow would not specify the value of its investment but the company said it would enable to help influence the growing internet market for excess inventories.
VCE estimates that there is $30bn of excess components inventories in the hands of electronic equipment makers. It says that apart from matching buyers to sellers, its software will analyze and sort inventory, regrouping the parts into lots which optimize the individual value of each component.
