B2B eCommerce Platform Manutan Buys 80% of French Tech Reseller ZACK

Manutan, which works in the business-to-business (B2B) eCommerce sector in Europe and specializes in the distribution of equipment to businesses and local authorities, will buy 80% of French startup ZACK.

ZACK works to give electronic products “a second lease on life,” according to a Wednesday (Feb. 9) press release. Manutan wants to increase its scope in the B2B sector and is looking at beefing up its corporate social responsibility (CSR) offer, debuting new value-added services.

Founded in 2016, ZACK was founded to help combat the rise in electronic waste. It initially went for the business-to-consumer (B2C) market, giving individuals a better solution to dispose of things, but it has evolved to focus on B2B more as of late.

With Manutan buying so much of the company, ZACK will focus only on B2B going forward. Per the release, the company has already saved thousands of tons of electronic products from being dumped in landfills.

Additionally, Manutan will be able to harness ZACK’s platform and knowledge, along with an ecosystem for recovering and recycling used electronic equipment.

“More than five years after ZACK was created, we were looking to grow our company alongside a major Group sharing the same values, which would allow us to scale up our sales and logistics activities,” ZACK co-founders Timothée Mével and Pierre-Emmanuel Saint-Esprit said in the release. “Manutan’s acquisition will also enable us to combine our skills and help even more businesses and local authorities engage with the circular economy!”

Xavier Laurent, mergers and acquisitions director for the Manutan Group, said the circular economy is a challenge, as whenever “they renew their IT assets, we need to be capable of offering a service for collecting their used products, and that service is fast becoming mission-critical!”

Meanwhile, Zebra Technologies Corporation has invested in Optoro, a retail and logistics technology platform.

Read more: Zebra Technologies Invests in Returns Tech Company Optoro

Optoro’s returns tech platform sees big investors like American Eagle, Best Buy, Target, Staples and IKEA. The platform makes use of data science and real-time decision making to determine the best path for various items returned.