Start-up pushes trading services for other sites

Hot on the trail of a pack of freshly minted swap and barter firms, an emerging firm is preparing to launch a site to outsource trading capabilities to other Web sites. ExchangeAnything.com, based in Burlington, Mass., hopes to enter the online trading industry with its own special twist on the business. Instead of counting on traders to flock to its Web site, ExchangeAnything.com will push its proprietary trading system to community and portal sites through revenue-sharing partnerships. Under the system, visitors to one partner site will be able to trade with users of the others. Founded in August, the start-up prepares its launch in the wake of a proliferation of sites that let consumers swap items online, and a smaller number that let businesses exchange goods and services. Both the consumer swap sites and the business-to-business barter sites have attracted funding from venture capitalists who view the Internet as the ideal medium to catalyze what has been a marginal business offline. Business barter site BigVine, which launched last month after operating under the code name Doublebill.com, attracted more than $50 million in venture funding from entities including Internet venture capital heavyweight Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, American Express and Robertson Stephens founder and former chairman Sanford Robertson. BigVine's chief competitor, BarterTrust.com, has raked in investments from Vector Capital, El Dorado and Draper Richards. Watch video On the consumer side, WebSwap collected $13 million in a first round from Sequoia Capital and Accel Partners. Another site, Swap.com, is launching under the auspices of Bill Gross's Idealabs and with investments of what the company has termed "a handful of pretty big-name VCs". Similarly, MrSwap.com has said it is closing in on $12 million from two "A-list, top-tier VC firms." ExchangeAnything.com, true to its name, will offer sites business- and consumer-oriented trading capabilities. So far the company is working with $1.1 million in seed money from angel investors. With only 11 employees, the firm aims to beef up its staff before next month's trial, or "beta," launch. "This is a fantastic opportunity to enable people to receive full value for things that they have and for businesses to engage in another way of online commerce," said ExchangeAnything.com president Sarita Shah, who co-founded the company with chief executive Rakesh Kamdar. Swap and barter sites vary in how they permit transactions, ranging from pure item-for-item swaps to trades valued in virtual "trading dollars.? For consumer swaps, ExchangeAnything.com will not use trade dollars, but will offer a flexible system in which cash can be a component. The use of cash will permit what Kamdar termed "a one-to-one haggling process." He stressed that the system was not an open auction, such as those provided by eBay and other auction sites. The site will charge consumers a flat fee per trade that will be split with the partner sites. Fees will be waived during the launch period. Business barters will be assigned a value and fees levied on a percentage basis. ExchangeAnything.com will also partner with nonprofit organizations to collect donations of items users are unable to swap or sell. "Our motto is if you can't sell it, exchange it. If you can't exchange it, donate it," said Kamdar. ExchangeAnything.com plans to launch next month.