In Memoriam: Dirk Van Dongen
Hi everyone and Happy Father’s Day!,
Despite the importance and joy in today’s holiday, a deep sadness fell on the Applico office this week. We lost a dear member of the distribution family this week.
Dirk Van Dongen, you’ll be missed greatly.
I had the pleasure of working with Dirk for almost 7 years, initially while he was still at the NAW and then in his role as a senior advisor at Applico.
Dirk wasn’t satisfied with “good enough.” He always saw opportunity for distribution and he pushed the industry that he loved to embrace it.
And he didn’t just love the industry as a whole, he loved the people in it. Dirk was most in his element when working with people. Whether 1 on 1 or in a group setting, Dirk cared deeply about those around him. He had a mind for personal details that always demonstrated how deeply he cared about those he interacted with on a daily basis. He mentored many, and pushed others in the industry to embrace the same curiosity that he embodied.
As one example, Dirk was instrumental in getting the Innovators Summit off the ground. He saw the need for distributors and tech companies to have a forum to collaborate and work together, and he helped make that dream a reality. Here’s a photo of him with the Applico and NAW team from last year’s Summit.
His impact on B2B distribution will continue to reverberate through the industry for many years to come. He is greatly missed.
How We First Got to Know Dirk
When B2B marketplaces were starting to take root in distribution 6 years ago, I got to know Dirk and the NAW. Our book, Modern Monopolies, was published in 2016 and Dirk believed that we had an important message for his audience.
Dirk was comfortable taking risks and embracing new ideas.
Applico had a unique point of view on how to regulate Amazon as a monopoly. We believed that the best argument was to focus on Amazon taking advantage of its sellers. And, to make the connection that its sellers were customers. This is counter-intuitive in the traditional sense. But platform businesses are different – they have two customers: consumers and producers.
Said another way, it’s new and different – and it requires an adjustment from traditional thinking.
Despite this point of view not being popular, Dirk stood by us and actively promoted a new line of thinking.
Well, it turns out we were right! And Dirk was the first one to message me about it.
When the 449 page House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee issued a report on big tech anti-trust violations – Dirk was the first to send us a note that Amazon itself had agreed with our point of view.
Video clip here:
After spending over 40 years at the helm of the NAW, Dirk was excited about how he could stay involved and help the industry he’d grown to love. He joined Applico as a senior advisor and we had the pleasure of collaborating these past few years.
Hat Trick Tech M&A: Three Tech Acquisitions in One Week
Congratulations to Kyklo <> Epicor, Butter <> GrubMarket and entroCIM <> Wesco!
We’ll do a quick overview on each of these. And, if you’d like a more in-depth analysis, vote on which one you’d want!
Kyklo acquired by Epicor
Kyklo has built verticial specific commerce tools for electrical distributors. They help electrical distributors with product data, eCommerce capabilities and much more!
Epicor’s Eclipse platform has strong penetration with electrical distributors. Epicor is owned by CD&R – one of the most well regarded PE investors in the business.
entroCIM acquired by Wesco for $30M
Wesco acquired entroCIM for $30 million, not including additional earnout options, this past week. entroCIM provides smart building management solutions to large, properties like the Atlanta airport or commercial properties for Ford or Coca Cola. This is a pretty cool SaaS acquisition - and echo’s a trend of SaaS customer technology getting into the flow of procurement.
Wesco became the largest electrical distributor after its merger with Anixter and is publicly traded.
Butter acquired by GrubMarket
Butter is a digital food commerce platform for B2B food service distributors. It was one of a handful of competitors with Choco, Pepper, Cut & Dry – and Butter. Pepper just raised $30M and Choco just partnered with Dot Foods - the activity is certainly heating up in this space! Get your popcorn out :)
GrubMarket is one of our top 10 B2B marketplaces and a unicorn last valued at over $2B – with a heavier emphasis on grocery retail and has material penetration with produce.
PS, if you made it this far, I like you :)
My wife and I are doing a gender reveal this afternoon, for baby #3. Email me a guess, what gender do you think we’ll be having?!
If you guess correct, I’ll comp your subscription.