Chrono24 has announced 110 redundancies from its team of around 460 people as part of what the German company is calling a new organizational and management structure.
Affected staff were notified yesterday, a source familiar with the restructuring and new business plan told WatchPro.
Chrono24 has been a pioneer in the development of a tech- and data-driven online marketplace for luxury watches and in 2021 appeared poised for a stock market listing likely to value it in the region of €1 billion.
A cooling of investment sentiment for tech stocks delayed hopes of an IPO that year and a collapse in prices for the most traded second hand watches that began in the spring of 2022 appeared to end any near-term ambitions to go public.
The protracted slump in secondary market prices and transaction volumes contributed to Chrono24 shedding around 65 jobs in early 2023, taking its headcount from around 500 to 435, according to reports at the time.
By the end of that year, the company’s CEO Tim Stracke stepped back from day-to-day running of the business into a chairman’s role and a new CEO, Carsten Keller, took over.
Mr Keller brings decades of online retail, marketplace, and strategy experience including eight years at Zalando, a publicly traded German fashion and beauty ecommerce business valued at €5.76 billion where he was CEO of its Connected Retail operation.
A year on from his appointment, Mr Keller is unveiling a long-term plan with a simple target to become the default global destination for luxury pre-owned watch customers in every part of the world by 2029.
More specifically, Chrono24 wants to be at least 10% bigger than its nearest watch trading competitor in every major market.
In the United States, for example, the company would not have met its goal unless it was significantly bigger than eBay. “We want to be the best option all of the time,” WatchPro was told.
The company is breaking down its 2029 mission into three parts.
First, develop deeper individual relationships with both buyers and sellers in every major territory.
Secondly, flatten the organisational hierarchy to speed up and improve decision-making with a smaller leadership team.
Thirdly, to set a path for scalable growth where the number of transactions per employee is constantly rising. “Tech companies should always look to do more with less,” Chrono24’s spokesperson insists.
Chrono24 says it is profitable today, without providing figures. It works with around 3,000 dealers and 45,000 private sellers in more than 120 countries and attracts more than 9 million unique users per month.
It has 540,000 watches listed for sale including around 100,000 Rolexes, with a total value of over €6 billion.
Chrono24’s early momentous growth was helped by a number of funding rounds in the years up to 2021 totalling €200 million. A 2021 investment valued the company at over €1 billion and was supported by General Atlantic, Insight Partners, Sprints Capital, Bernard Arnault’s Aglaé Ventures and Portuguese football legend Cristiano Ronaldo.
Those investors may have had hopes of an early exit dashed, but an IPO has not been completely ruled out in the future, a briefing to WatchPro suggests, and nor have future funding rounds.
Regardless, Chrono24 intends to be cash positive while building the business through a combination of sound management and innovation.
The secondary market for the most traded watches — Rolex represents over half the market — has stabilised after over two years’ of falling prices from their peak in the spring of 2022.
Data supplied by Chrono24’s inhouse ChronoPulse Market Index, says secondary market prices rose by 4.1% in Q4 2024, having bottomed-out in mid-October.
Eleven out of 13 brands listed in ChronoPulse show rising prices. Notable exceptions were Audemars Piguet, down 0.45% since October 1, and Tudor down 0.78%.