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Christopher Muhr

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German serial entrepreneur and business

Christopher Muhr
BornBonn, North Rhine Westphalia
Alma materCologne Business School, HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management
OccupationEntrepreneur
Known forFounder of Groupon (CityDeal), Endy, McMakler

Christopher Muhr is a German serial entrepreneur with investments and board seats in startups in Europe, Israel and North America. He is best known for co-founding Groupon International (Citydeal), Canadian Mattress brand Endy, prop tech startup McMakler and scaling Auto1 in the role of COO.

Personal life

Muhr was born in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia. He graduated from Cologne Business School with a degree in Business Administration. After graduation Muhr spent two years of development work in microfinance in Namibia and Uganda. Muhr also holds an MSc in management from Handelshochschule Leipzig (HHL) and Instituto de Empresa (IE). After receiving his degree at HHL, Muhr pursued a short career in M&A at NIBC in Frankfurt prior to joining Rocket Internet in Berlin. In December 2009 he founded CityDeal and started his career in tech.

Career

In his last role he served as COO for Auto1 Group one of Europe's most valuable startups to date and drove the companies international expansion. Muhr is also known as a founder of Endy, which was sold to Sleep Country in November 2018 as one of Canada's largest-ever e-commerce acquisitions, and as a co-founder of Groupon International via the acquisition of his company Citydeal which was acquired in 2010 in Groupon's largest acquisition to date.

During his time at Auto1 he together with his partners from Warpspeed Ventures founded McMakler which today is considered one of Europe's fastest growing prop tech startups. In 2011 Muhr was voted 35th in The Wired 100. He has been featured in various publications including the Financial Times, BBC News, Manager Magazin, FAZ and is a regular a speaker at events like DLD.

Auto1 Group

In his last venture Muhr was acting as chief operating officer at Auto1 Group, overseeing their international expansion. In 2018 Auto1 had over 4,000 employees with operations spanning across 30+ countries and revenue of over Euro 2.9 billion. Auto1 was valued at about 2.9 billion Euro ($3.4 billion) when SoftBank Group Corp.'s Vision Fund invested in 2018. In August 2020 Bloomberg reported that the company is undertaking steps to prepare for IPO.

Endy

In 2015, Muhr co-founded Canadian mattress brand Endy. In under four years, Endy became Canada's major online mattress retailer and was sold in 2018 for $89 Million to Sleep Country Canada. The company has generated over $150M in sales and has won numerous awards including being named Fastest Growing Retailer in Canada by Maclean's and Canadian Business.

Groupon

End of 2009 Muhr started Citydeal, later on also referred to as Groupon International, with initial operations in Germany, the UK and France. Funded by the Samwer brothers, Rocket Internet, and Holtzbrinck Ventures the voucher deal company quickly expanded into further European markets. The company was acquired by Groupon in 2010, just five months after its launch. Although no confirmed figures were released of the deal, it was reported that the sale of Citydeal was between $100M USD and $300M USD. At the time of acquisition, Citydeal employed 600 people and had presence in 80 cities in 16 countries.

In 2011, ahead of Groupon's IPO, Muhr moved to the Chicago headquarters joining the executive management team around Andrew Mason and taking on the position as Senior Vice President Sales to spearhead growth in Groupon's North American business.

Muhr served as the company's Senior Vice President of Sales until September 2012 before he took on Groupon's International Business as SVP EMEA. Under Muhr, North American revenues grew 81% year-over-year.

References

  1. "#EXKLUSIV Ex-Auto1-Macher Christopher Muhr startet Patient 21". deutsche-startups.de (in German). 19 June 2019.
  2. Aug 2018, Caspar Tobias Schlenk 20 (20 August 2018). "COO Christopher Muhr hat das Unicorn Auto1 verlassen". businessinsider.de (in German).{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  3. Dez 2016, Caspar Tobias Schlenk 21 (21 December 2016). "Exklusiv: Neue Investoren für Auto1". businessinsider.de (in German).{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  4. wuest, Leonard. "Einblicke: Serien-Gründer in der Berliner Start-up-Szene". bochumer-zeitung.com (in German).
  5. "Primus: Vorstand Sebastian Fischer ist neuer Aktionär". immobilienmanager.de.
  6. Aug 2018, Caspar Tobias Schlenk 15 (15 August 2018). "Home24-Gründer Felix Jahn wird Geschäftsführer bei McMakler". businessinsider.de (in German).{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  7. Jul 2015, Kim Richters 08 (8 July 2015). "Das unbekannte Berliner Milliarden-Startup, das 500 Millionen Dollar will". businessinsider.de (in German).{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  8. "Groupon Expansion Strategy" Inc. Retrieved 3 January 2013.
  9. (16 May 2010). "Groupon acquires German clone CityDeal" Tech Crunch. Retrieved 3 January 2013.
  10. Stüber, Jürgen (17 April 2014). "Warum der Groupon-Europachef das Schnäppchenportal verlässt". morgenpost.de (in German).
  11. "Warburg Pincus partners with McMakler in Germany". privateequitywire.co.uk. 20 November 2020.
  12. "2nd annual Wired 100: Positions 49-30". Wired.
  13. "Is group buying really a good deal?". BBC. 5 February 2011.
  14. "Unicorns Made in Germany". dldnews.com. 5 February 2018.
  15. "Robert Gentz: "Amazon ist sowohl Partner als auch Wettbewerber"". internetworld.de (in German).
  16. "Christopher Muhr, Founder, Endy Sleep". topionetworks.com.
  17. Mai 2017, Hannah Scherkamp 19 (19 May 2017). "Auto1 sammelt 360 Millionen Euro ein". gruenderszene.de (in German).{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  18. Mai 2017, Hannah Scherkamp 19 (19 May 2017). "Auto1 sammelt 360 Millionen Euro ein". gruenderszene.de (in German).{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  19. "SoftBank's Vision Fund Invests $560 Million in Auto1 Group". Bloomberg L.P.
  20. "SoftBank-Backed Car Website Auto1 Ramps Up IPO Prep". Bloomberg L.P.
  21. Jul 2015, Caspar Tobias Schlenk 30 (30 July 2015). "Home24-Mitgründer und das Team von Auto1 starten eigenen Inkubator". businessinsider.de (in German).{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  22. "Auto1 setzte 2,2 Milliarden Euro um". businessinsider.de (in German). 4 April 2018.
  23. "Canadian mattress company Endy to be acquired by Sleep Country Canada in landmark $89 million deal". Bloomberg L.P. Retrieved 18 July 2021.
  24. "Endy named Canada's fastest growing retail company, 4th overall, on the 2018 Startup 50". Business Insider.
  25. Kyriasoglou, Christina (25 September 2017). "Was die Gründer der Billion-Dollar-Startups gemeinsam haben". Business Insider (in German). Retrieved 18 July 2021.
  26. Kyriasoglou, Christina. "Auto1: COO Christopher Muhr verlässt Wirkaufendeinauto.de". manager-magazin.de (in German).
  27. "Groupon's Global Expansion Strategy". Inc.com. Archived from the original on 11 August 2014. Retrieved 18 July 2021.
  28. Fowler, Geoffrey A. (17 May 2010). "Shopping Site Groupon Buys Germany's CityDeal". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 18 July 2021.
  29. "Groupon Turns to Citydeal Team to Rectify Slow Growth". socialtimes.com. 25 August 2011. Archived from the original on 7 November 2011.
  30. "Groupon slows in Chicago". Crain's Chicago Business. 3 September 2011. Retrieved 18 July 2021.
  31. Bhattacharjee, Nivedita (23 August 2011). "Exclusive: Groupon taps Citydeal team to boost sales". Reuters. Retrieved 18 July 2021.
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