SAN MATEO, CALIF. (Aug. 18, 4:30 p.m. EDT) — The developers of a new online trading company, PlasticPlanets.com Inc., plan to offer an alternative business model that shortens purchasing time over the Web.
The company has started a nine-month incubation period to refine the site and attract investors, said co-founder Scott Hess. The two-person company is working from the offices of FirstParsec, a San Mateo-based company that provides management services to help dot-com firms.
FirstParsec, a division of publicly held Cosmoz.com Inc., will receive a 7.5 percent interest in PlasticPlanets and has options to double that voting interest, said Steve Malaster, operations director for FirstParsec.
PlasticPlanets was founded by Hess, a former engineer with GE Plastics' research facility in Pleasanton, Calif., and multimedia designer Brian DeWeese.
The company plans to offer a sophisticated matching engine to link qualified buyers of materials, equipment and services with sellers. The neutral site will allow suppliers to find new buyers without having to use an auction or catalog site, Hess said.
"The biggest problem right now is that a lot of processors don't like auction or catalog-style purchasing," Hess said. "The process is long and still requires getting quotes from different companies. We think the supply chain can be improved."
The company plans to keep the operation lean and will raise less than $1 million initially in seed money, Malaster said.