The Swiss Marketplace That Came Home

In 1999, two brothers—Stefan and Tobias Widmer—launched auktion24.ch from a quiet Swiss town near Zug. Inspired by eBay but tuned to the precision and preferences of Swiss consumers, they built a platform that quickly gained traction. By 2000, German auction giant ricardo.de took notice and acquired the fledgling startup, rebranding it as Ricardo.ch and making it the Swiss arm of its European expansion.

The Widmers stepped back, but Ricardo kept climbing. Then came the dot-com bust. ricardo.de was absorbed into QXL, which morphed into Tradus, which in turn was bought by Naspers in 2008. The South African media giant folded Ricardo into a growing empire of classifieds and marketplaces. Under their stewardship, Ricardo thrived—but always felt like a local champion trapped in a global machine.

Then, in 2015, the loop closed. Tamedia, the Zurich-based media group, acquired Ricardo for CHF 240 million, bringing the company back under Swiss ownership. For many in the Swiss tech scene, it wasn’t just a transaction—it was a homecoming. Ricardo had gone global, survived multiple owners, and returned stronger, still dominant in its niche. Today, it remains the backbone of second-hand commerce in Switzerland—a 20-year story of endurance, reinvention, and strategic repatriation.