INTURN

INTURN is a B2B technology company that builds a marketplace and inventory-optimization platform to help fashion and retail brands buy, sell, and manage slow‑moving or excess inventory, and was founded in 2013 and acquired by Mad Street Den (also trading as Vue.ai) in November 2022.[1][2]

High‑Level Overview

• Mission: INTURN’s stated purpose is to provide an enterprise system of record and marketplace that converts excess and slow‑moving inventory into working capital for brands and retailers by making liquidation faster, more transparent, and less error‑prone.[1][2][5]
  - Investment philosophy / (if read as a firm): Not applicable — INTURN is a portfolio/operating company rather than an investment firm; it raised venture funding prior to acquisition and monetized via subscriptions and transaction fees while targeting large retail inventory flows.[1]
  - Key sectors: Fashion, apparel, footwear, accessories and broader retail/e‑commerce where inventory depreciation and excess stock are material issues.[1][3][5]
  - Impact on the startup / retail ecosystem: INTURN digitized and standardized fragmented, manual liquidation workflows, enabling faster recovery of inventory value, improving margin management for brands, and connecting buyers and sellers in a B2B marketplace that reduces time‑to‑transaction and operational errors.[1][2][3]

For a portfolio / product view (concise): INTURN builds an enterprise B2B marketplace and inventory optimization product that serves brands, retailers and buyers of off‑price goods, solving the problem of slow, manual, error‑prone liquidation and excess‑inventory management; the company monetized via subscriptions and transaction fees and demonstrated enough traction to be acquired by Mad Street Den / Vue.ai in 2022.[1][2][4]

Origin Story

• Founding year and early focus: INTURN was founded in 2013 in New York to address the largely manual processes brands used to sell excess and off‑price inventory.[1][5]
  - Founders and background / how the idea emerged: Public summaries identify the company as a New York‑based startup focused on streamlining excess inventory flows; co‑founder Ronen Lazar has publicly described the market problem of archaic, slow liquidation pipelines that motivated the product.[2]
  - Early traction / pivotal moments: INTURN grew as an enterprise solution used by fashion brands and retailers, charging subscriptions and taking a cut of transactions, and in November 2022 it was acquired by AI company Mad Street Den / Vue.ai to combine INTURN’s marketplace and inventory workflows with Vue.ai’s AI tagging, demand and inventory analytics.[1][2]

Core Differentiators

• Product + marketplace integration: Combines a system‑of‑record for excess inventory with a B2B marketplace so sellers can list with rules and buyers can transact within one workflow rather than relying on fragmented channels.[1][3]
  - Focus on fashion/retail nuances: Designed to handle apparel‑specific challenges (rapid depreciation, SKU complexity, sizing, seasonality) rather than a generic liquidation board.[1][5]
  - Revenue model aligned with outcomes: Mix of subscription fees plus transaction take‑rates aligns vendor incentives to maximize recovery of inventory value.[1]
  - AI/automation after acquisition: Post‑acquisition integration with Mad Street Den / Vue.ai promised deeper AI‑driven tagging, pricing and automation to increase predictability and speed of transactions.[2]
  - Enterprise orientation: Built as an enterprise solution (INTURN 360) with custom workflows and data centralization for larger brands and retailers.[5]

Role in the Broader Tech Landscape

• Trend alignment: INTURN rode two converging trends — increased focus on inventory efficiency and circularity in retail, and the digitization/automation of previously manual B2B commerce processes — making timing favorable as retailers faced margin pressure and supply‑chain volatility.[1][2]
  - Market forces in its favor: Large addressable markets for off‑price/excess inventory in fashion (the company estimated a substantial addressable market) plus rising investor and corporate interest in AI and automation for retail operations supported strategic acquisition interest.[1][2]
  - Influence on ecosystem: By standardizing metadata, transaction rules and analytics across seller and buyer workflows, INTURN reduced frictions for secondary markets and helped brands recover value faster, enabling more data‑driven liquidation decisions and feeding downstream AI systems with cleaner inventory signals post‑acquisition.[2][3]

Quick Take & Future Outlook

• What’s next: Under Mad Street Den / Vue.ai, INTURN’s marketplace and inventory system can be expected to be progressively integrated with AI‑driven product tagging, pricing optimization and demand/inventory forecasting to further automate liquidation and valuation decisions.[2]
  - Trends that will shape its journey: Continued emphasis on retail margin management, circular economy solutions, real‑time inventory visibility, and AI‑enabled pricing/fulfillment will determine how much incremental value AI integration unlocks for sellers and buyers.[1][2]
  - How influence might evolve: If integration succeeds, INTURN’s model could become an embedded capability inside broader retail SaaS stacks (merging inventory optimization, demand forecasting and liquidation marketplaces), increasing its influence by turning excess inventory from a liability into an actively managed asset.[2][1]

Quick take tie‑back: INTURN began as a pragmatic fix for slow, error‑prone inventory liquidation in fashion and — having proven product‑market fit and enterprise traction — was positioned via acquisition to scale that capability with AI, turning a fragmented secondary market into a faster, more data‑driven channel for recovering retail value.[1][2]

Limitations / sources: This profile is based on company and industry summaries, product pages and press about the acquisition and may not reflect private financials or post‑acquisition product roadmap details that have not been publicly disclosed.[1][2][3][5]