15 American Companies That Germany's 'Clone Factory' Rocket Internet Copied

There’s a "PayPal of Germany,” and it’s called BillPay. As of 2013, BillPay had 2 million users and 3,500 e-commerce partners, mostly in German-speaking countries, like Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. It was acquired by U.K.-based online payment startup Wonga in 2013.

In 2012, Rocket Internet launched an online auction marketplace called Kaymu in Nigeria and Azmalo in Pakistan. The Samwer brothers are deeply involved in the whole peer-to-peer online market business, as they sold another eBay clone called Alando to eBay for $50 million back in 1999, way before Rocket Internet even existed.

Rocket Internet launched eDarling in 2008, an online dating site that now operates in 20-plus countries. The U.S. company eHarmony was a 30% shareholder until 2013 but isn't part of the business anymore. eDarling focused on mostly non-English-speaking countries, but have announced plans to expand to the U.K. and Ireland recently.

Rocket Internet backs EasyTaxi, an Uber-like taxi-booking app, which mostly operates in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Just last month it raised $40 million, for a total of $77 million in total investment. It’s added about 185,000 drivers since its launch in 2011, and operates in 160 cities across 30 countries.

The Samwer brothers launched StudiVZ, a German version of Facebook in 2005. Two years later they sold it to German VC Holtzbrinck Ventures for $85 million. And shortly after the deal, Rocket Internet was born.

Pinspire is Rocket Internet's own version of Pinterest, the popular social bookmarking site. The two sites look and sound very similar, and by 2012, it attracted 11 million visitors. While Pinspire seemed to be successful early on, its domain no longer works.

Payleven is Rocket Internet's answer to Sqaure, the mobile payment startup. Payleven operates in the U.K., Brazil, Netherlands, Poland, and Italy. One interesting fact is that it recently dropped former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi from its key investor group.

Wimdu was inspired by Airbnb and continues to grow globally. At one point, it had 400 employees in 15 different offices, and was almost bought by Airbnb. Another Airbnb clone called Airizu launched in China in 2011, but Rocket Internet shut it down recently.

CityDeal was a German clone of Groupon that was backed by Rocket Internet. The Samwer brothers invested nearly 20 million euros in CityDeal. It continued to grow rapidly, reaching 80 cities in 16 countries, and in 2010, was acquired by Groupon for somewhere in the ballpark of $100 million.

Rocket Internet is an investor of Glossybox, the subscription beauty commerce site that works pretty similar to how Birchbox does. It operates in 15 countries and has over 200,000 subscribers, according to reports from 2013. More than 50 million euros have been invested in Glossybox, but it’s been rumored to be shutting down some of its operations in Brazil, Italy, and Poland.

Online food delivery service is in demand globally, so Rocket Internet launched FoodPanda, a GrubHub clone, that runs in 43 countries today. It's mostly focused on emerging markets in Asia and Europe. Rocket Internet also runs Hellofood, which is basically the same service focused on countries in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East.

Zappos is another business model Rocket Internet likes to copy and spread out into different regions. Zalora, an online shoe and fashion store only running in South East Asian countries, raised $100 million last year. Zando is another Zappos clone that launched in South Africa, and Namshi is available in six Middle Eastern countries: the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, and Bahrain.

Plinga is a social gaming platform that was inspired by — you guessed it — Zynga. Its website says it has more than 48 million players every month. You can play games like Family Barn, Campo Kickers, and Dream Fields on Plinga.

Last year, Rocket Internet launched its first hotel booking site in Africa, called Jovago. It was launched through its joint venture arm Africa Internet Holding. A year later, Jovago expanded to Pakistan as well.

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