Company

Companystory

Four students in Zurich started with the concept of tilllate.com in the winter 2000 and launched the first version of a website one and one-half years later, financed solely by the savings of the founders. The project found a lot of favor overall, which resulted in the founding of tilllate GmbH in the fall of 2001. The tilllate offices in Adliswil were moved into a little later.

The beginnings of the company were affected for a longer time by the bursting of the dotcom bubble in 2000. Consequently, the small company only grew from its earned cash flow for years. Since 2003, tilllate has also been growing strongly throughout Europe and expanded to Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Holland, Belgium, Spain and Romania. Two franchises operate tilllate.com in Turkey and Bulgaria. In addition, the new tilllate business field (professional event photography) was launched in 2004, which also became established on the market very successfully.

tilllate and Tamedia – Two Strong Brands Join Together

The success story of tilllate and the largest Swiss media company Tamedia already began in 2001. At that time, a decision was taken to collaborate on the free newspaper 20 Minuten. A decision was taken to strengthen this partnership in July 2007 when Tamedia purchased 20 percent of the share capital of tilllate Schweiz AG in a first step. It increased its share by another 15 percent in May 2008. It was possible to use various synergies in the first one and one-half years and launch joint projects. For example, tilllate.com is a partner in the people magazine"20 Minuten Friday" started in the fall of 2008 and fills the nightlife pages there with pictures and news from the nightlife of the national and international world of prominent people.

The two partners decided to intensify their cooperation further thanks to their successful collaboration and the changed field of competition. As a result, Tamedia increased its share in tilllate Schweiz AG by another 51 percent to 86 percent as of 1 January 2009. The other 14 percent of the share capital remained with the founders Christian Hagmann, Silvan Mühlemann, Markus Popp and André Schraner until 31 December 2009. Then Tamedia acquired 100% of tilllate Schweiz AG.

On 1 January 2011, tilllate Schweiz AG was attached to the media association 20 Minuten and is also marketed by it.