With digital product cards, live data, and AI-powered advisory bots, plugilo aims to simplify commerce. Michael Mohr and Michael Urban explain how the company is improving data quality and opening the door to a new era of lead generation.

Michael Urban and Michael Mohr are tackling one of the IT channel’s most persistent problems: poor product data quality. Both are convinced that 2026 will be the breakthrough year for plugilo.

Mohr and Urban know the IT channel inside out - including its long-standing challenges around product data. That is precisely where plugilo comes in. The company provides live digital product cards that benefit both vendors and channel partners. Through a dedicated mobile app or web application, users can save these cards in one place and access them whenever needed. What makes them unique is that they are not data copies, but live originals.

From channel-only solution to universal standard

plugilo was originally developed as a pure B2B, channel-focused solution. “Michael Mohr’s original idea was to position plugilo exclusively for B2B and the channel. But the solution offers far greater potential than that,” Urban explains. Together, the two developed a broader strategy that extends well beyond the IT channel.

“We support every possible route to market and help ensure that the right information reaches the right audience,” says Urban. Whether a manufacturer sells directly to customers or through channel partners, plugilo is designed to support every sales model. Its relevance is not limited to the IT market alone.

An AI bot designed to support sales

Alongside its live product cards, plugilo also offers the plugilo Advisory Bot. This AI-powered chatbot can be integrated directly into online shops, allowing users to enter their requirements and instantly identify matching products. The bot delivers results exclusively in card format and only from the specific partner platform being used for the search.

“This means that not every distributor sales representative needs to know every detail of every product - the bot takes care of that,” says Urban. Mohr adds: “The bot is designed as a sales enablement tool for resellers.” Its purpose is not price comparison, but performance comparison.

The concept: plugilo cards as live digital brochures

At its core, plugilo is about aggregating and simplifying product data. “We turn complex data into simple, usable data,” says Mohr.

The heart of the platform is the plugilo card - an interactive data set containing all relevant product information.

What makes these cards different:

• Live data instead of copies: The cards do not contain static data copies, but real-time data from the owner or manufacturer. Each product has exactly one card.
• Verified by the owner: Card owners validate the accuracy and timeliness of the information.
• Universally integrable: The cards can be embedded across multiple environments, including online shops, newsletters, publisher portals, and more.

“You can think of it as a digital brochure that is always live and up to date,” Mohr explains. “If I take that brochure from a portal, I am collecting the owner’s original data in one convenient place - like a digital note sheet.”

Mobile-first approach with web access

Although plugilo is also available via web, the company is pursuing a mobile-first strategy with a dedicated app. A plug icon - often labeled on websites as “Save” or “Take card with you” - allows users to store product data sets in their personal plugilo repository. It works much like a wishlist or shopping cart, but across multiple systems.

Users can choose between private and business stacks depending on their needs. For example, resellers can save cards from distributor shops in their business stack and later review them with customers.

Even the brand name reflects this idea. plugilo is derived from the English word “plug,” meaning an electrical connector, but also symbolizing connection in a business context. That is exactly what plugilo aims to create: a connected data network.

Some distributors, including api.de, are already using plugilo.

Data quality: the core challenge in e-commerce

This approach addresses a number of challenges for distributors and resellers alike:

1. If a distributor does not offer its own app, the plugilo app provides an alternative.
2. Partners and users working across multiple platforms gain a consistent standard through plugilo cards, with all saved products available in one place.
3. There is no need to install multiple apps from different shops - the plugilo app alone is sufficient.
4. Most importantly, data quality improves.

And that last point is the most critical. Urban puts it clearly: “Data today is often inconsistent, incomplete, or different from one shop to another.” The internet is full of duplicated product data, much of it unreliable or outdated. plugilo is designed to solve exactly that problem.

“With original data, we can always outperform copied data,” Urban says. “The result is better data quality across the board.”

More than product data - a connected ecosystem

The system is built as an open platform with connectors to all common shop systems. “Our system is open to all systems in the market - similar to how PayPal helped standardize payments,” Urban explains.

This also creates a true data network, as the original product cards connect different shops and platforms. The goal is to enable users to gather information seamlessly across systems.

How plugilo came to life
When two industry experts reconnect

Urban served as Managing Director of Actebis in the 1990s and later held senior leadership roles at Tech Data and TD Synnex in the United States. Since the 1990s, Mohr has focused on product data and the indirect marketing of IT products through his company DCI and its subsidiary Content Factory One.

In the summer of 2024, shortly after Urban left TD Synnex, the two met again. Mohr presented his latest development: plugilo. Within 20 minutes, Urban was convinced of its potential - but also realized that its market positioning needed to evolve.

Lead generation through tracking

Another important benefit for the channel is lead tracking. The system remembers not only the card itself, but also where the first click originated.

“Customers return to the original initiator of the card,” Urban explains. He describes this as the “future of lead generation,” because it enables manufacturers to identify which partners genuinely contributed to a deal - even if the final transaction takes place elsewhere.

“We turn complex data into simple, usable data.”
Michael Mohr, CEO of DCI

Investment and strategic partnership

Mohr and Urban believe that 2026 will mark plugilo’s breakout year.
“This is plugilo’s year - the year we scale, but do so with consistently high quality,” says Urban.

The company has now secured a new investor: UK-based MAP Group, which is investing USD 10 million. In addition to providing capital, MAP builds and operates AI data centers powered by advanced Nvidia AI chips. plugilo plans to leverage this AI infrastructure while also establishing direct relationships with major AI technology players.