Vente-Privee And AmEx Team Up To Bring The European Flash Sales Site To The U.S.

Vente-Privee, the European flash sales giant, has announced a joint venture with American Express to bring the site to the U.S.

Vente-Privee, which was founded in France in 2001, is one of the pioneers of the flash sales model. Because of the site’e massive reach and scale, companies like Amazon and eBay have been rumored to be eying the company for an acquisition.

Currently, Vente-Privee has approximately 13 million members and more than $1 billion in European sales. As part of the agreement, each organization will own 50 percent of the new U.S. entity. This marks the first non-European market entry for vente-privee.com, and allows American Express to expand its presence in the flash sales business.

Of course, a Vente-Privee’s U.S. site has a host of established competitors in the country, included the well-funded leader of the pack, Gilt Groupe. Gilt just raised $138 million and has a growing family of flash-sales sites, including the original Gilt, Gilt Home, Gilt City, Gilt Children, Gilt MAN, and Jetsetter. Other flash sales sites in the U.S. include HauteLook, RueLaLa, BeyondTheRack and Ideeli.

For AmEx, the new site is another way the credit card and payments company is investing in e-commerce and technology, The company just partnered with LevelUp and also teamed up with Foursquare as well.