Episode Details

This is an exclusive first look at ShopAgentic, and we cover a lot of ground with both co-founders. First we go over the big company news, then rewind through two decades of e-commerce history that brought Alex and Kai to this moment, and why they think the ground is shifting under the entire industry.

From there it’s a wide-ranging conversation about what changes when agents, not humans, become the buyers: how a commerce platform built for this era might actually work, how merchants would use it, and where payments, protocols, and front ends are all heading. 

It’s part founder story, part state-of-the-union on agentic commerce, and part early peek at what they’re building. Hit play. 👇

Highlights:

• The €1.9M pre-seed: Led by Mayventures and Greenfield Capital, with around nine entrepreneur and business-angel tickets, a “US-feeling” round raised in Europe.
• Who buys, not just how: Kai’s framing for the whole thesis, agentic commerce is the first shift that changes the buyer itself, not just the channel.
• Built for humans, not agents: Why the founders believe legacy platforms, even the ones they helped build, aren’t architected for what’s coming.
• The ACP moment: The OpenAI release that made the duo sit down and say “this is gonna change potentially everything.”
• The weekend prototype: Asked for screenshots for the pitch deck, Kai vibe-coded a working demo instead, and it’s part of why investors leaned in.
• A squad of agents, not a platform: The product reimagined from the outcome backward, sold into innovation budgets rather than million-dollar replatforming.
• Ephemeral UIs: “The fast fashion of front ends” interfaces generated on the fly
• The protocol soup: Why UCP is “the one to go for” right now, and how ShopAgentic wants to absorb that complexity so merchants don’t have to.
• A wake-up call for brands: “You’re not even part of that conversation. That’s why you’re not seeing the traffic.”
• Debut at K5 Berlin (June 22–24): Their first time on the trade-show circuit, including a business-user AI hackathon.

Two founders who've lived through every era of e-commerce software, now betting the next one gets rebuilt for agents. Whether you run a brand wondering where your traffic went or you're just curious what a platform "born agentic" looks like, this one's a glimpse into the future. Enjoy the conversation.

Timestamps: 

04:21 The big news: a €1.9M pre-seed

06:07 How the round came together (the inbound snowball)

07:54 Alex's background: age 14, Magento, CouchCommerce

10:09 Meeting Stephan Schambach and building NewStore

11:35 The German e-commerce family tree

13:27 Kai's background: Metro, robotics, commercetools

16:19 From SaaS to open source to composable

17:30 Why agentic needs a new platform — the ACP moment

20:28 The founding story (and a little Guinness)

22:07 The weekend prototype that sold investors

25:43 How agentic commerce is actually different

26:04 The "squad of agents" vision

27:59 Dashboard, chatbox, and voice for merchants

30:30 Vibe coding, Lovable, Visa, and ephemeral UIs

32:30 Stablecoins and cross-border payments

34:48 x402, MPP, micropayments, and the local-agent explosion

37:07 Debut at K5 Berlin (and a hackathon)

38:17 The agent OS and guardrails

39:09 Navigating the protocol soup: UCP, ACP, AP2

42:00 Who should be an early merchant

44:14 Launching agentic-first

44:48 LinkedIn, shopagentic.com, and wrap-up

👉 Connect with Alex: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexanderringsdorff/
👉 Connect with Kai: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaithomaskrause/
👉 Learn mo