Celebrating 25 Years of Mascus

2026 is a special year for Mascus. It marks 25 years since the first Mascus website launched in Helsinki, Finland, in January 2001 – and 10 years since the company became part of Ritchie Bros., the world’s largest auctioneer of commercial assets and vehicles. Today, more than 5,700 professional sellers advertise on Mascus, buyers browse over 500,000 listings spanning six industries: agriculture, transportation, construction and mining, forestry, material handling and groundscare, and the platform records approximately 3.1 million website visits every month.

A 25-year track record of connecting buyers and sellers

Over the past 25 years, Mascus has built a significant digital footprint in the used equipment industry:

18 million+ heavy machinery and trucks have been listed on Mascus since 2001.
32,000+ companies have placed multiple listings on the platform.
Sellers from 222 countries have used Mascus to sell their equipment.
Through Mascus, sellers have received 5 million+ buying enquiries via email and 4 million+ phone calls from interested buyers.
Today, equipment is listed across 53 main categories and 547 subcategories, reflecting the breadth of the marketplace.

From one Finnish website to a global marketplace

When Mascus went live 25 years ago, used equipment changed hands through print classifieds, trade yards and word of mouth. A small Finnish team set out to bring machinery trading online, giving sellers an additional way to promote their equipment and buyers a direct way to connect with sellers beyond their local markets. International expansion followed quickly: website by website, office by office, Mascus grew into a network of 27 offices, 23 of them in Europe, and 43 websites available in more than 30 languages.

That local footprint remains central to how Mascus operates today. Behind the platform are dedicated local teams who know their markets, speak their customers’ languages and stay in close contact with the dealers, OEMs, rental companies and traders they serve. It is a deliberate choice: technology powers the marketplace, but relationships drive it.

More than a marketplace: solutions for sellers

From early on, the Mascus mission has gone beyond connecting buyers and sellers. The company provides a portfolio of professional services — inventory management, marketing tools and market expertise — designed to help equipment businesses sell more, in more places.

The Mascus webshop solution is a clear example: branded, mobile-friendly websites built to each client’s identity, giving sellers a professional online storefront of their own. Stock uploaded to Mascus appears on the client’s webshop automatically, listings are built to be found by Google and other search engines, and an integrated CMS lets businesses manage their own content — from imagery to SEO text — in multiple languages and currencies. Around 1,500 client webshops built by Mascus are active today, and an updated version of the solution launched last year to give customers the strongest possible online presence.

“For 25 years, Mascus has been at the forefront of the digital evolution of the used equipment industry,” says Rickard Kroto, Managing Director at Mascus. “As one of Europe’s pioneering online listing platforms for heavy equipment, we helped open up new ways for buyers and sellers to connect, complementing traditional trading channels and enabling businesses to reach customers far beyond their local markets. But our greatest achievement is not the technology itself, it is the success of our customers. Over the years, Mascus has helped businesses showcase their equipment, reach new markets and create new opportunities to sell. As we celebrate this milestone, we thank our customers, employees, and partners for making Mascus the trusted brand it is today. We look forward to continuing to evolve and offering our customers even more ways to connect, trade and grow.”

A decade with Ritchie Bros. – more connected than ever

Since joining Ritchie Bros. in 2016, Mascus has operated as part of a global marketplace serving customers in more than 170 countries, and the two businesses are now more closely integrated than at any point in the past decade.

For sellers, that integration means real choice. Alongside fixed-price listings on Mascus, sellers have more ways to sell through Ritchie Bros., including reserved and unreserved auctions. If an asset does not find a buyer through one channel, it can be cascaded to a Ritchie Bros. auction, giving sellers a clear next step and a defined sales date while helping keep capital moving. The Mascus and Ritchie Bros. teams work together to recommend the sales strategy that best fits each asset. One relationship, multiple routes to market.

Buyers benefit too: Mascus now acts as a gateway to equipment offered through Ritchie Bros. auctions, allowing users to filter and review auction inventory alongside traditional listings before registering to bid online.

“Mascus and Ritchie Bros. have always shared the same purpose: helping equipment owners get the best possible result when they sell,” says Ghislaine Duijmelings, General Manager at Ritchie Bros. “Ten years on, that partnership is delivering more for customers than ever. When a seller comes to us today, we can offer the full spectrum of options and help them choose the route that creates the most value. It is about understanding each customer’s needs and providing the right solution, with the support and expertise to guide them through the selling process.”

The next chapter

Twenty-five years after that first website went live in Helsinki, the mission is unchanged: helping equipment businesses reach more buyers and get the best result for every asset. Whether through a listing on Mascus, a branded webshop or an auction with Ritchie Bros., customers now have more ways to sell than ever — backed by the same local teams and human contact that have defined Mascus from the start.

To find out more about advertising on Mascus, the webshop solution or selling through auction channels, contact your local Mascus team or visit www.mascus.co.uk