Groupe Arnault, a holding company owned by the billionaire Bernard Arnault, is backing an online auction company 13 years after the Frenchman sold his majority stake in Phillips, de Pury & Luxembourg (now Phillips). Groupe Arnault has invested an undisclosed sum in Auctionata, which launched in Berlin in 2012. Auctionata announced in March that it had raised €42m in new funding, but it reportedly made 30% of its workforce redundant a month later (a spokeswoman for the firm declined to confirm the redundancy figure). The company announced net sales of €31.5m for 2014.