A file photo shows Pokémon merchandise. Analogue Pokémon cards are an unlikely sensation for the Internet era. Sarasota Herald-Tribune via AP
Mark Shininger is a like a lot of millennials who played with Pokémon cards during grade school. He traded the collectibles with his friends and competed with his brothers for the shiniest, most powerful characters – until eventually he tired of the hobby, stowed the cards neatly in boxes and grew up.
Then last year as the pandemic wore on, Shininger began hearing about vintage Pokémon card sales, sometimes reaching into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. So the 24-year-old mechanical engineer from Random Lake, Wisconsin, dug up his old collection of Pikachus and Charmanders. He logged the creatures into a spreadsheet and turned his childhood passion into a US$4,500 (RM18,816) side hustle.
Whatnot Raises $50M Series B Led by Y Combinator Continuity to Cement Its Leadership as The Largest Live Shopping Platform in the US
The company plans to use the funding to double down on sports card and memorabilia, which has quickly grown to become the #1 category on the platform
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LOS ANGELES, May 25, 2021 /PRNewswire/ Today, Whatnot announced it has raised $50M in Series B funding, led by Anu Hariharan from Y Combinator Continuity, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz. They join investors Animal Capital (Josh Richard, Noah Beck & Marshall Sandman), musicians Ryan Tedder and DJ Skee with Mint 10, NFL players DeAndre Hopkins and Bobby Wagner, and Jeremy Padawer, among others.
Whatnot raises $50M to let people sell Pokémon cards, Funko Pops, and more via livestream
Whatnot exists with one primary goal in mind: to give people a place to buy and sell collectibles (like Pokémon cards, sports cards, pins, etc) in a safe, authenticated way.
The company started out with intentions of being a GOAT/StockX-style resale marketplace, where the products up for sale lived on neat little pages with row after row of static images. As they started experimenting with other formats, they found one that really seemed to catch on: livestream sales. Think QVC or the Home Shopping Network… but instead of hosts in huge studios selling jewelry and patio furniture, it’s users with smartphones selling Charizard cards and Yoda figurines.
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