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Catawiki raises $82m from Lead Edge Capital

Catawiki, Europe’s fastest-growing online auction house,  has secured an $82m Series C investment led by Lead Edge Capital.

Previous investors Accel and Project A Ventures also participated in the round, as did several former Booking.com executives, including former CMO Arthur Kosten. 

The traditional auctioneering industry has been slow to innovate, and the majority of online auction sites are unspecialised. Catawiki, an online marketplace for buying and selling special objects, was established to alleviate these issues.

René Schoenmakers (CEO) and Marco Jansen (CTO) founded the company as a community for collectors to buy and sell collectibles such as comic books and stamps. Since then, the company has expanded to over 60 different categories and has rapidly grown into the premier online destination in Europe for buying and selling special items. 

Its biggest categories currently are jewellery, art, classic cars and watches, and recent sales have included a strand of Napoleon’s hair, a Tyrannosaurus rex jaw, the first Tintin comic, a Jaguar E-Type convertible and a bottle of 1975 Romanée-Conti Grand Cru.

Category experts act as auctioneers who curate and oversee weekly auctions. Sellers are advised on how to accurately price and present their items, while buyers purchase higher quality, more authentic goods.

 The Series C investment, which is one of the largest-ever in a Dutch internet company, follows impressive growth since the company’s €10m Series B investment in 2014.

Over the last 12 months, the company has increased revenues by 300% and doubled its number of auction categories, selling over 15,000 lots per week. It has also launched in Italy, Spain and the UK. 

Schoenmakers said: “Our traction over the last year shows that people are seeking a new and better way to buy and sell their unique objects.

“We have grown exceptionally fast while not spending much money from the last funding round. This investment will allow us to roll out many exciting new product features on our platform and open up new markets even faster than originally planned. This is the time to step on the gas and take advantage of the huge opportunity available to us.”

Catawiki will use the new round of funding to build upon its success as it seeks to make unique items available to everyone.

In addition to strengthening its presence in existing markets, expansion is planned for new markets in Europe and many other regions around the world.

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