Online auction house Catawiki raises €75 million to further growth
5 March, 2021 by
Online auction house Catawiki raises €75 million to further growth
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Catawiki, an online auction platform for collectibles items, announced today that it has closed million a €75 million Series C round from a group of international investors to accelerate its growth.

The round is led by Lead Edge Capital. Previous investors Accel Partners, Project A Ventures, Dutch media entrepreneur Willem Sijthof and several former Booking.com executives also participated. This relatively large round follows in less than year after the company had raised 10 million in September 2014. A special funding round in and of itself, because it was the first time Accel Partners had invested in a Dutch startup.

Catawiki was founded in 2008 by René Schoenmakers (CEO) and Marco Jansen (CTO), collectors themselves. The idea was to help them manage their own comics collections. Only after 3 years, in 2011, the company pivoted, adding the auction model and real auctioneers to its platform. The online auction house has now over 60 different categories and has grown into the leading ecommerce platform in Europe for collectibles such as art, stamps, watches, coins, classic cars and jewellery.

At the time of its previous fundraise the startup was actually profitable. Since then the proverbial “rocket fuel” that VC money is supposed to provide took over. The company has more than trebled its – undisclosed – revenues and now operates in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, U.K. and off course: Netherlands.

The new investment will be used to add new product features and accelerate the company’s growth in these existing markets and new ones, such as China.

Former president of eBay Marketplaces, now partner at Lead Edge Capital, Lorrie Norrington is joining Catawiki as an advisor. By raising more than 80 million in total, Catawiki is one of the best funded Dutch startups and – although the valuation is undisclosed – is probably getting close to the “unicorn club”. In case the company manages to keep growing at its current rate we wouldn’t be surprised to add it to that list next year.

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