$48 million of VC-funding for a company that runs a marketplace for refurbished consumer electronics.
I have mixed feelings about this…
I have mixed feelings too, but it’s gotta be better than producing more consumer goods, no?
What I don’t understand is why it takes $48M when it’s basically an intermediary site AFAICS.
I’m guessing that they leave all the work (refurbishing, packing, dispatching etc.) to the repairers and they just do the front-of-house stuff.
I wonder what their margin is?
it’s gotta be better than producing more consumer goods, no?
Absolutely, that’s the seemingly very positive aspect of it. It’s just the demanding nature of VC to get a quick return on investment, whatever the side effects, that I’m a bit leery of. What corners will they need to cut to make enough profit to satisfy investors?
What I don’t understand is why it takes $48M when it’s basically an intermediary site AFAICS.
Yeah it’s a lot, isn’t it? Given they seem to be primarily a centralized middleperson.
On the plus side, I like the fact they put a figure for the amount of e-waste diverted by purchasing refurbished:
Interesting. Agreed that it’s better than producing more stuff. Another positive is that this kind of business should help raise the profile of repaired and refurbished products - if it goes some way to challenging the supremacy of the ‘new’, that can only be a good thing in my book!
That said, the focus is very much on the products themselves and not the act of repair. Can’t see this encouraging people to take up their screwdrivers!
Cool that they include electronic waste savings as a metric. Though it feels like there’s potential to expand on that, and talk about CO2 saved from the manufacture of a new product.
As for margins, looks like they’re pretty hefty on certain products:
Guessing these flagship models serve to subsidise the cheaper/less popular products?
Will be interesting to see how it develops.