Flyp raises $10M so power resellers can offload used goods
Summary
From thredUp and The RealReal to Facebook Marketplace to eBay, the tech world has long sought to capitalize on the generally wasteful attitude of consumerism over the last half century.But lurking among these platforms is a group not often thought about, and certainly rarely served: power resellers.Flyp, a startup founded by serial entrepreneurs James Kawas and Dani Arnaout, is looking to give machine learning-powered tools to these stay-at-home sellers.The startups core, revenue-generating product is an algorithmic matching platform that pairs a regular consumer, or a liquidation company, or a donation center, with a power reseller to offload their inventory of used goods. The user lists their items on Flyps app and is matched with a reseller who typically sells that type of inventory. Large e-commerce brands have sophisticated automation software that helps them market and track their inventory. Flyp is offering similar technology to stay-at-home sellers who are managing scores of listings across multiple platforms, all for free.Kawas explained to TechCrunch that building trust within the community of power resellers was integral to creating a platform that could handle a much bigger volume of inventory.The startup estimates there are around 350,000 power sellers in the United States, with the majority of them doing it part time. The goal is to turn the part-timers into full-timers and get folks who have never been resellers to try it out.This group is so significant for the internet that even the biggest fintech company in the world, PayPal, was built on top of resellers, Kawas said, referencing eBays payments platform built in the early 2000s.