Imagine if Instagram, Pinterest, and eBay had a kid. Kaleidoscope of colors aside, it’d be the ultimate social ecommerce experience.
Well, this baby has taken the form of WhatNot — a livestream marketplace and social network for fans of collectibles like sports cards and Funko Pop.
Just months after raising their seed round, WhatNot closed a $20m Series A led by VC firm Andreessen Horowitz. The Hustle spoke with WhatNot’s founder Grant LaFontaine to get the lowdown:
In China, livestream shopping is already a ~$170B market.
What’s the appeal of the format, though?
Demand for collectibles like Pokémon cards have skyrocketed during quarantine, driven by:
As WhatNot expands into new categories, it spends time and money to launch with a passionate community from Day 1.
As LaFontaine put it: “it’s similar to Uber launching into new cities — there’s no point in having drivers if people don’t know that [Uber] is now there.”
It’s hiring and expanding into new categories like comics and vintage video games.
And with couples connecting on the app, LaFontaine jokes that maybe “even a dating feature” could become a reality.
WhyNot?
Source: WhatNot