Image credits: Swappie
Swappie, a Helsinki-based online platform for buying and selling refurbished smartphones, announced on Tuesday that it has secured $124M (approx €108M) in a Series C round of funding. The latest round brings Swappie’s total funding raised to over $171M (approx €149M).
The current round was led by growth equity firm Verdane, alongside existing investors Lifeline Ventures, Inventure, Reaktor Ventures, and TESI. The funding round comes over one and half years after the company secured €35.8M in Series B round.
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Fund utilisation
Swappie claims it will use the capital injection to bolster its European expansion and accelerate growth.
Swappie is focussing on scaling operations in its existing 15 markets across the continent, primarily in Italy and Germany. The company is also planning to grow its headcount to 2,200 people from 1,200 by the end of 2022.
Since last summer, the company has doubled its presence from eight to fifteen countries.
What does Swappie solve?
The overall market for used and refurbished smartphones is forecast to grow at an annual rate of 10.23 per cent between 2022 and 2027.
Emma Lehikoinen, Chief Operating Officer at Swappie, says, “The market opportunity for refurbished smartphones is vast. The total smartphone market is worth €100B in Europe, with used or refurbished phones making-up just over 10 per cent of that today.”
“With only 25 per cent of pre-owned phones currently sold, there is huge potential for the refurbished phone market to grow. At Swappie we see this potential as a great opportunity to solidify our efforts in growing the current European operations,” she adds.
The company is on a mission to give people a way to upgrade their phones that is high quality, affordable and environmentally friendly.
By refurbishing smartphones to the highest standards using the latest technology, Swappie is reducing environmental waste and offering consumers a safe and secure way to get connected for less.
Swappie: What you need to know
Founded by Jiri Heinonen and Sami Marttinen in 2016, Swappie is an end-to-end online destination for buying and selling refurbished smartphones.
The Finnish company controls the entire supply chain, managing the entire process from testing and repairing used handsets to selling the refurbished devices direct to consumers, with at least a 12-month Swappie warranty.
Swappie has its own factories in Finland and Estonia, which helps in reducing waste through smarter use of materials.
Swappie has experienced tremendous growth in the last few years, growing sales by more than 220 per cent in 2020 – $110M (€97M) in 2020 compared to $34M (approx €31M) the year before.
The company has sold over 1M refurbished smartphones to date in major markets, including Finland, Sweden, and Italy.
Sami Marttinen, co-founder and CEO of Swappie, says, “Swappie continues to strengthen our European leadership in refurbished iPhones with this investment. Our main priority is accelerating growth in our current European markets, with a view to expanding further afield in the next few years, to meet rising demand.”
“People are increasingly looking for ways to lessen their environmental impact, and locking on to the fact that smartphone purchasing is an area we can all address. We all want great tech, but it doesn’t need to cost the earth. We truly believe that Swappie can drive consumer awareness and trust in the sector by standardising quality, championing the role of sustainability, and making buying a refurbished smartphone as common as buying a used car,” he adds.
Investor
Verdane is a growth equity investment firm that partners with tech-enabled and sustainable European businesses to help them reach the next stage of international growth. The VC focuses on the companies behind three core themes – the Digital Consumer, Software Everywhere and Sustainable Society.
Janne Holmia, Partner at Verdane, says, “As people and companies progressively move towards a more sustainable lifestyle, the iPhone refurbishment and re-commerce space has grown considerably, and with it Swappie, which has demonstrated the potential to become Europe’s market leader in refurbished smartphones. Verdane is excited to be working alongside Swappie as we deploy our expertise in building sustainable digital consumer businesses to support a vision of a more resource-efficient future for the European consumer.”
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