Letgo

Letgo
Type of business Private
Type of site
 Online classifieds
Available in English, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Italian, Norwegian, Swedish, Turkish, Czech, Croatian, Dutch
Founded January 2015 (2015-01)
Headquarters New York City and Barcelona[1][2]
Founder(s) Alec Oxenford
Jordi Castello
Enrique Linares
Industry Marketplace, App
Website letgo.com
Current status Active
Native client(s) on iOS and Android

Letgo is a company that offers a website and app that allows users to buy from, sell to and chat with others locally. The products launched in 2015.[3]

History

Launched in January 2015 by Alec Oxenford, former CEO of OLX, an online peer-to-peer used goods marketplace outside of the United States, along with Jordi Castello and Enrique Linares, the app initially targeted the U.S. market, competing against eBay and Craigslist, the online marketplace leaders since the 1990s.[4][5][6][7] By September 2015, the company said its app had 2 million downloads and half a million product listings.[4]

Letgo raised US$100 million in 2015,[4] one of the five largest first rounds of venture capital financing since 2008.[8] Following a merger in May 2016 with Wallapop, a competitor with a reported valuation of about $570 million, the company raised an additional $100 million.[9]

Three quarters of the first round investment of $100 million was slated for marketing.[8] The ad agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky Miami created a television ad campaign for the app, directed by filmmaker Craig Gillespie. Each advertisement is premised on an extreme situation, such as a person dangling over a cliff who might plunge down because he's holding on to a bowling ball, where the sensible thing to do is to let go of the item.[10] CP+B Miami also created a series of four ads allowing customers to incorporate images and descriptions of their items for sale directly into a satirical video ad, such as one featuring action film start Dolph Lundgren as a mercenary.[11]

In May 2016, Letgo merged with Wallapop, another mobile classifieds startup.[9] Letgo remained the majority owner of the company and the brand remained letgo.[12] At the time, there were about 10 million monthly active users between the two apps, according to SurveyMonkey data published by TechCrunch.[13]

The company valuation was more than $1 billion, as of September 2017, making Letgo a unicorn company in startup terminology. By that time, Letgo has also raised $375 million in total capital.[14] Letgo was the second fastest-growing app in the United States, according to a comScore report released that month.[15][16]

As of January 2018, the Letgo app had about 75 million downloads, compared to 30 million in August 2016.[17] Additionally, it had 200 million listings for secondhand goods and about 3 billion messages were exchanged between users.[16] The company said it had monthly repeat visitors in the "tens of millions."[16]

Letgo launched in Canada in October 2016 and in Norway of November 2016.[18][19] In August 2018, Letgo raised $500 million.[20]

Product

Letgo feed
Letgo feed

The letgo mobile app, offered for iOS and Android, facilitates buying and selling used goods. The marketplace, optimized for smartphones, features large photos of products for sale.[21] No log in is required.[10] Goods are displayed based on the geo-location closest to the buyer to make person to person transactions more likely. The app is integrated with instant chat to facilitate communication between buyers and sellers.[21] In January 2018, a housing section was added to the app.[22]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Lomas, Natasha (10 May 2016). "Wallapop and LetGo, two Craigslist rivals, merge to take on the U.S. market, raise $100M more". TechCrunch. Retrieved 14 April 2018.
  2. ↑ Hopland, Sindre (12 May 2016). "Barcelona Marketplace Merger: Wallapop + Letgo = Letgo". Barcinno. Retrieved 14 April 2018.
  3. ↑ "South Africa's Naspers Backs Smartphone Start-Up Letgo". The New York Times. Retrieved 17 December 2015.
  4. 1 2 3 "A new app with 2 million users just raised $100 million to take on eBay". Fortune. 2015-09-03. Retrieved 2016-06-18.
  5. ↑ "letgo Merges with Wallapop; Raises $100M". FinSMEs. 2016-05-12. Retrieved 2016-06-18.
  6. ↑ Gleeson, Bridget (2015-05-27). "Meet the Argentine Tech Entrepreneur Who Started His Own Emerging-Art Incubator". Artsy. Retrieved 2016-06-14.
  7. ↑ Loizos, Connie. "Naspers Plants a Flag in U.S., with New Venture Group". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2016-06-18.
  8. 1 2 Merced, Michael J. De La (2015-09-03). "South Africa's Naspers Backs Smartphone Start-Up Letgo". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2016-06-15.
  9. 1 2 Lunden, Ingrid; Lomas, Natasha (2016-05-10). "Wallapop and LetGo, two Craigslist rivals, merge to take on the U.S. market, raise $100M more". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2016-06-18.
  10. 1 2 "How Classifieds Startup Letgo Aims To Help Americans Get Rid Of Their Useless Stuff". Co.Create. Fast Company. 2016-02-08. Retrieved 2016-06-19.
  11. ↑ Dua, Tanya (2016-04-21). "Letgo's new tool lets users make blockbuster ads to sell their junk - Digiday". Digiday. Retrieved 2016-06-19.
  12. ↑ Geron, Tomio. "Letgo buys fellow mobile classifieds startup Wallapop". MarketWatch. Retrieved 2016-06-18.
  13. ↑ Shieber, Jonathan (17 January 2017). "Letgo raises $175 million for its used goods marketplace". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2 May 2017.
  14. ↑ Hartmans, Avery (20 September 2017). "Billion-dollar startup Letgo is becoming the go-to app for selling your stuff — here's how it works". Business Insider. Retrieved 14 April 2018.
  15. ↑ "Here's how Letgo aims to disrupt the 'secondhand' market". CNBC. 20 September 2017. Retrieved 14 April 2018.
  16. 1 2 3 Perez, Sarah (22 January 2018). "Letgo takes on Craigslist with addition of housing listings". TechCrunch. Retrieved 14 April 2018.
  17. ↑ "EBay Rival Letgo Touts Sales Growth as VCs Foot the Bill". Bloomberg.com. 2016-08-25. Retrieved 2017-01-02.
  18. ↑ "Letgo smartphone app looks to disrupt online classifieds market in Canada". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2017-01-02.
  19. ↑ Moe, Sigrid. "Argentinsk seriegründer går til kamp mot finn.no". E24. Retrieved 2017-01-02.
  20. ↑ https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/14/technology/venture-capital-mega-round.html
  21. 1 2 Perez, Sarah (2015-09-03). "Mobile App Letgo Raises $100 Million From Naspers To Take Over Classifieds In The U.S." TechCrunch. Retrieved 2016-06-14.
  22. ↑ Gartenberg, Chaim (22 January 2018). "Craiglist competitor Letgo adds housing sales to its secondhand marketplace". The Verge. Vox Media. Retrieved 22 January 2018.
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