Swappie, a Helsinki-based end-to-end online marketplace for buying and selling refurbished smartphones, has closed a $42.3M Series B funding round. Backers in the round included TESI, Lifeline Ventures, Reaktor Ventures, and Inventure. Swappie has raised a total of $46.8M in funding over three rounds, CrunchBase reports.
Co-founded in 2016 by CEO Sami Marttinen and CMO Jiri Heinonen, Swappie is aimed to refurbish iPhones to the highest standards using the latest technology and reduces environmental waste. Swappie is one of the fastest-growing startups and consumer brands in Finland and the Nordics, and their mission is to make refurbished smartphones mainstream. They purchase large amounts of used devices from both private persons in Finland and companies all around Europe.
The company intends to use the funds to bring the circular smartphone economy to the masses and to expand across Europe, beginning with launches in Germany, Ireland, Portugal, and the Netherlands this summer. Also, they want to use the funding to make their team bigger. To date, from a team of two in 2017, the company has grown to a team of over 260 from 31 nationalities and plans to hire another 400 people across Europe in the next year.
Sami Marttinen, CEO and co-founder of Swappie, commented:
“As consumers become more aware of the environmental impact that their purchasing decisions have, we expect to see far greater demand for high quality refurbished smartphones. Because we refurbish every device ourselves, in our own factory, we control the whole value chain. This means we can deliver the highest quality devices, under warranty, for much less than the cost of a new phone. We’ve already seen fantastic demand for Swappie and we are thrilled to be announcing today’s investment, which will allow us to accelerate our international expansion and make the circular smartphone economy truly mainstream across Europe.”
