4 years ago It was born as a crazy idea that wanted to change everything. Three entrepreneurs wanted to innovate in the classifieds sector and bring the typical mobile market. In a very short time they obtained financing, and currently the platform stands as one of the main references in online sales of second-hand products.
Today we tell you the history of : the app that combines online sales and geolocation.
The Wallapop story begins with Fleapster
It can be said that the history of Wallapop starts in June 2013 thanks to the courageous collaboration of three people: , Gerard Olive (founder of BeRepublic) and Michael Vincent (founder of LetsBonus) wanted to give you a lap to business of classified ads and bring the typical market of a lifetime to the new mobile platforms.
thus was born Fleapster, or what could be called the first version in the history of Wallapop. The truth is that the creators were not too convinced by the name: they wanted one catchier. That is why in September of that same year its creation It was renamed Wallapop permanently.
And soon funding came to Wallapop
Shortly after its launch, in October 2013, Wallapop already obtained 1.6 million euros of financing from the hands of the startup accelerator Antai Venture Builder (in which Vicente and Olivé were involved) and other investors such as Caixa Capital Risc, Esade Ban and Bonsai Venture Capital.
In just 5 months I already had one million downloadsa million products uploaded and there was talk of transactions on the platforms that could reach a value of 300,000 thousand euros per day. And the funding streams kept coming to Wallapop.
In early 2014, several communication groups (Godó, Zeta and Atresmedia), injected other 1.3 million euros in the company as part of an agreement called ‘Media for Equity’. Specifically, they signed agreements with Wallapop to exchange advertising for shares, which allowed the aforementioned groups to participate in their shareholding in exchange for giving Wallapop advertising space.
A successful advertising campaign
This latest investment represented an important qualitative leap in the success of Wallapop, which the company knew how to take advantage of. They were aware that they lacked a publicity boost, so they carried out an advertising campaign which, in addition, laid the foundations for the rest of the platform’s campaigns to date.
This campaign ran in prime time on Antena 3 and La Sexta and it was published in magazines and newspapers belonging to the audiovisual groups of the agreement such as La Vanguardia, Mundo Deportivo, Sport, Woman or Cuore.
The advertising campaign was aimed at all types of consumers: to collectors, to those who do not want to spend a lot of money, to those who seek to dispose of valuable objects for others, etc. The publicity was articulated around an exclamation, ¡Walla!, and it goes without saying that it was a success.
More financial injections in the history of Wallapop
The impressive growth in users that Wallapop was experiencing led the company to close a new company at the end of 2014, this time abroad, with Accel Partners (fund that had invested in the initial phases of Facebook, drop box either kayaking).
From this point on, the entry of foreign investment was massive. in 2015 a round led by Insight Venture Partners (shareholder of Twitter or Tumblr) injected 36 million euros into the company. This represented one of the largest funding rounds of the sector in Spain.
Wallapop merges with Letgo
In addition to the constant growth, at this time the expansion to other countries such as , Mexico or USA. In the latter country, in mid-2016,a similar but more popular company there, to dominate the US market and thus make it worthy competition to other platforms such as Ebay or Craigslist.
From now on, in the US Wallapop works under the management of Letgo, which also obtains a higher percentage of shareholders. This new joint venture increases its financing by around €90 million (100 million dollars) from the shareholders of the two technology companies.
History of Wallapop: the app of the 1,000 million euros?
Despite all these financial injections, Wallapop still had the same old problem, The Billing, since it was still a business model that worked without income. Its founders therefore decided, in October 2016, to enhance its growth around the world.
In recent times, Wallapop has introduced numerous novelties as the modalities of paid ads or (an alliance with to improve the operationality of its shipments) with the aim of improving the service to its users).
Currently, Wallapop follows the second-hand ad app most visited by users in Spain with more than 40 million users – 8 million active – Y 100,000,000 uploads of products. It is now valued at 560 million euros and intends to continue growing in Europe and Asia.
2018: a new stage with Rob Cassedy at the helm
as the new CEO of the company: a manager from eBay Germany who replaced Agustin Gomez, who went on to assume the role of President. As Cassedy explained in his first statements after the appointment: “I am delighted to be joining Wallapop at this exciting stage in its evolution and look forward to working with a great team that has demonstrated a strong track record in customer-focused innovation.”
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