eBay Ventures Invests in Luxury Goods Marketplace Cudoni

Cudoni has raised 7.5 million pounds ($9.25M) from eBay Ventures and existing investors such as The Daily Mail Group Ventures and veteran retail executive Andrew Jennings.

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The company is a luxury marketplace enabling users to buy and sell pre-owned designer clothing, accessories, and watches.

What separates Cudoni from other marketplaces is that it will pick up items from a seller’s home, authenticate them, and then list them for sale on its platform, making buying and selling luxury goods easy, convenient, and secure. Sellers receive up to 80% of the proceeds from a sale.

Cudoni X eBay

This marks the second investment by eBay Ventures in a start-up circular-economy marketplace platform, after the company’s venture capital arm invested in Norwegian-based Tise last year.  

“It is an outstanding vote of confidence in the brand and our ambitions, to receive investment from recommerce pioneer, eBay, during what has been an incredibly tough year for the consumer sector,” said Cudoni Founder and CEO James Harford-Tyrer.

“Could not be more thrilled for our teams at CUDONI on this well deserved vote of confidence! Excited to have such strong support from existing investors like DMGV as well as bring in new investment from eBay Ventures,” added Michael Groffenberger, CCO at Cudoni.

eBay’s investment in Cudoni is driven by eBay’s vision for more sustainable ecommerce and a growing demand by younger consumers willing to buy second-hand goods.

“James Harford-Tyrer, Michael Groffenberger and the Cudoni team not only share our vision for a more sustainable commerce, but they have also built a highly successful platform with a devoted community of passionate fashion enthusiasts. We at eBay Ventures look forward to what lies ahead for the company,” said Henri Jaanimägi, co-founder, and lead at eBay Ventures.

While the luxury space is getting crowded with competitors such as Vestiaire Collective, The RealReal, Rebag, Fashionphile, and LePrix, and even eBay’s own Authenticity Guarantee program, Cudoni is a localized marketplace. The company first launched operations in its home city of London and has recently expanded to Manchester.

With this new funding round more than doubling the size of its total funding prior to this round, the company may expand its operations beyond its first two cities and the UK, and could potentially be targeting high-value cities for luxury goods such as Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, and Milan.

However, that is only speculation. There is no official word from Cudoni on how it plans to use the new funding. The company has now raised a total of £14.3 million ($17.6M) since it was founded in 2017.