Eliminating Friction
Today's featured startup is vying to become the "new wave of secondhand".
Project Overview
Bought launched with the paradoxical slogan: "Everything you buy is automatically ready to sell."
For this slogan to work, the user needs to connect their email to the Bought platform. Once connected, the bot will extract emails with recent purchases from online stores and continue monitoring new ones as they arrive.
The bot will extract links to purchased products from the emails, and from the product pages, it will gather images, names, and descriptions. All of these items will be automatically added to the user’s app.
But the most important feature is that the AI bot in Bought will not only add items but will also regularly update the price at which the item can currently be sold.
After that, users can "swipe" their things like in Tinder. This means periodically browsing the list of items in the app and swiping those they are willing to part with. If the user agrees, Bought will automatically list them for sale on the app's internal marketplace at the suggested price.
The price is just a guideline, and other app users can offer their own prices. If the seller agrees to one of the offers, they just need to take the item to the post office. The seller does not pay for shipping or marketplace commission, as the buyer covers those costs.
Bought was founded in Finland in October last year and has recently raised its first investment of 1.5 million euros.
What’s the Gist?
Today’s Bought is quite similar to the app Haz, which raised $1.4 million in its first funding round last May. The key takeaway here is that it doesn’t matter if "something similar already exists" if it hasn’t yet captured the entire market. If the idea is good, there’s nothing stopping you from launching a similar product to capture your own slice of the market.
This is especially relevant given the growth of the second-hand goods market, which continues to expand year after year. In 2024, the market size reached 156 billion euros, and it is expected to grow to 346 billion euros by 2028.
In countries like the UK, US, France, Germany, and Mexico, more than 50% of people over the age of 18 buy at least one second-hand item a year. The most popular categories include clothing, footwear, furniture, appliances, electronics, children's products, pet supplies, and sports goods.
However, despite the number of second-hand stores and marketplaces, there are significant challenges in meeting the growing demand. Although 80% of Europeans prefer to buy online, 93% of second-hand stores don’t list their items on the internet because it is difficult to digitize the products.
This challenge is being addressed by the startup Minimist, which offers a useful app for such stores. With this app, store employees can photograph the items, and the AI will find the product name, description, and current prices online. The employee can then easily upload the item to their online storefront.
Bought can be seen as a similar tool to Minimist, but for individual users who want to digitize their items and quickly list them for sale online.
Key Takeaways
The second-hand goods market has immense potential. The key to unlocking this growth is removing the friction that hinders the market. Most people have things lying around at home that they no longer use, and theoretically, they could be sold. However, the process of selling requires effort, and people tend to avoid unnecessary work. This is the "friction" that slows down market growth.
Startups like Bought, Haz, Minimist, and others that reduce this friction are well-positioned for success. They provide simple and convenient platforms that allow people to quickly digitize their items and list them for sale, making the process faster and more appealing.
In other words, a similar approach can be applied to other markets with strong growth potential. The key is identifying where friction exists and finding ways to minimize it. This presents an opportunity to create startups that address these problems and improve existing markets.
Company info:
Bought
Website: bought.app
Latest Round: $1.5M, March 26, 2025
Total Funding: $1.5M , 1 round