Dutch company Catawiki, which puts auctions on the Internet, is announcing today that it has raised $12.8 million in new funding led by Accel Partners. Project A Ventures, Arthur Kosten, and Willem Sijthoff also participated. Along with helping buyers discover new items, it also smartly leverages professional auction experts for curation and supervision and provides high-quality weekly auctions. Catawiki’s auction experts advise sellers on price and presentation and answer buyers’ questions.
Catawiki, an online auction house that targets ‘exceptional’ items — from vintage comic books to antique cars — has closed a €10 million Series B Round led by VC Accel Partners. In addition, Berlin-based investor and company builder Project A Ventures, Booking.com’s former CMO Arthur Kosten and Dutch media and Internet entrepreneur Willem Sijthoff, an existing investor, also participated in the round. Moving the complete traditional auction process online, Netherlands-headquartered Catawiki is attempting to differentiate itself from other more general online auction houses by buying and selling what it terms “exceptional objects” and collectables — with a focus on truly unique items. It offers 35 different categories of items for auction, such as comics, video games, antique cars and fine wine. To give you an idea of how this translates in reality, recent sales have included first edition Tintin comics, Rembrandt etchings, dinosaur fossils and Jaguar E-Type sports cars, apparently. So way out my league.