Back Market Raises $120M To Expand Refurbished Electronics Platform 

Refurbished electronics reselling platform Back Market has raised $120 million in a new round of funding, the company announced early Tuesday.

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The Paris-based company hosts an online marketplace for refurbished electronics with a minimum of a 12-month warranty. Sellers are all registered businesses, not individuals, and Back Market goes through a vetting process when onboarding sellers.

Investors this round include Goldman Sachs, Algaé Ventures and Eurazeo Growth.

The new funding will be used to improve Back Market’s quality control, expand its geographic footprint, and invest in its technology, managing director Serge Verdoux said in an interview with  Crunchbase News. The company is working to build out an ecosystem around quality: investments in data, people doing analysis, partnerships for software to test devices, etc.

The funding will also fuel Back Market’s expansion in Europe and North America. Back Market is in seven countries in Europe (along with the United States) and wants to increase that figure to more than 20 markets. The U.S. is the only non-European country in which the company sells to consumers, but it’s thinking of expanding into Canada and Mexico as well. Back Market would like to eventually expand to Asia, but that’s further down the line (probably late 2021 or maybe 2022, Verdoux said).

While consumers from only eight markets can buy items from Back Market, the company has sellers from about 30 countries worldwide. With the U.S. as the company’s “No. 1 growth market,” according to Verdoux, it was important to have a recognizable American investor. That’s where Goldman Sachs came in.

“What we wanted to do for this round is really have a U.S. company and ideally a globally established brand to help us. … I think it’s also important with the network and the brand recognition that they bring to help build this globally,” he said.

Back Market’s sales and revenue have been growing by triple-digit percentages globally, Verdoux said, and in some markets like the U.S., growth is much higher.

Illustration Credit: Li-Anne Dias