Letgo’s $500 Million Takes The Craigslist Competition A Step Further

Peer-to-peer secondhand good marketplace Letgo has raised $500 million. The round was led by the company’s previous investor Naspers, a South Africa-based internet giant. The round brings its aggregate funding to $975 million and potentially pushes its valuation to more than $1.5 billion, per Techcrunch.

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Founded in 2015, Letgo is one of the many companies looking to crack the Craigslist market. Its mobile-first approach is tailored toward smartphone-powered millennials. The company is one of many modern startups aiming to build more automated platforms on learning-based technology. Unlike its Poshmark and Craigslist counterparts, the app titles and categorizes postings automatically.

When Crunchbase News last connected with Letgo in June, the company reported 75 million worldwide app downloads and 200 million listings since its founding. According to TechCrunch’s coverage of the round, the company has grown to over 100 million downloads and 400 million listings since then.

As we previously reported, LetGo is a completely free service and operates like Craigslist with a more hands-off approach to carrying out transactions. The company has yet to monetize its app, but it told Crunchbase News in June that it sees potential avenues for monetization in the future.

In any case, this latest fundraise may allow the company a leg up in the market over its main competitor OfferUp which was last valued at $1 billion and has raised more than $200 million in its lifetime.

Illustration Credit: Li Anne Dias