Plastic Jungle, a marketplace for gift cards, has secured $4.8 million in Series A funding, led by Shasta Ventures with investments from Bay Partners, First Round Capital and Harrison Metal. The company says that it will use the funds to accelerate its growth through new hires, as well as increased marketing and business development efforts.
Plastic Jungle lets you buy, sell and exchange gift cards online. Instead of receiving cash for your gift card, Plastic Jungle also lets you trade the value in for an Amazon gift card or give your money to charity.
wow that is a brilliant concept
I love Plastic Jungle. Sent in a Walmart gift card and got the Amazon gift card via email within a week, not bad at all.
you mailed physical card and got electronic card in return? how do they give cash back, by mail?
Yes! Once the card is verified, the cash will arrive to you in about 3 days after the initial date of verification.
Very cool stuff. I’m excited to see what the funding turns into…
fraudsters will kill this thing (as soon as they notice it).
how so?
Check out http://www.giftcardrescue.com/. They pay cash for gift cards through paypal and offer a wider range of cards for sale or exchange.
We are very excited to have closed this round of funding in such a difficult environment.
We are anxious to continue growing the only gift card marketplace where all transactions are guaranteed! We look forward to expanding our product line to allow consumers to get more from gift cards and currently have hundreds of brands available and always at a discount.
Plastic Jungle is the new way to save money!
Nice idea of exchanging gift.
iRegift.com was actually around before PlasticJungle. However they shut down about two years ago. I think that they’re working on developing a slightly different model and then going to relaunch. Interesting to see that funding is available for this kind of start-up. In its current state its not very profitable, and fraud is a huge problem.
there must be a better way!
This reminds me of sites like leverage that burned through 2 million in VC. It is next to impossible Plastic Jungle will be able to make that money back, especially under their current business plan.
I have tried using it a few times, but their operation is nothing special. Sites like Giftah which launched with no funding provide better experiences, and there is always e-bay
They copied http://www.CertificateSwap.com
Hard to believe they copied that, their site is shit.