Listia, which launched just two months ago, is one of those startups that has grabbed my attention. And apparently investors like it, too. The company as raised a $400,000 angel round of financing from Implistic Capital. Partner Adam Pearsall has joined the Listia board of directors.
Listia provides a better way for people to give stuff away. People often list free things on Craigslist or donate it to Goodwill, charities or churches. But Craigslist isn’t a perfect solution, since you will get a mass of emails and need to deal with everyone. And often the winner doesn’t show up. And most charities and churches aren’t really interested in getting actual stuff that they then need to sell for cash. They’d rather just get the cash.
Listia makes it all a lot better. Users don’t bid cash for items, rather they bid points that they get for free for signing up, listing items and referring friends. That means the winner is the person who wanted the item the most and was willing to bid the most points. The lister doesn’t have to deal with a lot of emails, and the no-show risk is minimized.
And if a user really wants an item but doesn’t have enough points, they can buy more. That’s where the business model comes in, and the value to charities. Points can be purchased at a rate of $5 for 50 points. And if a lister decides to donate the proceeds to charity, the charity gets 100% of any paid for points used by the winner.
We’ve been using Listia to give away some of the unwanted stuff in the office. And we’ve also used it for marketing, by giving away free TechCrunch tshirts regularly. Here’s an auction going on right now, or you can use the widget below:
Listia has also just rolled out Sponsored Listings (example), where companies and organizations can manage free giveaways for promotion or charity. The listing has a link back to the company’s website. For now it’s free, eventually Listia will charge for this.
We will be launching a new auction site in November not for free stuff, but you can choose to auction of old stuff and donate the proceeds to your favorite charity http://stuffbuff.com Techcrunch50 demopit company…….
Good to see cool companies getting funding in this economy!
this listia thing is full of win
congrats on the funding… the sponsored auction thing sounds pretty cool if they can get some good sponsors.
Seems like a pretty cool service, but not very useful for smaller cities unless it becomes very popular.
Couldn’t the seller sell something on craigslist and donate the money to charity? How is this easier for the seller than Craigslist?
Excellent model! Much better than http://www.olx.com for charities
IDK, the site is very misleading. Any worthwhile item will require the user to pay for more credits, so essentially, you are just participating in a paid auction. In addition, their methods of interacting with charities aren’t clearly outlined, and I’m not sure how things work. Unfortunately, people who participate in the charity business are notoriously greedy, so I’d want clarification on their operation before regarding them as legitimate.
congrats guys – love using listia!
Congrats Listia…
MA, do you know how many registered users they have? Any revenue numbers? They launched only about 3 months ago, I think.
Awesome idea right off the bat. I can tell.
I don’t get it. Isn’t freecycle faster, simpler and local so we can go pick things up we want?
Well-moderated by locals it seems highly efficient… skip the points
I have trouble seeing users paying actual cash to bid on items that are being given away for free. I could see this service appealing to the cross-section of users who are active in both the gift-giving economy and donating to charities, but I think that the majority of users who are looking for ‘free’ stuff are looking for it because they themselves are in need and are not able/willing to pay for these goods themselves.
It’s an novel idea – I just think the whole auction/virtual currency approach over-complicates a process that should be simple and easy to understand. Next time I’m looking for free stuff I’ll still use the craigslist free section or freecycle.org
and if I want to donate $ to charity, I’ll do it on my own terms to a charity of MY choosing.
Do you know that there is also ReUseItnetwork (dot) org in a lot of areas? Yu can give stuff away or receive stuff for free and it’s local.
I would not be willing to invest any money or a lot of listing time to give something away for free.
DID ANYONE NOTICE…they said the charity gets the “paid for POINTS!!” NOT GETS THE CASH!!
There’s another popular website my friend uses a lot, called FREECYCLE! She loves it.
Good job Listia.
Funny fact:
Listia in Greek (ληστεία) means Robbery!
Well, I have been using listia for a few days now. I am highly addicted and plan on using it to give away shirts and games to help promote or 1upgame com website for preserving games. I did not know it was based on charity, but i love the idea of getting rid of junk i do not want for stuff i do want. I see it more as a easy way to do horse trading. Although you could not trade a real horse, it is against their policy to trade animals.
The site is simple, has a nice look, and it just flat out works. I want in on the public offering of stock, have been searching where to find out how to invest in this site. It is a great idea, and will be one of the biggist growth companies of 2010. I wish my site could see this much traffic in 2 months, compared to 5% of there traffic in my 2 years. Thanks listia, I want a chunk of that monkey, let me know if anyone knows how to invest in the great idea and wonderful company.
Joshua Carnes
Owner
1upgame.com