Catawiki
👤 René Schoenmakers & Marco Jansen (Schoenmakers, a comic collector, built a wiki catalogue for collectors first - then turned that trusting audience into auctions.)🌐 site
A curated marketplace for collectibles - watches, art, jewelry - where in-house experts vet every lot before auction.
Will it work? · our read
Curation wins. Vetting every lot built real trust and a 21.5% take - but the same experts who create the moat also cap the margin, so 16 years in it still sits near breakeven.
01How the money moves
Seller submits a special object to auction
→
An in-house expert vets, prices, and lists it
→
It sells - Catawiki takes 12.5% from seller + 9% from buyer
02The numbers
€105M
2024 revenue (about $114M)
catawiki
3.5M
objects auctioned, 2024
catawiki
240+
experts vetting every lot
wikipedia
GMV is about $770M (2024, ECDB estimate) - the €105M is Catawiki's commission cut, not GMV. Catawiki 2024 results
2024 revenue €105M (about $114M), up 8% YoY - it took 16 years to cross that mark and still runs near breakeven.
🔒
The facts are free. The judgment is for members.
You've seen how the money moves, the numbers, and every source — free, on all 365 cases, always. Members get the part you can't look up: why it won · where the moat really is · how it dies · how it beats its rivals — plus the 🚀 launchpad prompt that turns any case into a plan for your business.
Sources stay public, always · cancel anytime · 14-day refund
(demo: preview the full teardown)Sourcesupdated · daily
Catawiki: 2024 revenue crossed €100M, reaching €105M (about $114M)Catawiki announces 2023 results (€98M revenue)Wikipedia: Catawiki - founding, funding, expert modelPermira: Catawiki reports first profits (2020)Catawiki: how selling works (12.5% seller + 9% buyer fees)
Revenue (€105M, 2024, about $114M) is first-party from Catawiki's own press release, and verified. The 12.5% seller + 9% buyer fee split is from Catawiki's own help pages. GMV (about $770M) is a third-party ECDB estimate, clearly labelled and not counted as revenue. '240+ experts' is Wikipedia; the 2024 release says 'hundreds.' The margin-ceiling read and the 'dies' scenario are [our read], not company claims. We never score you.