SidelineSwap, a platform for people to buy and sell new and used sports gear, officially announced on Tuesday that it closed a $5 million Series A financing round on April 20.
The round was lead by Global Founders Capital and also included former NBA player David Robinson’s Admiral Capital, Peak6 Sports, RiverPark Ventures, FJ Labs and The Players’ Impact.
The Charlestown-based startup launched its online marketplace in 2015 with the hopes to make sports more affordable and attainable for athletes through their platform of athletes selling their used and new clothing and equipment.
"The funding is something we are pretty excited about," Brendan Candon, co-founder and CEO, said. "It is our largest funding round to date, which brings our total financing to just under $9 million. Seven million of that came in within the last six months."
Candon said they hope to use the money for a variety of developments to make the service more streamlined and easier to use for both first time and repeating customers.
SidelineSwap hopes to add new features such as an Android app to compliment the iOS app, and to develop features such as reviews, recommendations and guides to help users figure out how much their gear is worth.
Candon said it is hoping to double the headcount by the end of this year, by hiring in the marketing and engineering departments. The startup currently employees 13 people.
To date, SidelineSwap has raised $8.9 million with their previous round bringing in $2.1 million in a seed extension round which also included investments from Global Founders Capital and The Players’ Impact.
"Our goal at the end of the day is to build the largest marketplace for sporting goods," Candon said. "This just helps us down that path of being able to continue to invest in the product."
