‘Tis the season for holiday-themed schticks from startups (and their accompanying PR pitches) — and to be honest, most of them are more worthy of an eyeroll than anything else. But today Copious, the socially-powered online marketplace where people can buy and sell things, kicked off a Cyber Monday event that is actually pretty cool.
In what it’s calling “Festivus on Copious,” Copious has enlisted seven web-savvy celebrities to sell their personal things on Copious over the coming week with proceeds benefiting a charity of their choice.
From a tech world perspective, the most compelling stuff is from Randi Zuckerberg, who has listed items including a limited edition Facebook hoodie from the company’s early days which was available only to employees. She’s also selling dresses she’s worn while representing Facebook at the Democratic National Convention and at the Emmys. All proceeds from her sales will go to Covenant House.
Ms. Zuckerberg is not the only Facebook-affiliated celeb involved. Boo The Dog, the famously adorable pet of a Facebook employee, is selling items such as books and a collection of plush toys to benefit Operation Smile.
Anyway, it’s a cool play to get more people to check out Copious, which launched last year to essentially be a more personalized eBay with a social backbone. The company raised a healthy $5 million in a Series A funding round this past summer and last month expanded its focus beyond women’s apparel and accessories to include men’s clothing and gender-neutral items like artwork.
Of course, Copious is not the only startup making a go of it in the marketplace space — Poshmark and Threadflip do similar things. The concept of buying used things from other people is not everyone’s cup of tea, but memorabilia and collectibles have always had wide appeal, so this is a clever promotion of all that the site can be used for.
I sat down with Copious’ CEO Jim Rose earlier this year after the company raised its Series A to talk more about Copious’ vision and the competitive landscape for TechCrunch TV. You can watch that in the video below:
Copious is a social marketplace for buying from and selling to people, not strangers. Copious is backed by Foundation Capital, Embarcadero Ventures, Relay Ventures, Google Ventures and a handful of well known Silicon Valley angels. Copious is based in San Francisco and is a project of Utah Street Labs.
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