Launched 14 months ago, trading card app CollX continues to gather investors. The company announced a new $5.5 million seed round Wednesday.
CollX launched in January 2022 on both iOS and Android, leveraging artificial intelligence through visual search aimed at allowing users to scan, identify and receive an approximate value of sports trading cards. The app has since expanded into trading card game cards such as Pokémon and Magic. They’ve also added a social layer that lets users share their collections and created a “deals” offer-negotiation framework for buying and selling on the platform.
Currently, the CollX app has 600,000 registered users who have added 100 million cards to their collections. The app matches and tracks pricing against 20 million unique cards.
CollX also operates Card Dealer Pro, a software designed for card stores and dealers to rapidly inventory their cards using visual search AI.
CollX says about 500 high-volume dealers, including Mile High Cards, SMR Collectibles, and Sports Cards by Beau (aka The Million Cubs Project) license Card Dealer Pro’s software, which is typically used to inventory cards and list for sale on eBay in large volumes.
According to CrunchBase, CollX had previously received two rounds of funding, totaling $500,000. The new funding round was led by Brand Foundry Ventures, an Austin, Texas venture fund, with participation from Next Coast Ventures, FJ Labs, 114 Ventures, Ben Franklin Technology Partners, and Morrison Seger Venture Capital Partners.
“CollX has grown to become a force in the hobby in a very short period of time,” remarked Wesley Gottesman of Brand Foundry. “The secondary market for cards is big, but we see an opportunity for it to grow 2-3x. And CollX will be at the center of that, helping collectors level up in the hobby.”
CollX intends to use the money to finalize the launch of its marketplace, as well as a premium tier of the app for what it calls “power collectors.” The company is based in Philadelphia and is led by co-founders Ted Mann, CTO Kostas Nasis, and President Fred Barnes. Barnes leads the Card Dealer Pro side of the business. “By helping both collectors and professional dealers, we’re looking to grow all sides of the hobby,” said Barnes. “For decades there hasn’t been any software to help collectors keep track of their cards, or dealers to manage their business. In just the past year we’ve seen how much of a game-changer this technology can be in the trading card industry.”
Angel investors in CollX include Nat Turner, DJ Skee, David Adelman, Darren Lachtman, Brad Stadler, Ryan Schinman, Robert J. Moore, Rich Friedman, Mike Crossey, Chris McDemus, Jake Rosenberg, Keith McGowan, Adam Crouch, Adam Glasofer, Rania Nasis, David Kaplan, Ariel Boyman, Mike Cohen, Peter Mann, Peter Christodoulo, Ray Waddell, Mani Sundaram, and Juno Capital.
“We believe there is a massive opportunity in trading cards by giving collectors tools to help them value, transact and level up in the hobby,” Mann.stated. “We launched CollX with a simple utility to scratch the what’s-it-worth itch. That’s become a gateway to helping folks digitize their collections, do millions of dollars in deals, learn how to grade cards, and much more. We’re just getting started.”
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