Again in February, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian teamed up with Brent Montgomery (“Pawn Stars” producer) and Evan Parker (former basic supervisor at The Athletic) to launch Mantel, a social community permitting collectors to share their newest finds, equivalent to sports activities playing cards, TCGs (buying and selling card video games), comedian books, cash, stamps, sneakers, watches, and extra.
Initially accessible solely on the internet, Mantel launched its cell app on Wednesday, offering collectors with a neater strategy to join with like-minded lovers. Now accessible for obtain on the App Retailer and Google Play, Mantel affords collectors a devoted house to have interaction with their passion, whether or not that’s celebrating the thrill of the chase or in search of recommendation from different lovers on matters like grading sports activities playing cards, discussing market tendencies, and extra.
Some standout options embrace “Mantelpiece,” a digital show case the place customers can showcase their favourite collectibles and appeal to curiosity for trades. The app additionally incorporates gamification with options like streaks, polls, and badges. Along with the primary feed, the place customers can see posts from different collectors, customers can entry a wide range of content material, together with market reviews and insights from trade influencers.
In tandem with the app launch, Mantel additionally launched a “Teams” characteristic the place customers can invite members to teams primarily based on area of interest pursuits, like “NBA Junk Wax” or “Classic Non-Sports activities Playing cards.” The characteristic is at the moment web-only however will roll out to iOS and Android units within the coming weeks.
Within the $493 billion collectibles market, many accumulating apps exist; nonetheless, most prioritize gross sales. This might deter some individuals who aren’t interested by promoting and will desire merely displaying their finds and assembly new pals. Additionally, whereas quite a few social community apps exist, Mantel goals to serve a distinct segment group of hardcore lovers who might need to hold their accumulating actions separate from different mainstream platforms.
“There’s nothing nice within the collectible house for [sharing] content material,” Parker, co-founder and CEO, instructed TechCrunch. “I don’t see anyone within the collectible house doing what we’re doing.”
Buying and selling and promoting are nonetheless allowed on Mantel’s platform. Nonetheless, the emphasis is on neighborhood and sharing. In some unspecified time in the future in 2025, the app will launch a Stripe integration and personal messaging to facilitate gross sales between customers. However, there aren’t any plans to develop an in-app market, because the trade is already saturated with opponents like eBay and CardsHQ.
The trio created Mantel out of a shared ardour for accumulating, desirous to develop a platform they personally would take pleasure in utilizing.
Parker all the time had the “collector’s gene,” he defined, accumulating every part from sports activities playing cards and memorabilia to toys and watches. After leaving The Athletic, he met Ohanian and Montgomery, who shared his enthusiasm.
“Alexis is a large collector, and Brent is anyone who grew up promoting baseball playing cards and issues like that to generate income when he was at school, after which he got here up with the thought for ‘Pawn Stars’ and spent his complete profession on the content material facet, numerous it having to do with the accumulating world… [Mantel] is nice for neighborhood, which Alexis is aware of higher than anyone from his Reddit world,” Parker mentioned.
Along with a robust founding group, Mantel is backed by notable traders, together with Courtside Ventures, Cosmic Enterprise Companions, Steve Aoki’s Aoki Labs, Swap Ventures, VaynerFund, together with former WNBA participant Candace Parker and Adam Hansmann, co-founder of The Athletic. Ohanian’s SevenSevenSix and Montgomery’s Wheelhouse Leisure additionally invested within the platform.
Mantel didn’t disclose the precise variety of customers however talked about that it’s within the 1000’s. On common, these customers make greater than 30 feedback or posts every month and interact with content material over 100 occasions month-to-month. The platform additionally boasts “tens of 1000’s” of posts.
The app is free to obtain, however the firm is contemplating monetization choices equivalent to promoting and putting sure Teams behind a paywall.