Is the Bought app the next big European name in fashion resale?
While Vinted currently dominates the European second-hand fashion market, a Finnish player is poised to challenge its supremacy. The Helsinki-based company, Bought, has launched an app of the same name designed to simplify the sale of second-hand clothing and other items for consumers.
“Superfast second hand”
In 2025, the Finnish start-up acquired the resale platform Zadaa, an app that was highly popular in Northern Europe at the time. It invited Zadaa users to transfer their profiles to Bought. This acquisition enabled the company to gain 500,000 users, according to figures from media outlet Arctic Startup. It also allowed Bought to offer its appealing service to a wider community, enabling users to list their second-hand items for sale as easily as when they bought them new in-store.
Specifically, the Bought app is a peer-to-peer platform for buying and selling second-hand items, similar to Vinted. It stands out, however, for its direct and straightforward approach to fashion resale. By importing their purchase history, users automatically have ready-to-publish sales listings at their disposal. The app also allows for the manual creation of a product page by simply uploading a photo. This automation makes the selling process simpler and significantly faster. This is an aspect the company highlights on its Apple Store page, titled “Superfast second hand”.
With this approach, Bought is capitalising on new consumer behaviours. Fashion purchases are now also driven by the resale potential of the items themselves. Here, second-hand is fully integrated into a consumption model and the concept of circularity is pushed to its fullest extent.
As for the tedious shipping process, sellers have the option of using the courier company Wolt. “You can forget about packaging and shipping: a courier collects the sold items directly from your home, as they are,” Bought promises on its website.
What is the company Bought Oy?
Currently, the company Bought Oy is primarily known in Scandinavia, but it is expanding rapidly. Launched in 2025, the company raised 1.4 million euros (1.6 million US dollars) from Lifeline Ventures, with participation from Wave Ventures. It also acquired Netflea, a now-defunct online sales platform. According to media outlet Tech.eu, Netflea generated up to three million euros in annual turnover. More recently, the start-up acquired the luxury rental platform Robes Rental, its third acquisition of 2025.
According to Erik Kymäläinen, one of the company's co-founders, Bought has two main objectives. The first is “to make resale so easy that we can put the missing two trillion euros back into circulation”. The second is “to ultimately redefine the concept of consumption by making resale value something we always consider, thus encouraging retailers to only sell products designed to last,” as stated in a post on his LinkedIn account.
Bought is still in its early stages. However, by basing its business model on AI-powered tools, it is gaining an edge over its competitors and is already winning over investors.
With over 40,000 users, the company told FashionUnited it is planning “an imminent expansion into Lithuania, Sweden, Denmark, Germany and France.”
This article was translated to English using an AI tool.
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