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Thriftify, an online marketplace for Irish charity shops, has appointed a liquidator after failing to secure a multi-million euro investment earlier this year. According to documents filed with the Companies Registration Office, Thriftify Technologies appointed Padraic Bermingham of Strata Financial as liquidator toward the end of last month as part of a creditors’ voluntary winding-up process. Following an extraordinary general meeting, a resolution said the company could not “by reason of its liabilities” continue in business.
Rónán Ó Dálaigh, Thriftify’s chief executive and co-founder, said the business had always relied on private investment and had never been profit-making. In August 2022, it raised €1.6m in a funding round led by the HBAN Impact Syndicate, with participation from Themvar VC and angel investors.
'We really gave it absolutely everything and tried to make it work,' said co-founder Rónán Ó Dálaigh “The goal was always very big. What we were trying to do was bring the entire charity retail market online not only through our marketplace but also through technology. “Ultimately, the growth rates weren’t there.
We tried to raise a round earlier this year, up to kind of €5m, and we didn’t get traction. Unfortunately, we started to get very close to cash-negative months. “We did everything we could to try and steady the ship.
We made a lot of changes. We made some redundancies and tried different pricing models. The new entity has already raised some funding from investment company Themvar.
Photo: Stock image/Getty "But ultimately, when you start with something as ambitious as what we started out with, you kind of set the course, and it is very hard to come back from that.” The appointment of the liquidator is not the end for Thriftify, noted Ó Dálaigh. He said the co-founders were not ready to quit and had managed to negotiate a sale of the intellectual property to a new company and retained the name rights.
“We have kind of pivoted and are preparing to launch a new solution. It is much simpler and much more focused. We have closed our direct-to-consumer marketplace, and basically, what we are doing is launching artificially intelligent listing solutions.
“We have learned a lot over the last few years, but I think the single biggest lesson we've learned is that the biggest problem the entire used goods sector faces is how do you list something for sale online. That is a problem we have developed a solution for and will go live with in the coming weeks.” Ó Dálaigh said the new entity had raised some funding from Themvar.
The co-founder added it was disappointing that many Thriftify investors, including friends and family, had lost out. 'The goal was always very big. What we were trying to do was bring the entire charity retail market online' “Sometimes it doesn’t work out,” he said.
“We really gave it absolutely everything and tried to make it work. "We have also given everyone the opportunity to be part of this new entity on very favourable terms. So if people wanted to participate and continue their belief in the founders – now understandably the amount of people doing that is quite small – that is an option.
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