What Cirkular does

Cirkular (legally Cirkular World Ltd., registered in London, UK) operates an AI-powered resale platform built around a consumer-facing mobile app available on iOS App Store and Google Play. The core workflow allows users in Germany to photograph a pre-owned item, receive an instant binding cash offer, and have the item picked up from their home — eliminating the listing, negotiation, and shipping steps typical of peer-to-peer marketplaces. The computer vision pipeline ingests the photo, classifies the item across heterogeneous categories (fashion, electronics, footwear, sports, furniture, home, accessories) spanning 70+ brands, and produces a price commitment via a predictive valuation model.

The company's revenue model is a transaction spread: Cirkular acquires pre-loved items from individual sellers at the instant-offer price, then handles authentication, grading, photography, storage, and pricing before selling inventory onward to B2B buyers — resale businesses, secondhand stores, and recommerce platforms — through its Cirkular Partner Program. Pricing is quote-based and not publicly disclosed for either side. Operations are concentrated in Germany (22 cities and towns, 1,500+ members, 7,000+ items given a second life in 16 months), and customer acquisition is product-led via app store distribution, a waitlist/membership funnel, and organic social channels (Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok).

Cirkular has closed two small funding rounds in 2025 totaling approximately $341K (Jan 2025: $51,755; Oct 2025: $289,312). The team is described as "small but mighty" (1–10 employees), with two named directors: Christian Schulze (CEO) and Maros Lauer (CCO). Despite the small scale, the company has built a multi-surface offering — consumer app, membership waitlist, and B2B partner supply — within its first 16 months of operation.

Name

Cirkular

Legal name

Cirkular World Ltd.

Website

https://cirkular.world

Company type

Private

Founded year

2024

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Cirkular (Cirkular World Ltd.) operates an AI-powered mobile resale app that lets consumers in Germany photograph pre-owned items, receive an instant binding cash offer, and have items picked up from home, then routes the authenticated inventory to B2B resale partners for revenue.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Recommerce and secondhand resale services

NAICS

Used Merchandise Retailers (459510)

akta.pro primary industry

Peer-to-Peer (C2C) Resale Marketplaces (CRAFAGAM)

Keywords

• Secondhand resale platform
• Instant item valuation
• Recommerce supply chain
• Pre-owned inventory sourcing
• Circular economy marketplace

Headquarters

HQ city

Munich

HQ country

Germany

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B and B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Supply Chain

Revenue model

1. Inventory resale to B2B partners: Core revenue stream: Cirkular acquires pre-loved items from individual sellers (offered instant purchase prices), then handles authentication, grading, photography, storage, and pricing before selling inventory onward to resale businesses, secondhand stores, and recommerce platforms. Margin is the spread between consumer acquisition price and B2B resale price.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion3 records

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Cirkular operates a mobile app (iOS and Android) that lets individual consumers sell pre-loved items by snapping a photo and receiving an instant, binding cash offer. After the offer is accepted, Cirkular arranges free pickup from the seller's home, then handles authentication, grading, photography, storage, and pricing before supplying the curated inventory to B2B resale partners (secondhand stores, recommerce platforms). The offering spans 70+ brands across fashion, electronics, footwear, sports, furniture, and home goods, operating in 22 German cities and towns.

Product overview

Cirkular offers a single, unified resale product built around its Cirkular App, supported by two complementary access surfaces: the Cirkular Membership waitlist that gates user onboarding, and the Cirkular Partner Program that distributes Cirkular's curated secondhand inventory to B2B resale businesses. The Cirkular App is the core product — it uses image-based item recognition and instant valuation to generate a binding offer, after which Cirkular handles pickup from the seller's home. The Partner Program reuses the same upstream supply pipeline (members' items evaluated for resale-readiness) and channels it to recommerce partners who resell under their own brand, while the Membership waitlist is the demand-side funnel feeding both the consumer app and, indirectly, the supply available to partners.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Cirkular App Cross-platform mobile application (iOS App Store id 6756896545; Android package com.cirkular.world) that lets individual users in Germany sell any quality secondhand item by snapping a photo and receiving an instant, binding offer. Cirkular then picks items up directly from the user's home, eliminating the typical resale friction of listing, negotiating, and shipping. Available across 22 German cities and towns at launch.
• Cirkular Membership Gated membership program for the Cirkular App. New users sign up via a waitlist (collecting first name, last name, email, city, and optional access code) to receive an invite code and download the app from the App Store or Google Play. Membership currently grants access across 22 German cities and towns.
• Cirkular Partner Program B2B program supplying curated, pre-owned, high-quality inventory to resale businesses, secondhand stores, and recommerce platforms. Cirkular evaluates and sources items from its user network; partners purchase the supply and resell it under their own brand, with full control over pricing and customer experience.

Quantifiable outcome

• More than 7,000 pre-loved items given a second life through the platform.
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers1 record

Segments2 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability5 records

Feature4 records

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• Unnamed resale businesses, secondhand stores, and recommerce platformscoreChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorCirkular sources pre-loved items from individual sellers, then authenticates, grades, photographs, lists, and stores them. Partner resale businesses purchase the resulting inventory to sell through their own channels. Cirkular handles end-to-end logistics, authentication, grading, and pricing; partners focus on selling. The partnership is built on seamless inventory flow.

Scale indicators7 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Broad incumbents

• thredUP: US-based recommerce platform with a managed marketplace for secondhand apparel, including 'Resale-as-a-Service' B2B supply to brands and retailers. Comparable to Cirkular in the dual-sided consumer-to-resale supply model, though at much larger scale and US-focused.
• Vinted: Europe's largest peer-to-peer secondhand fashion marketplace, with tens of millions of members across the continent. A broad incumbent competing for the same consumer demand for circular fashion, but operating a C2C listing model rather than Cirkular's instant-offer + B2B supply model.
• The RealReal: US-based authenticated luxury consignment marketplace with in-house experts grading and pricing items before listing. Overlaps with Cirkular on the authentication, grading, and photography stack but serves a different geography and pricing model.
• Vestiaire Collective: Global luxury fashion resale marketplace with direct-buy and authentication capabilities. Comparable to Cirkular on the authentication and grading side and on the premium-brand supply chain, but operates a C2C marketplace model rather than instant-offer acquisitions.

Direct peers

• Rebuy: German recommerce platform that buys used books, media, electronics, and games from consumers and resells them at scale. Overlaps with Cirkular in category breadth, instant-offer seller flow, and German market focus.
• Sellpy (Klarna): European recommerce service owned by Klarna that provides instant offers for secondhand clothing, with home pickup and downstream resale. Directly comparable to Cirkular in offering an instant-offer, pickup-based seller experience across multiple European markets.
• Momox: German-headquartered recommerce platform that buys pre-owned books, media, and fashion directly from consumers via instant offers and resells through its own channels. Closest direct comparable to Cirkular in geography, business model, and consumer-facing instant-offer flow.

Emerging players

• Trove (Yume): White-label resale technology provider that powers branded recommerce programs for retailers. Comparable to Cirkular's B2B Partner Program on the supply-aggregation and authentication backbone, though focused on B2B SaaS rather than direct consumer supply.
• Flyp: App-based resale service that aggregates pre-owned fashion and routes it to professional resellers. Closely comparable to Cirkular's mobile-first, photo-to-offer seller flow and downstream wholesale model, though with a US geographic focus.
• Zadaa: European peer-to-peer fashion resale marketplace with a mobile-first experience. Partial overlap with Cirkular in category focus (fashion-led) and European consumer base, but uses a C2C listing model rather than instant offers.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles2 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds2 records

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Cirkular