Once more in February, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian teamed up with Brent Montgomery (“Pawn Stars” producer) and Evan Parker (former fundamental supervisor at The Athletic) to launch Mantela social group allowing collectors to share their latest finds, similar to sports activities actions enjoying playing cards, TCGs (shopping for and promoting card video video games), comic books, money, stamps, sneakers, watches, and additional.
Initially obtainable solely on the web, Mantel launched its mobile app on Wednesday, providing collectors with a neater technique to hitch with like-minded fanatics. Now obtainable for receive on the App Retailer and Google Play, Mantel offers collectors a faithful space to interact with their ardour, whether or not or not that’s celebrating the enjoyment of the chase or in search of suggestion from completely different fanatics on issues like grading sports activities actions enjoying playing cards, discussing market tendencies, and additional.
Some standout choices embrace “Mantelpiece,” a digital present case the place clients can showcase their favorite collectibles and attraction to curiosity for trades. The app moreover incorporates gamification with choices like streaks, polls, and badges. Together with the precept feed, the place clients can see posts from completely different collectors, clients can entry various content material materials, along with market research and insights from commerce influencers.
In tandem with the app launch, Mantel moreover launched a “Groups” attribute the place clients can invite members to groups based on space of curiosity pursuits, like “NBA Junk Wax” or “Basic Non-Sports activities actions Enjoying playing cards.” The attribute is in the meanwhile web-only nevertheless will roll out to iOS and Android models throughout the coming weeks.
Inside the $493 billion collectibles market, many gathering apps exist; nonetheless, most prioritize product sales. This may deter some people who aren’t contemplating selling and can want merely displaying their finds and meeting new associates. Moreover, whereas fairly a couple of social group apps exist, Mantel objectives to serve a definite phase group of hardcore fanatics who may want to protect their gathering actions separate from completely different mainstream platforms.
“There’s nothing good throughout the collectible space for [sharing] content material materials,” Parker, co-founder and CEO, instructed TechCrunch. “I don’t see anybody throughout the collectible space doing what we’re doing.”
Shopping for and promoting and selling are nonetheless allowed on Mantel’s platform. However, the emphasis is on neighborhood and sharing. In some unspecified time sooner or later in 2025, the app will launch a Stripe integration and private messaging to facilitate product sales between clients. Nevertheless, there usually are not any plans to develop an in-app market, as a result of the commerce is already saturated with rivals like eBay and CardsHQ.
The trio created Mantel out of a shared passion for gathering, wanting to develop a platform they personally would benefit from using.
Parker always had the “collector’s gene,” he outlined, gathering all of the issues from sports activities actions enjoying playing cards and memorabilia to toys and watches. After leaving The Athletic, he met Ohanian and Montgomery, who shared his enthusiasm.
“Alexis is a big collector, and Brent is anybody who grew up selling baseball enjoying playing cards and points like that to earn cash when he was in school, after which he bought right here up with the thought for ‘Pawn Stars’ and spent his full career on the content material materials side, plenty of it having to do with the gathering world… [Mantel] is good for neighborhood, which Alexis is conscious of upper than anybody from his Reddit world,” Parker talked about.
Together with a strong founding workers, Mantel is backed by notable merchants, along with Courtside Ventures, Cosmic Enterprise Companions, Steve Aoki’s Aoki Labs, Swap Ventures, VaynerFund, along with former WNBA participant Candace Parker and Adam Hansmann, co-founder of The Athletic. Ohanian’s SevenSevenSix and Montgomery’s Wheelhouse Leisure moreover invested throughout the platform.
Mantel did not disclose the exact number of clients nevertheless talked about that it’s throughout the 1000’s. On frequent, these clients make higher than 30 suggestions or posts each month and interact with content material materials over 100 events month-to-month. The platform moreover boasts “tens of 1000’s” of posts.
The app is free to acquire, nevertheless the agency is considering monetization decisions similar to selling and placing certain Groups behind a paywall.