YC-Backed Eze Raises $3.7 Million In Seed Round

B2B Marketplace for secondhand electronics, Eze, has raised $3.7 million in an oversubscribed seed round. Eze connects global electronic wholesalers allowing them to trade devices in large quantities with real-time market data.

Founded by Joshua Nzewi and David Iya in 2020, Eze directly connects distributors and retail stores of used smartphones, mostly iPhones, and other electronics with electronics suppliers, providing access to an extensive inventory from over a hundred wholesalers and manufacturers.

Shipments of used smartphones will have a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.3% from 2021 to 2026, reaching $99 billion in value, according to tech analyst the International Data Corporation (IDC). To place this growth in a smaller context, in 2022, used smartphone shipments of 283 million represented an 11.5% increase over the 253.4 million units shipped the year before — and with the growth in shipments of new smartphones taking a blow since the pandemic with factors such as global supply chain issues and consumers’ reduced spending, the used smartphones market is poised for faster growth, per IDC.

Currently, traders in the B2B space use inefficient means to trade, such as WhatsApp and WeChat, which results in poor distribution, numerous unneeded middlemen, pricing fragmentation, zero quality control, and rampant fraud.

“It’s almost every day we see someone getting scammed in one of these group chats where people are doing business,” CEO Nzewi said on the call. “So we knew that a product like ours was essential in the market to keep these individuals safe.”

Eze aims to formalize trade in these areas, such as Lagos’ Computer Village, Nigeria’s busiest electronics market, by connecting retail stores and distributors to telecom companies and wholesalers of electronics in the U.S.

“That’s kind of been our business model since we started, but we’ve expanded quite a bit starting to onboard suppliers in Japan and Hong Kong and then opening up a facility in Dubai, as well,” the CEO added.