Hip Raises $5m Bond Series

Interesting. If you peel back the typical business BS about "disruption and "revolutionary", hopefully this results in improved features for sellers/buyers on Hipstamp. From an active seller's perspective, although it's pretty easy to bulk list, manage items and fulfill orders, there are some missing features in the product compared to eBay/Delcampe.

Once features are built up and a good enough marketplace of sellers and buyers (a.k.a. "members") is in place, how can they expand?
Perhaps by buying up a competitor platform?
Or perhaps looking to add another specific colllectible area to their portfolio so they can grow more? My teenage son tells me Pokemon cards are hot.
Or do they just need a cash infusion to hold them over while they get their comic book marketplace populated?

I cannot help but note that this Press release was by Josh Sparrow ... I believe that's Jack Sparrow's younger brother.... Never went to sea, but did just fine selling short and long planks, parrots, and peglegs.

Is ebay, the biggest and most active online stamp marketplace?

@jogil - It seems to depend on area
In North America - ebay, Hipstamp, then Delcampe
In Europe - Delcampe or ebay
Overall, Delcampe is bigger (more listings) than Hipstamp/Hippostcard combined. It has also been around longer.
Not sure about other regions, certainly see far more Asian & Australian buyers on Delcampe than Hipstamp.

@jleb1979
Interesting question - they have stamps, postcards, comics now - other collectibles could certainly be planned - coins, collectible toys, etc. I'm not sure who they could buy - they're still pretty small...
One feature, or problem depending on your viewpoint, with their model is that their stamp/postcard/comic stores are completely separate. So I wanted to list a postcard/comic it's a separate storefront (same look & feel of course), whereas eBay/Delcampe can support many types of products being listed. It does allow them to theoretically specialize more on the specific product, but I'm not a fan of the approach myself.

PS - Josh Sparrow is in their marketing group - nice guy.

If you peel back the press release puffery, they are going into significant debt with a VC. Depending on how it is structured, this can range from 'laissez-faire' to 'we are in your operational shorts' to 'after X period of time you either pay us back or we take over your company'. VCs always talk a great game and companies always present themselves as a wonderful investment; it is not often that both are true but hopefully it works out for HS.
Don

Yes, getting in bed with a VC is a definite risk for a company, especially a smaller one like Hip. We'll see if their fees change (sub and/or per transaction) due to this as well.

~Greg

Must be nice having sold a company and then buying it back for less. (If this is what has happened.) Then getting investors interested in the company who are able to provide money for the company to use for business purposes. If the offering is in bonds rather than stocks, then it may be more risky for the company if anything goes wrong. Isn't the FED buying up corporate bonds these days? Some companies prefer this rather than from other companies or investors buying their bonds.