When it debuted in 2014, Kaiyo billed itself as a circularity-driven online marketplace for pre-owned furniture and home décor by popular brands like Article and CB2. The process was simple: those needing to offload furniture would offer it to Kaiyo, and if the company accepted it, would retrieve the pieces for free, store them in a warehouse, list them online, and cut the sellers a check. The company’s founder, the serial entrepreneur Alpay Koralturk, launched Kaiyo after a few botched attempts to buy secondhand furniture from usual-suspect listing sites—and learning about how Americans toss several million tons of furniture annually. Several years in, Kaiyo claimed it kept 3.5 million pounds of furniture waste out of landfills. Its millennial-minimalist subway ads promised “secondhand furniture, first-rate experience.”
While that was enough to expand operations to California in 2022, secure $36 million in Series B funding, and open a summer pop-up in a former Barney’s, the company is now winding down operations after Koralturk’s departure in April. News of Kaiyo’s closure came to light in mid-August, when customers received an email that read “Kaiyo is in the initial phase of doing an orderly wind down of the Company” and that reimbursements would be delayed. Sellers promptly filed claims with the Better Business Bureau, the New York State Attorney General’s office, and the Consumer Protection Division, which is investigating the matter. Dozens of customers, who anticipate an imminent class action lawsuit, are “fuming” on Reddit about the lack of response from Kaiyo’s customer service, whose phone number was removed from its website.
The abrupt closure may strike some as unexpected. Just last year, Koralturk told Forbes about his plan for the company to leave a “global legacy.” He continued: “Five years down the track, we will be the ‘overnight success story’ that took 13 years to make,” Koralturk said. “Joking aside, I think we will be a beloved consumer brand that hopefully will stand for more than just the product or services we provide.”
