Fapis Raises Series A Bridge Round to Turn Korea into a Global Hub for Pre-Owned Luxury

Fapis, a South Korean secondhand luxury goods platform, has raised a Series A bridge round to accelerate its inventory build-out and overseas expansion. The company announced the funding on July 2, 2026. The amount was not disclosed.

The round was led by Smilegate Investment, marking its third follow-on investment in the startup, with global accelerator Sparklabs also participating.

Fapis centers its business on a service it calls “Gochyeo-palgi” (fix-and-sell). Rather than acting as a simple marketplace, the company takes in used luxury items, restores them to top condition through professional repair, and then sells them on consignment — raising the value of each product before it changes hands. That approach sets it apart from conventional secondhand trading platforms, which typically stop at brokering deals between buyers and sellers.

The operation runs on an AI-based system. When a seller uploads a single photo, the platform automatically returns a market price estimate, an authenticity assessment, and a projected return after repair. Monthly fix-and-sell submissions have now passed 5,000, and the company expects to reach an annual transaction volume of KRW 10 billion (approximately $7.2 million) in 2026.

The company is pursuing a strategy to grow Korea into a global sourcing hub for pre-owned luxury. The worldwide secondhand luxury market is expanding rapidly, at roughly EUR 50 billion (approximately KRW 70 trillion) per year. As supply — long concentrated in Japan — diversifies, Fapis is building a model that sources luxury goods domestically in Korea and exports them to Europe, Japan, the Middle East, and the United States.

Founder and CEO Jungmin Kim said the company aims to establish itself as a core supplier to the global pre-owned luxury market on the strength of its Korea-born fix-and-sell model, adding that the new funding will go toward securing inventory and expanding into overseas markets.

Fapis was previously featured by Wowtale in a 2022 Startup Together interview on using data and technology to reshape the secondary market for luxury goods. In Korea’s emerging resale ecosystem, Viber recently crossed KRW 20 billion in monthly transaction volume focusing exclusively on pre-owned watches, signaling growing consumer appetite for authenticated secondhand luxury across categories.