Whop is a startup based in Brooklyn (Williamsburg), launched in 2021 by Steven Schwartz, Cameron Zoub, and Jack Sharkey, three childhood friends who met online through their passion for rare sneakers..
After designing bots to buy trainers, they turned to selling digital services – first through an informal marketplace, quickly overrun by scammers.
It is this experience that drove them to create a secure marketplace: Whop.
The aim of Whop is to become a "showcase of the Internet economy", a centralised marketplace where creators can sell digital products (software, courses, subscriptions, communities, etc.)
The platform stands out for:
- A comprehensive management: payments, targeting, analytics, customer support and moderation
- An integrated discovery engine, promoting the network effect, in the manner of a "digital Amazon" for creators
Whop now has a small technical team (15-20 developers) but very productive.
The company operates in "dogfooding" mode: all employees are themselves sellers on the platform, using Whop to communicate and manage their internal work.
Whop in a few dates and figures:
2021 : official launch.
2023 : £17 million Series A funding round, led by Insight Partners, with Peter Thiel, Kevin O’Leary, The Chainsmokers, etc..
Mid-2023: over $100M in cumulative transactions (GMV), approximately 3,000 sellers and 1 million buyers
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Beginning of 2024: GMV reached $263 million, with over 5 million subscriptions sold and approximately 10,000 products .
End of 2023: revenue of $3.4 million with a team of approximately 34 people.
In 2024, raising a Series B of over $50 million, valuing Whop at approximately $800 million and employing nearly 70 staff at HQ
Whop has managed to capture the attention of freelancers and creators, particularly in the fields of training, bots, trading, sports betting, crypto, coaching, templates, etc.
The platform claims to help over 100 sellers become millionaires through the generated income.