Rally (company)
Rally (also called Rally Holdings or RSE Markets, Inc.) is an alternative asset investment company that has created a mobile application called Rally. The application allows retail investors to buy and sell equity shares in collectible assets and items from the past and present including sports cards and memorabilia, classic cars, graded comic books, vintage watches, and first edition literature. The company was founded in 2016 and is headquartered in New York. Overview. The company was founded originally under the name Rally Rd., by Rob Petrozzo, Chris Bruno and Max Niederste-Ostholt. They started by securitizing classic cars  and initially had a collection of nearly 30 cars with each car listed in a process like an initial public offering of stock. They completed their first initial offering for a vehicle in 2017. Since 2019, it expanded to providing more than 300 assets across categories including items such as art, wine, watches, sports collectibles, natural history artifacts, musical instruments and first-edition books. Investors in Rally can make money by selling their shares as an item gains in value, or if the treasure is eventually sold for a profit. Rally registers each item as a security. During the start  of the COVID19 pandemic, the company had approximately 100,000 users and oversaw $12 million in inventory, while as of March 2021, it gives access to approximately 200,000 users for alternative asset investments in collectibles and oversees $30 million of merchandise. The application is available on Android and iPhone. Funding. In January 2018, Rally raised a $2.9 million seed round led by Social Leverage and other angel investors. In 2020, the company closed a $17 million oversubscribed financing round, while in May 2021, it raised $30 million in Series B funding led by Accel with other  investors including Upfront Ventures and Social Leverage. In October 2021, Rally raised $15 million follow-on to their Series B round led by Wheelhouse, with participation from Josh Richards, Griffin Johnson, Noah Beck, John Stamos, Connor Schell, and Bill Simmons. The total funding of the company since inception is approximately $65 million. Business model. Rally has a fractional ownership model for investors and the enthusiast community. The company sources a collectible for sale and creates a new entity, a subsidiary of an LLC. The startup then holds an SEC-registered offering where potential investors can view details about  the collectible and if desired purchase one or more of the divided equity shares. When the offering is completed, there’s a 3-month hold period, after which the company’s mobile application provides a monthly trading window where new users can place bids and existing investors can place asks, allowing the equity shares to be traded on a marketplace.