Vienna’s Minimist Raises €1M Pre-Seed To Boost Second-Hand Retail With AI

The round was led by Tilia Impact Ventures (with InvestEU support) and included contributions from angel investors and family offices. The funding was also supported by a Wien Lebensqualität grant from Wirtschaftsagentur Wien.

Minimist, founded in 2024 and led by Stephan Hofmann (CEO), Robert Andrei Damian (CTO), and Anna Greil (COO), is a Vienna-based startup on a mission to make second-hand shopping as seamless as buying new. With a six-person team across six countries, the company primarily serves customers outside Austria.

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Minimist provides an AI-powered “co-pilot for selling” that digitises unique items in under 30 seconds. Its platform has onboarded 15 online retailers, including Helen & Douglas House (UK), VinoKilo (DE/CH), and Diakonia (DE).

The startup aims to address a key challenge in the global second-hand market, valued at hundreds of billions 93% of inventory never reaches online marketplaces due to the high cost and effort of photographing, describing, and pricing unique items.

Minimist’s AI engine automates this process, turning a single product photo into a marketplace-ready listing in under 30 seconds, helping more pre-loved items reach buyers worldwide.

“Properly re-inventing inventory management and eCommerce for a circular economy is so unbelievably necessary for us all to meet climate goals, and we’re over the moon to oversubscribe on this round, as we now have the necessary resources to unlock even more value for our customers and customers-to-be, worldwide,” Stephan Hofmann, CEO of Minimist.