2022 WCIA Series: Twig's apps instantly turns your unwanted items into cash

For Geri Cupi, founder and CEO of Twig, a U.K.-based startup building financial solutions for the circular economy, the main challenge facing his business is the landfill—the tendency we have to toss out old stuff. 

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Cupi launched Twig’s “Bank of Things” in July 2021. Through the Twig app, users can instantly claim the value of goods they want to discard, from iPhones to watches to designer handbags. Twig assigns values based on prices it pulls from resale websites such as Poshmark and the Real Real. After a user mails in an item, Twig does the work of putting it up for sale. It’s the winner of the app category of Fast Company’s 2022 World Changing Ideas Awards.

In its first eight months, Twig’s mobile app surpassed 500,000 downloads. Now adding 100,000 users a month, the company is currently expanding into the U.S. and Europe. Cupi believes Twig could not only reduce waste but change attitudes around shopping for quality. “It might make sense for you to buy a more premium item,” he says, “because you know that by the time you’re bored of it, when you resell it, you’d be able to get very good value for it.”