Top Drwr is aiming to offer an accessible way for fans to acquire sought-after items from their favorite athletes, musicians and celebrities.
The new auction platform, which launches Wednesday, comes from a team of former StockX employees led by chief executive officer Yasir Malik. The company has received funding from Courtside Ventures, which has also backed StockX, and FJ Labs. Grammy-nominated musician French Montana is also a cofounder of Top Drwr.
Top Drwr works by partnering directly with athletes, musicians and celebrities who list their personal items for auction. The platform’s initial auction is with Miami Heat basketball player Jimmy Butler, who is offering pieces from his own closet such as two varsity jackets from his time playing at Tomball High School in Texas and Marquette University in Wisconsin.
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Malik — who worked at StockX for over three years, most recently as its director of strategy and innovation helping the platform launch into new categories — came up with the idea for Top Drwr during his time at the company as he saw a white space in the auction space that focused on sports memorabilia.
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“I couldn’t help but notice just how massive of a market sports memorabilia was,” he explained. “Although it was very competitive, I always thought that I would love to break into that market, but breaking into it from a StockX angle was really difficult because sports memorabilia in general has a lot of challenges with authentication and verification that we couldn’t really overcome through StockX — through an open marketplace where anyone can exchange these types of products. So there were too many limitations coming into place on that and StockX doesn’t do a lot of one-of-one type items, so it’s usually items that are produced at a certain level of volume for them to be traded on the platform.”
Top Drwr is focusing on luxury apparel items from its celebrity and athletic partners but is aiming to make the auctions accessible with lower pricing. While Butler’s varsity jackets are expected to sell for $10,000, Malik said the starting price will be $1,000. He also explained that many of the items’ starting price will be $1.
“The idea is to start the auctions really low and let the market decide where they go,” he said. “There’s 10 total lots and I would say half of them are starting at $1. We’re really letting the users decide how much they want to give us. We want something that’s more attainable at different levels, like even the $10,000 jacket for example, that’s not going to be accessible for everyone, but there will be sneakers that you can probably snag for a couple hundred bucks.”
Top Drwr has not yet released its full roster of celebrity and athletic partners. However, Malik stated the company has already signed partnerships with several other big names, including some female celebrities.
Malik explained he sees Top Drwr attracting a large customer base given the company’s focus on fashion and its celebrity tie-in.
“The way I describe it is there are two types of buyers — there’s the fashion buyer who is interested in the actual items themselves because of the branding or product itself and then there are collectors who are fans and they care more about the provenance of Jimmy Butler owning and wearing a lot of these types of items,” Malik said. “There’s going to be some type of convergence between those two buyers and obviously our hypothesis is that there is a strong convergence and we’re going to see the interest from both sides.”
Top Drwr’s Jimmy Butler auction will begin on Wednesday and run through Aug. 31. A portion of proceeds from the auction will be donated to the Social Change Fund United, a philanthropic organization launched by NBA players Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul and Dwyane Wade that supports communities of color.