Swish

01 / WHAT IT BUILT

What the company did

Swish was a Y Combinator-backed startup founded in 2013 that made selling simpler for inventors and creators. Instead of crowdfunding, creators listed finished products; users pitched in money during a 30-day window, and Swish then placed a single wholesale order with the manufacturer and handled all fulfillment itself. Its model took 35 percent of the built-in markup - akin to traditional retail rather than Kickstarter's 5 percent - in exchange for sparing small creators the strain of fulfilling thousands of orders. The four-person team criss-crossed the US pitching the service at CES and the International Gift Fair. No reliable public record of the company's later fate exists.

03 / EVENT HISTORY

Events in the structured record

1. 2013
   Company founded

   Swish was founded and went through Y Combinator; the four-person team, led by co-founder Chronis, launched a selling platform for inventors and creators that handled wholesale ordering and fulfillment itself.