CatchBack raises $8M to turn mystery packs into a trading marketplace

Why it matters

CatchBack is applying trading infrastructure to physical collectibles, where instant buybacks and transparent odds depend as much on pricing and liquidity as software.

CatchBack, the collectibles platform founded by Joseph Zhang and Sophia Kim, raised an $8M seed round to expand its marketplace for digital mystery packs backed by physical trading cards.

Foundation Capital led the round, CatchBack said in an announcement on X. Y Combinator, Robinhood Ventures, Coinbase Ventures and the Solana Foundation also participated. CatchBack plans to use the capital to develop custom packs, real-time trading and instant card buybacks. But these are definitely not NFTs.

Joseph Zhang (@sohan_zhang) and Sophia Kim founded CatchBack in 2025 after working inside the trading-card market themselves. Zhang previously built cloud storage infrastructure at AWS, advised companies on AI projects at McKinsey and worked as an engineer at a crypto startup. He also sold over $500,000 of Pokemon cards, according to CatchBack's Y Combinator profile.

Kim brought product design, animation and user-interface experience. In a post introducing CatchBack, she described the product as an attempt to bring greater transparency and fairness to the way collectors buy and sell cards. CatchBack joined Y Combinator's Winter 2026 batch and Stanford Blockchain Accelerator's eighth cohort.

A digital pack backed by a physical card

CatchBack lets users assemble mystery packs around selected cards and odds, then open those packs digitally. Each result corresponds to a physical card held by CatchBack. A collector can request delivery, list the card for sale or accept an immediate buyback offer paid through Venmo or PayPal.

The model combines the mechanics of online pack-opening platforms with a secondary marketplace. CatchBack says it charges $1 for completed marketplace sales and uses cryptographic randomness proofs so collectors can verify how cards were selected for packs.

That technical layer addresses a recurring complaint in the mystery-pack business: buyers have limited visibility into how prizes are distributed or whether the advertised odds match the cards inside. Cryptographic verification can prove the selection process followed published rules. It cannot determine whether the pack was priced fairly or whether CatchBack's buyback offer reflects an attainable market price.

CatchBack launched its iOS app on January 25th, 2026. Its YC profile recorded 700 users and $13,000 in monthly recurring revenue shortly after launch. Before Y Combinator's Winter 2026 Demo Day, Zhang said monthly pack-opening volume had increased from $25,000 to $60,000 and then $175,000, while the user base had reached about 1,700.

CatchBack now claims more than 75,000 users, 500,000 opened packs and over $1.8M spent creating custom packs. Those figures show a large increase in registrations and activity since January, although they are company-reported metrics with different denominators. Pack openings and cumulative customer spending do not establish CatchBack's current revenue, repeat-purchase rate or the depth of its resale marketplace.

Investors are backing the liquidity pitch

The investor lineup follows CatchBack's attempt to frame trading cards as assets that can be priced and exchanged continuously. Robinhood Ventures brings a consumer-trading connection. Coinbase Ventures and the Solana Foundation fit CatchBack's use of cryptographic proofs and digital ownership records, even though collectors ultimately receive physical cards.

CatchBack says it is one of two consumer companies held by Robinhood Ventures Fund II. The fund's participation gives CatchBack another distribution and financial-market connection as Zhang and Kim try to move collecting away from one-off shipments, private messages and percentage-based marketplace fees.

The harder part of that plan sits behind the interface. Instant buybacks require reliable card pricing and enough capital to purchase inventory when collectors want cash. Physical fulfillment adds storage, authentication and shipping work. A real-time marketplace needs sufficient buyers and sellers for quoted prices to mean anything.

The $8M round gives Zhang and Kim room to build that machinery after proving they can attract collectors to the pack-opening experience. CatchBack's next test is whether those users continue trading after the pack is opened, turning a moment of chance into a marketplace with repeatable liquidity.