Kaiyo made the sofa move. Then the money stopped.

A sofa can be perfectly useful and practically worthless at the same time. Put it in a fourth-floor apartment, give its owner a moving deadline, and watch the calculation change. The upholstery has years left. The owner has three days. Between those two facts sits a market that ought to work, and frequently does not.

Kaiyo built its furniture resale business in that awkward space. It collected approved pieces, cleaned and photographed them, stored them, found buyers and delivered the goods. For a seller, the immediate benefit was an empty room. For a buyer, it was recognizable furniture without the full retail bill or the choreography of collecting it from a stranger.

• The idea: make secondhand furniture feel like a serviced retail purchase.
• The machinery: pickup crews, warehouses, cleaning, pricing and delivery.
• The ending: a 2024 wind-down accompanied by seller payout complaints.

The trouble was getting it upstairs

Founder Alpay Koralturk had encountered the problem himself. After marrying, he and his wife wanted to furnish their New York home with secondhand pieces. The search proved frustrating enough that they bought new instead. Here was a city full of furniture and people who wanted furniture. Apparently, proximity was insufficient.

The company’s roots are usually dated to 2014; its predecessor, Furnishare, launched a furniture rental platform in 2015, according to contemporaneous industry reporting. After several iterations, it reappeared as Kaiyo in February 2019, focused on resale. The practical insight survived those changes: people needed help completing the transaction, including the physically inconvenient parts.

That matters because a listing site solves only part of a furniture sale. It can introduce two people. It cannot persuade their calendars to agree, inspect a stain or lift a sideboard. Kaiyo’s proposition bundled those chores into the deal. Sustainability became easier to practice when it arrived with people capable of carrying the sofa.

A warehouse hiding behind a website

Kaiyo occupied the ground between informal classifieds and high-end design resale. Its inventory included familiar names such as West Elm, Room & Board and Design Within Reach. Buyers wanted quality at a discount. Sellers wanted money, certainly, but also removal without advertising their living room to a procession of strangers.

Approved furniture left the seller’s home before a buyer appeared. That sequence distinguished the experience: the seller could move on while Kaiyo handled presentation and storage. It also placed the operational burden on the company. Every accepted piece needed space, attention and a route to its next address.

The service was financed through the resale economics. January 2022 reporting described seller shares ranging from 10% to 60%, depending on an item’s sale value, alongside a $149 buyer delivery fee and free warehouse pickup. These were historical terms, not a present-day price list. The substantial retained share helped pay for substantial work.

Selection was therefore consequential. Kaiyo researched demand before accepting pieces. A handsome item with few likely buyers could become an expensive warehouse resident. Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace left more work with the participants; specialist alternatives included AptDeco, Chairish and 1stDibs. Kaiyo competed on how much of the transaction it would undertake.

Buying the wait

In January 2022, Kaiyo introduced Instant Offer. Once pickup was complete, a seller could accept an offer instead of waiting for resale proceeds. The launch announcement promised that a check would be mailed within two business days after cash-out. “Instant” described the offer and dashboard action; the postal service still had its own schedule.

The choice addressed uncertainty as much as inconvenience. Waiting for a percentage of a future sale meant waiting for both a price and a date. Taking an offer made the payment amount knowable earlier. In economic terms, Kaiyo was accepting more of the risk that the furniture would sell for enough, soon enough.

“At Kaiyo, our mission is to make great design accessible to everyone.”Alpay Koralturk, March 2022

This is the useful idea to borrow: identify the customer’s waiting period, then decide whether you can shorten it profitably. The condition is demanding. Forecasts must be good enough to justify taking custody, and the business must have cash available while inventory waits. An attractive interface cannot shorten that wait by itself.

California, then a red sofa

In May 2021, Kaiyo announced $5 million in funding led by Moderne Ventures. In March 2022 came a $36 million Series B led by Edison Partners, comprising equity and debt. The distinction matters: the headline amount included money that carried repayment obligations. Funding enlarged the company’s options; it did not make each pickup costless.

Los Angeles service launched in July 2022. The company also promoted a tree-planting partnership with the National Forest Foundation. Its appeal joined design, affordability and reuse, while its execution remained rooted in trucks and facilities. Expansion meant recreating the physical service in another market.

By June 2024, Kaiyo was experimenting with shopping in person at New York’s Not-a-Normal Market. It sold 30% of the pieces it displayed during the two-day event. A red Ligne Roset Ploum sofa fetched $2,000; contemporary reporting put its possible new retail price at $10,000. For furniture, seeing and sitting still had persuasive power.

The last mile was a payment

Two months later, the news was about money sellers could not collect. Modern Retail reported that Julia Sherman was awaiting roughly $800 from furniture sold from her grandmother’s estate. Company correspondence described payout delays without a resolution date. In August 2024, correspondence reviewed by the publication said operations would continue only through month’s end during an orderly wind-down.

That documented sequence establishes a painful ending, without proving a complete diagnosis of the company’s finances. The practical lessons remain concrete: select inventory carefully, count every handling step and treat payment timing as part of the service. Kaiyo made a difficult transaction feel easier. Its closing chapter shows why the bargain must remain dependable after the furniture has left the room.