The story
Gumtree was founded in March 2000 by Michael Pennington and Simon Crookall as a local London classified ads and community site, designed to connect Australians, New Zealanders and South Africans who were either planning to move, or had just arrived in the city, and needed help getting started with accommodation, employment and meeting new people. The company started in the corner of a small office they sub let from a travel company in Waterloo. The term 'gum tree', the local Australian phrase for eucalyptus trees in general, was chosen as a word that linked the three communities (even though the gum trees found in South Africa are introduced species, whereas gum trees occur natively in Australia and New Zealand). The founders also felt it reflected the roots and branches of a real community.
In May 2005, Gumtree was acquired by eBay's classifieds group for an undisclosed sum; however, eBay disclosed that it paid a collective $81.6 million for three classified sites: Gumtree, LoQUo and opusforum (with Gumtree being the largest). At the time of the acquisition, Gumtree was available in multiple cities in United Kingdom, Poland, France, Canada, Australia (Gumtree Australia), Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa and Hong Kong.
On 7 January 2016, Gumtree's re-branding, including updated logo was published on their website and respective apps.
In July 2020 eBay sold Gumtree UK to Adevinta ASA in a deal worth over $9 billion.
On 1 December 2021 Adevinta ASA announced that it had completed the sale of Gumtree UK and Motors.co.uk to a consortium consisting of O3 Industries (“O3”), a New York-based family investment fund, and Novum Capital, a private equity firm based out of Frankfurt.
In March 2022 the Polish version, Gumtree.pl stopped accepting new listings and announced on its site that it will cease its operations in Poland on 7 April of the same year.
In July 2022 Impresa Capital acquired Gumtree South Africa for an undisclosed sum.
In August 2022, The Market Herald acquired Gumtree Australia and its ownership of Carsguide Autotrader Media Solutions from Adevinta ASA, for a sum of A$86.7million (US$60 million).
Read the full text
Gumtree UK, Gumtree Australia and Gumtree South Africa are now independent companies.
Market expansion
Expansion beyond the UK include:
September 2004: Gumtree launched a site in Warsaw, Poland.
May 2005: Gumtree launched a site in Berlin, Germany.
June 2005: Gumtree expanded into Italy, with sites in Rome and Milan, increasing its coverage across 31 cities.
August 2007: Gumtree expanded to the United States, targeting expat communities in New York, Boston and Chicago. Services targeted the two million British, Australian and Polish expatriates in the country.
From Wikipedia’s article on Gumtree, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4