Collectors, a company that authenticates, grades and manages collectibles such a sports trading cards and autographed memorabilia, coins, video games and more, is hiring at a new office in Seattle.
Collectors has locations in Santa Ana, Calif., New York, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo and Paris. The Seattle location at 2033 6th Ave. is just across the street from Amazon’s headquarters towers and is currently home to a 10-person team.
The company plans to hire 20 more software engineers, designers and product managers over the next year, according to a news release this week. Collectors said recent hires have come from tech companies such as Amazon, Microsoft and Zillow and include Chief Product Officer Ryan Hoge, who was a product executive at Microsoft for 15 years.
The global collectibles market is predicted to grow to $522 billion by 2028, up from $372 billion in 2020. The Seattle office is working on new technology and services to further fuel the growth of Collectors and the hobby.
“From leveraging machine learning to help better predict the value of collectibles to developing tools to improve the grading process, the work Collectors is doing is helping move the hobby and business into the future,” Hoge said in a statement.
New York Mets owner Steve Cohen and Flatiron Health founder Nat Turrner led an investor group that acquired Collectors in 2021. The company employs more than 1,200 people.