[1] 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.

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.

[5][6][7] 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).

The advert was shared around various sites such as BuzzFeed and Mashable and caught the eye of Hollywood director Kevin Smith, who used the ad as his inspiration for his 2014 film, Tusk, a story of an evil scientist who plans to permanently sew a human into a walrus suit.

[21] Animal rapist and sadist Adam Britton was arrested after video footage of him sexually abusing, torturing and killing dogs was discovered.

He had searched for dogs on the website Gumtree Australia, claiming to rehome them, and telling their former owners that they were thriving in his care, when in fact he had already sexually abused and killed them.