thredUP Announces $175M in Funding & Launches a New Platform to Power Resale for the Broader Fashion Industry
thredUP, the world’s largest fashion resale marketplace, is announcing $175M in funding and formally launching Resale-As-A-Service (RAAS), a platform powering apparel resale for retailers and brands. The investment was led by Park West Asset Management and Irving Investors with existing investors, Goldman Sachs Investment Partners, Upfront Ventures, Highland Capital Partners and Redpoint Ventures participating. This brings thredUP’s total capital raised to more than $300M, including a previously undisclosed $75M investment last year.
This funding will fuel a new wave of growth and platform expansion for thredUP, empowering the company to further pave the way for an era of conscious fashion. Over the past 10 years, thredUP has built a thriving marketplace and scalable infrastructure that have inspired millions of consumers to embrace secondhand for the first time. 63% of consumers are now open to buying used clothes, a behavioral shift that has spawned a $24B resale market, growing 21 times faster than retail.
“thredUP has built a platform and an intuitive marketplace that brings a $50B industry online, making it easy for buyers, sellers and retail partners to participate in secondhand. What the thredUP team has built is complex, defensible and highly scalable. thredUP is uniquely positioned to thrive, lead the market and power the broader resale economy. We’re thrilled to partner with the world’s most powerful resale engine.” — Russell Lynde, Park West Asset Management
4 Key Areas of Investment Include:
1. A PLATFORM TO POWER RESALE FOR RETAILERS — new partners rolling out this month
Consumers everywhere are participating in secondhand at record rates. 9 in 10 retail executives want to test resale and embrace circular fashion, but lack the infrastructure. Today, thredUP launches a platform called RAAS (Resale-As-A-Service), which powers the buying and selling of secondhand apparel for retailers and brands, helping them join the resale revolution and extend the life of clothes. Partners can plug into thredUP’s infrastructure and marketplace to drive loyalty, acquire new customers and reclaim wallet share lost to secondary markets. Here’s how:
Secondhand Shopping Experiences: Retailers can add thredUP product to their stores or websites. The treasure hunt for incredible deals on quality brands plus constant new arrivals attracts younger customers and gives them more reasons to come back. thredUP first introduced a pilot in Stage Stores. Macy’s launched thredUP product in select stores on August 1st. Last week, JCPenney’s secondhand pop-ups began rolling out in major markets. thredUP will be in more than 100 partner locations by September 2019.
Apparel Recycling: Retailers can give their customers ‘Clean Out Kits’ to send old clothes to thredUP and earn shopping credit to buy new clothes. This gives shoppers purchasing power to refill empty closets with their favorite brands again and again. Reformation, Polarn O Pyret and others tap thredUP to run this sustainable loyalty program.
2. INFRASTRUCTURE EXPANSION —scaling past milestone of 100 million unique items processed
thredUP’s resale engine can price, photograph and distribute unique SKUs — or one-of-a-kind items — with unmatched efficiency. Millions of garments rotate daily through automated carousels in thredUP’s Distribution Centers, the world’s largest garment-on-hanger facilities. thredUP’s powerful data can instantly determine the worth of any garment and algorithmically assign resale value at scale. The company receives 100,000 items every day, processes more than one item every second and has displaced over $7.5B in total retail value to date. To support accelerating supply, thredUP will further scale its operating platform and build out more automated Distribution Centers.
3. MARKETPLACE GROWTH — over 30,000 brands sold last year alone
thredUP has reinvented resale, taking all the work out of selling your clothes and making it fun to buy secondhand. As the most convenient way to refresh every brand in your closet — from fast fashion to luxury — thredUP has attracted millions of new consumers to secondhand. This funding will support the growth and scale of thredUP’s core marketplace, its “try-before-you-buy” Goody Boxes and its retail locations.
4. CUTTING ENVIRONMENTAL AND FINANCIAL WASTE — billions of dollars and one hundred million items saved
thredUP is driven by a mission to save your wallet and the planet from waste. Consumers are more sustainably-minded than ever, yet they are buying twice as many clothes and wearing them for half as long. 64% of those garments end up in landfills. As overproduction, throwaway and single-use fashion accelerate, thredUP aims to extend the life of clothing and make the most of the resources we already have. thredUP has saved shoppers billions of dollars and diverted nearly 100M items from landfills.
“Consumer shopping preferences are changing. They have swapped malls for dynamic, always-fresh shopping experiences. They like to own less and rotate their wardrobes more. They demand sustainability and refuse to over-pay for anything. These changes are driving incredible demand for the resale market, and are leading to a major transformation of the modern closet. We’re energized by our investors’ confidence to continue leading this movement, expand our resale platform and usher in a more sustainable fashion future.” — James Reinhart, thredUP CEO & Founder
About the Resale Economy
Highlights from thredUP and GlobalData 2019 Resale Report
Market is Big & Growing: Secondhand is a $24B market, on track to double within 5 years to $50B. It’s growing 21X faster than retail, on track to surpass fast fashion and department stores within 10 years.
The Stigma is Gone: The total addressable market is growing, with 63% of consumers saying they have bought or would buy secondhand. 56M women bought secondhand products last year, an increase of 12M new shoppers.
Young Consumers Drive Growth: Driven by a love of sustainability, bargains & new outfits, Millennials & Gen Z are leading the charge, adopting secondhand at the highest rates. 1 in 3 Gen Z will buy used apparel this year.
Retailers Want In: Nearly 1 in 3 consumers said they would spend more with their favorite retailers if those retailers also sold secondhand apparel, and 60% said they would be more loyal to a brand if apparel recycling was offered.
About thredUP: thredUP is the world’s largest fashion resale platform, inspiring a new generation to think secondhand first. The company has spent the past 10 years reinventing resale, building a marketplace and infrastructure now poised to power the $50B resale economy and usher in a more sustainable fashion future. Millions of consumers use thredUP as the easiest way to sell their clothes and shop over 35,000 brands at up to 90% off — online, in stores or via “try-before-you-buy” Goody Boxes. Backed by world-class investors, thredUP designed a resale engine that has redistributed nearly 100 million unique garments from closets across America and is now powering resale for the broader fashion industry via its Resale-As-A-Service (RAAS) platform.