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Goldman Sachs invests in thredUP
12 Sep '15
3 min read
thredUP, America's leading online marketplace for secondhand women's and kids' clothing has announced that Goldman Sachs Investment Partners (GSIP) has led a $81 million Series E investment in the company. Existing thredUP investors Trinity Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, Highland Capital Partners and Upfront Ventures also participated in the Series E financing, it said in a statement.
It said the financing will enable thredUP to continue its rapid growth and scale its operations and distribution network to meet customer demand. With the growing reach of its marketplace, thredUP is fundamentally reinventing what it means to buy and sell secondhand clothing on the Internet.
“We founded thredUP to make it incredibly convenient for consumers to clean out their closets and shop for quality secondhand clothes. We saw a huge opportunity to leverage Internet penetration and the growing acceptance of buying and selling online to bring a delightful, frictionless secondhand experience to the masses,” said James Reinhart, CEO and co-founder of thredUP.
thredUP has seen impressive growth in the last year with more than 1.8 million people visiting the site in August 2015, up from just 700,000 one year ago. By the end of 2016, the company expects to process more than two million pieces of clothing each month. thredUP recently opened a 136,000 square foot facility in Pennsylvania and by the end of next year will open two more high-throughput facilities and will hire an additional 1,000 employees. This expanded network will ensure that thredUP can provide high-quality service to millions more customers.
“We're excited to partner with thredUP, a team revolutionizing the way we think about the secondhand clothing category. Our industry research revealed a huge opportunity to change consumer behavior around both shopping and selling secondhand apparel,” said Ian Friedman, co-head of GSIP Private Investments who will join thredUP's Board of Directors.
“While most brand-oriented consumers have historically held a negative bias toward purchasing secondhand clothing, thredUP is proving it can reverse that perception. We found that over half of their customers had not purchased pre-owned clothing in the year prior to becoming a thredUP customer, highlighting the potential for market expansion.”
thredUP has reimagined a secondhand shopping experience in which sifting through racks of clothing or paging through individual online listings is a thing of the past. Customers have access to hundreds of thousands of carefully inspected women's and kids' items every day, at prices up to 90 per cent off retail. Each garment purchased comes certified by thredUP and backed by great customer service. thredUP members sell their clothes without ever leaving home by filling a pre-paid, pre-addressed Clean Out Bag with clothing, shoes and handbags, and giving it to their mail carrier. When the Bag reaches a thredUP processing center, merchandisers photograph, itemize, list and sell the like-new items, then ship them to the buyer. thredUP accepts over 25,000 brands and sellers earn cash for the vast majority of their items as soon as they are listed. (SH)
It said the financing will enable thredUP to continue its rapid growth and scale its operations and distribution network to meet customer demand. With the growing reach of its marketplace, thredUP is fundamentally reinventing what it means to buy and sell secondhand clothing on the Internet.
“We founded thredUP to make it incredibly convenient for consumers to clean out their closets and shop for quality secondhand clothes. We saw a huge opportunity to leverage Internet penetration and the growing acceptance of buying and selling online to bring a delightful, frictionless secondhand experience to the masses,” said James Reinhart, CEO and co-founder of thredUP.
thredUP has seen impressive growth in the last year with more than 1.8 million people visiting the site in August 2015, up from just 700,000 one year ago. By the end of 2016, the company expects to process more than two million pieces of clothing each month. thredUP recently opened a 136,000 square foot facility in Pennsylvania and by the end of next year will open two more high-throughput facilities and will hire an additional 1,000 employees. This expanded network will ensure that thredUP can provide high-quality service to millions more customers.
“We're excited to partner with thredUP, a team revolutionizing the way we think about the secondhand clothing category. Our industry research revealed a huge opportunity to change consumer behavior around both shopping and selling secondhand apparel,” said Ian Friedman, co-head of GSIP Private Investments who will join thredUP's Board of Directors.
“While most brand-oriented consumers have historically held a negative bias toward purchasing secondhand clothing, thredUP is proving it can reverse that perception. We found that over half of their customers had not purchased pre-owned clothing in the year prior to becoming a thredUP customer, highlighting the potential for market expansion.”
thredUP has reimagined a secondhand shopping experience in which sifting through racks of clothing or paging through individual online listings is a thing of the past. Customers have access to hundreds of thousands of carefully inspected women's and kids' items every day, at prices up to 90 per cent off retail. Each garment purchased comes certified by thredUP and backed by great customer service. thredUP members sell their clothes without ever leaving home by filling a pre-paid, pre-addressed Clean Out Bag with clothing, shoes and handbags, and giving it to their mail carrier. When the Bag reaches a thredUP processing center, merchandisers photograph, itemize, list and sell the like-new items, then ship them to the buyer. thredUP accepts over 25,000 brands and sellers earn cash for the vast majority of their items as soon as they are listed. (SH)
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