Lithuania's Vinted has been given a new valuation of 5 billion euros (approx. 5.4 billion).
The deal was led by private equity giant TPG, with additional participants including Baillie Gifford, FJ Labs, Hedosophia, Invus Opportunities, Manhattan Venture Partners, and Moore Strategic Ventures. It's unclear how much Vinted's existing investors have cashed out, but the company said all existing institutional investors, including Accel, EQT, Insight Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners, retained at least some stake. That's what it means.
This year is proving to be a bumper year for secondary market deals, as scale-up companies look to free up liquidity for employees and venture capital in an admittedly weak IPO market. In the past few months alone, we have seen neobanks Revolut and Monzo pursue the secondary market route and enjoy strong valuations on the back of solid user growth and profitability.
Meanwhile, in the US, fintech giant Stripe Inc. followed a similar path to free up liquidity and reached an undisclosed valuation of $65 billion in February as it continues to postpone its long-rumored IPO. did. That number then jumped to $70 billion as Sequoia sought more capital from existing investors.
Vinted CEO Thomas Plantenga (pictured above) said the sale “rewards the dedication of our employees to make Vinted a success.” The company was valued at €3.5 billion ($3.8 billion) pre-money from its previous Series F funding of €250 million in 2021. Since then, the company has gone from strength to strength, reporting record revenue growth of 61% year over year in 2023. Following on from the previous year, the company achieved profitability for the first time.
At the same time, Vinted is expanding geographically and moving beyond its core fashion roots into electronics. Market powerhouse eBay has responded to this growth trajectory by eliminating seller fees in key European markets.