Lithuanian unicorn company Vinted, creator of an online marketplace for second-hand fashion, has acquired United Wardrobe, the largest second-hand fashion platform in the Netherlands. With a combined member base of 34 million buyers and sellers across 11 countries in Europe, the two companies say they share a goal of encouraging responsible fashion and growing the circular economy. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.
From this week, the two platforms will gradually be integrated, and users of United Wardrobe will be invited to migrate their user accounts to Vinted, joining an international platform with wider access to second-hand products. The new access also lets users easily transact across one combined marketplace spanning the Netherlands, France, Spain, Belgium, and Luxembourg, without any seller fees. On the operations side, the startup will be integrated into Vinted but remain based in Utrecht. CEO Sjuul Berden, COO Maud Behaghel and CTO Thijs Slijkhuis will take on leadership roles in the combined business, focussing on expansion into new markets.
Founded by three students from Wageningen University in 2014, the Dutch company has expanded from its home in the Netherlands to operate across Belgium, France and Germany. Its member base has grown rapidly to over 4 million registered users in five years. Vinted achieved unicorn status in November 2019 when it completed a €128 million Series E funding round, bringing its valuation to more than €1 billion. In the 17 months to that event, it recorded a fourfold growth rate. The company was founded in Vilnius, Lithuania in 2008 and operates across 12 markets globally: Spain, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland, Lithuania, the UK, and the US.
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