Vinted achieves a valuation of €8 billion following an €880 million secondary share sale.

      Schroders Capital and Teachers’ Venture Growth have become new investors in Vinted. This transaction allows early investors and long-standing employees to access liquidity. Vinted claims to be "IPO-ready" but has not established a timeline. In FY2024, the company's revenue increased by 36% to €813 million, and its net profit rose fourfold.

      Vinted, a Lithuanian second-hand marketplace, has achieved a valuation of €8 billion (around $9.4 billion) following an €880 million secondary share sale. The deal was spearheaded by EQT Growth, with Schroders Capital and Teachers’ Venture Growth participating as new investors alongside several current backers.

      Vinted does not benefit directly from the proceeds of this transaction; instead, it provides liquidity to early investors and long-serving employees by allowing them to sell existing shares instead of the company issuing new ones.

      This €8 billion valuation signifies a 60% increase from the €5 billion valuation it reached in October 2024 during a prior secondary share sale facilitated by TPG and supported by Baillie Gifford. Both of these transactions, being secondary sales rather than primary funding rounds, reflect Vinted's financial status, indicating that the company does not require fresh capital.

      In 2024, Vinted reported revenue of €813.4 million, up 36% from the previous year, and a net profit of €76.7 million, marking a 330% rise from the €17.8 million seen in 2023. The gross merchandise value on the platform surpassed €10 billion that year. The company is achieving profitability and rapid growth, allowing its existing investors and employees to realize gains through secondary market deals without going public.

      Founded in 2008 in Vilnius, Lithuania by Milda Mitkutė and Justas Janauskas, Vinted's origin story has become a key part of its brand narrative: Mitkutė's need to sell unnecessary clothes during a move served as the inspiration for the platform.

      Vinted became Lithuania’s first tech unicorn in 2019, with backing from Accel, Insight Partners, EQT, Lightspeed, and Sprints. Today, it operates in 22 European nations, boasts over 100 million registered users, and has broadened its scope beyond second-hand clothing to include electronics, books, toys, and video games.

      Existing investors comprise Accel, Insight Partners, EQT (which led the most recent funding round through its Growth division), Lightspeed, and Sprints. The company's technological framework serves as a competitive edge that rivals have struggled to match. Vinted integrates its own payment system (Vinted Pay) and logistics service (Vinted Go) into its marketplace, eliminating the issues often encountered in C2C commerce that relies on external payment and shipping providers.

      Its recommendation algorithms successfully connect buyers and sellers at a scale unmatched by competitors like Depop, Poshmark, and ThredUp across various European markets simultaneously. In 2024, the company launched Vinted Ventures, its corporate investment arm, to support re-commerce startups with investments ranging from €500,000 to €10 million at Series A to C, thereby extending its influence into the wider circular economy supply chain.

      Although Vinted has characterized itself as “IPO-ready,” it has not set a public date for a potential listing. The two consecutive secondary share sales—one in October 2024 at €5 billion and the latest in April 2026 at €8 billion—indicate a thoughtful strategy: ensuring liquidity for early stakeholders and affirming the ascending valuation through institutional market transactions, all while avoiding the obligations and volatility associated with public listings.

      This approach aligns with companies that are genuinely confident in their growth and wish to control the timing of any public events. CEO Thomas Plantenga is exploring cross-Atlantic trade routes between London and New York as a preliminary move towards entering the US market, describing that market as “immature” with substantial growth potential.

      An eventual IPO in either the US or Europe would benefit from having an established narrative in the US market prior to drafting the prospectus.

      The broader backdrop of this deal highlights the ongoing expansion of the circular fashion economy in Europe, fueled by growing sustainability awareness, pressure from cost-of-living increases, and enhancements in platform quality that have made shopping second-hand a mainstream activity. Vinted's gross merchandise value exceeding €10 billion in 2024 serves as clear quantitative evidence of this shift. For EQT Growth, which previously held a stake in Vinted and is now overseeing a new secondary transaction at a 60% premium to its earlier round, this deal signifies both a show of faith in the company's direction and a platform for participating in any future primary round or IPO at a predetermined entry point.

      For both Schroders Capital and Teachers’ Venture Growth, the secondary investment at €8 billion reflects a belief that Vinted's expansion into the US market and ongoing dominance in Europe will drive a significantly