Depop secures $20 million in investments, prepares for US expansion

By

Robin Driver

Published
Jan 23, 2018

Depop, the fashion-oriented social shopping app, has secured $20 million in funding as it aims to consolidate its operations in the United States, a market where the platform has significant expansion potential. 

The primary investment round was led by Octopus Ventures but also saw the participation of existing investors including Balderton Capital, Red Circle Investments and Lumar. TempoCap invested in a secondary round, acquiring shares from the platform’s early stakeholders.
 
H-Farm, which holds a significant stake in Depop, also sold some of its shares as part of the transaction, receiving a cash return of around 5 times its initial investment.

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Depop was developed by Simon Beckerman at H-Farm in 2011 and is currently led by CEO Maria Raga. It has been based in Shoreditch, London since 2012 and boasts a team of 100 full-time employees working in its offices in London, Milan, New York and Los Angeles.
 
This round of funding is a testament to the confidence investors have in the platform’s potential, a confidence which does not appear to be misplaced considering Depop’s increasing popularity. The application now has 8.2 million users and is growing at a rate of 250,000 new users per month. The community is home to creatives operating in a range of fields including fashion, art and music, as well as famous influencers such as Chiara Ferragni and top model Bianca Balti.
 
The platform’s success is attributed to the fact that it allows anybody to buy and sell directly through their smartphone, thereby making it relatively easy to set up a small business.
 
Developed in line with rapidly evolving shopping habits, Depop can therefore be seen to capitalize on the flexibility offered by e-commerce marketplaces, a path already explored with good results by other social shopping platforms such as Etsy and Amazon Marketplace.

The platform’s mobile focus also appears to be a smart choice, with mobile sales gaining momentum across the industry, outstripping other retail channels during last year’s holiday period.
 
Hardly surprising, then, that transactions on Depop are up by 130% since 2016, amounting to a total value of over $130 million.