Social Shopping Platform Depop Secures $20M for Global Expansion
Depop, the social shopping platform for creative entrepreneurs, has completed a $20 million Series B led by Octopus Ventures, making it one of the most well-funded European fashion startups of 2017. The funding also includes additional capital from TempoCap, who will be joining the current investors Balderton, HV Holtzbrinck Ventures, H-FARM, Creandum, Lumar as well as Italian entrepreneurs Luca Marzotto and Renzo Rosso from OTB/Diesel Group.
Rebecca Hunt, Octopus Ventures early stage VC investor will be joining the board. “We are excited to be supporting Depop on their next phase of growth as they continue to roll out across the US. The company has built a large, engaged and loyal user base amongst predominantly creative young people. Depop provides users with a selling and social platform and a global pool of buyers to leverage their unique community and inventory, generate their own brands and build revenue channels. This taps into a key trend in retail for millennials, and we are looking forward to seeing further growth of the business over the coming years, powered by an exceptional team.”
Founded in 2012, Depop has over 8 million registered users and has become home to millions young entrepreneurs teenagers with some making over $10,000 monthly.
“By combining mobile shopping with social features, Depop is creating a stronger relationship between buyers and sellers. We are becoming a key part of the lifestyle of a generation which values community and sustainability, while possessing a strong entrepreneurial streak.” said Simon Beckerman, Founder of the company.
As well as creating a thriving community built around social, Depop has doubled revenue growth globally as well as active users in the US market, compared to 2016.
Depop CEO Maria Raga said, “The investment will support the global growth of the platform, particularly in the US, and scale the business. This will include the opening of bricks and mortar beta spaces, which will help us get even closer to our users and experiment with new formats. We are excited to work with Octopus Ventures. They have a strong portfolio and are experts in accelerating growth of lifestyle and marketplace companies”.
About Depop
Depop was founded by co-founder of PIG magazine and RETROSUPERFUTURE sunglasses, Simon Beckerman. It was originally conceived as a social network where PIG’s readers could buy items featured in the magazine.
Realising that Depop needed a selling function, Simon re-envisioned the app as a global marketplace to empower creative entrepreneurs — a mobile space where you can see what your friends and the people you’re inspired by are liking, buying, and selling. This ecosystem has supported Depop to become a global conduit of connection, not only in m-commerce, but culture, design, and creative communities around the world.
After a successful soft launch in Italy in 2012, Depop moved to London in 2014, where it is currently headquartered, with offices in New York, Los Angeles and Milan. Today, it has over 100 employees, 8 million users worldwide and 2.6 million sessions a day.
About Octopus
Octopus Ventures is a London and New York based venture capital firm, focused on identifying unique and ambitious entrepreneurs.
To us, Entrepreneurs are the people who create defining moments. Few Entrepreneurs go back to their original investors for their next venture. Ours do. We find being bold and generous – with our time, our attention, our network and our knowledge – works for everyone. We never forget that while we are invested in multiple companies, entrepreneurs are invested in just one.
We invest from £250,000 to £25 million in seed to series B funding and look to follow in subsequent rounds. We share our expertise and advice every step of the way to help our Entrepreneurs take their ideas from inception to international scale-up.
Companies we’ve backed in recent years include Big Health, graze.com, Eve, Magic Pony, Secret Escapes, Sofar Sounds, Swiftkey, Swoon Editions, tails.com, Zoopla Property Group and Zynstra. Each one unleashed the progress we and our Entrepreneurs knew was there.
www.octopusventures.com
Octopus Ventures is part of the Octopus Group which also incorporates Octopus Energy, Octopus Healthcare, Octopus Investments, Octopus Labs and Octopus Property.
About TempoCap
TempoCap is a London based technology venture capital fund, specialising in growth equity and secondary venture transactions. TempoCap provides primary capital to fund growth in businesses or secondary capital to acquire stakes from existing shareholders or buy fund vehicles from investors.
TempoCap is an active investor with an operational focus and an entrepreneurial mindset. We are a London-based team of eight with deep experience in business building, venture and growth capital and secondary direct investments.
Some of our notable investments include Boku (mobile payments network), Miura Systems (Payments hardware provider), Ercom (Leading cyber security solution provider), Launchmetrics (virtualized SaaS platform for the fashion industry), Onfido (Leading identity and background check software solution provider), Teads (Video advertising provider – acquired by Altis) to name a few.
