Vinted, Europeâs largest online marketplace for second-hand clothes, is ruling out an initial public offering for now as it focuses on expanding beyond fashion.
Itâs easier to deal with five or six investors than to have to appease a large shareholder base, CEO Thomas Plantenga said on Thursday. The Vilnius, Lithuania-based company reached a valuation of â¬5 billion ($5.29 billion) after completing a secondary share sale last month led by the private equity firm TPG.
âWeâre expanding into new countries and weâre expanding our categories. Weâre taking a ton of risk,â Plantenga said in an interview at the Web Summit in Lisbon. âI want to play these bets out.â
Vinted is working to expand into other segments of the second-hand market, including phones, toys, gaming consoles and, potentially, luxury watches, Plantenga said. At the same time, the company is investing in efficient shipping, payments and product verification services, he said.
âIf you look at second-hand trading platforms, theyâve been there for decades,â he said. âWhat weâre trying to do is to create a market thatâs much bigger than anything thatâs online, by consistently taking every friction point and every cost point out of the equation.â
Vinted was co-founded in 2008 by Milda Mitkute and Justas Janauskas. Mitkute was moving house and wanted a way to sell her used clothes. That led to the creation of a website where users could trade their clothing items.
When Netherlands-born Plantenga joined the company in 2016 as a consultant, Vinted was close to going broke. âWe were burning a bit more than a million euros a month, and we roughly had somewhere in the tune of nine to 12 months of runway,â he said.
A year later, after becoming CEO, Plantenga simplified Vintedâs operations, closed some offices in Europe, and centralized its technology, paving the way to become Lithuaniaâs first unicorn â a startup valued at more than $1 billion. Last year, Vinted posted an annual profit for the first time, with sales increasing by 61 percent to a record â¬596.3 million.
The 41-year-old said he expects Vinted to remain profitable this year and next. For now, Vinted isnât interested in being acquired, according to Plantenga.
âThereâs been soft interest,â he said. âBut like when youâre on a rocket ship, youâre not thinking about exiting. So, weâve not seriously entertained any of that.â
By Henrique Almeida
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Vinted Moves Into Profit After 61% Sales Rise
The Lithuania-based group said growth had been spurred by entering new markets including Denmark and Finland and an expansion into luxury fashion.
