Fashion reCommerce Startup thredUP Plans $168 Million IPO

Online resale platform thredUP is planning an initial public offering (IPO) of 12 million shares of Class A common stock to raise as much as $168 million, according to a Thursday (March 18) press release. 

Each share is anticipated to be priced between $12 and $14 and will be listed on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “TDUP.” The Silicon Valley startup will extend to its underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 1.8 million shares of Class A common stock.

The lead book-running managers are Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Barclays. Other book-running managers and co-managers include William Blair, Wells Fargo, KeyBanc Capital Markets, Needham & Company, Piper Sandler and Telsey Advisory Group, per the release.

Founded in 2009 by Chris Homer, Dan DeMeyere, James Reinhart and Oliver Lubin, the idea for thredUP started with an online resale platform featuring men’s shirts. They shopped their pitch deck to venture capitalists and were turned down 27 ties before deciding to bootstrap it, according to Inc. The idea soon blossomed to feature secondhand clothing for people of all ages and is now the largest digital thrift store nationwide.

Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder Reinhart said the idea for the company came from the simple fact that he had a lot of clothes in his closet that he never wore and he soon realized that was the case for a lot of people, according to the company’s website. 

“… looking back at that moment, I certainly didn’t appreciate how that insight could eventually upend how we look at innovation in retail, the apparel industry, and our environment,” Reinhart said.

thredUP filed its initial paperwork with the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC ) earlier this month. Fueled by the pandemic, thredUP is riding the popularity wave of reCommerce. Competitor The RealReal went public in June of 2019, while Poshmark first threw its hat into the public markets in early January. The company forecasts that by 2029, secondhand clothes will make up around 17 percent of a person’s closet space. In 2009, it was just 3 percent.