Today, I am excited to share that Greycroft is leading Whatnot’s $265 million Series E round, along with DST Global and Avra, valuing the Company at nearly $5 billion.

Whatnot is reimagining commerce for the real-time video and mobile era, combining the energy of live, in-person retail with the reach and efficiency of digital platforms. Whatnot has scaled faster than any marketplace in recent history, surpassing $3 billion in GMV in 2024 and becoming the #1 platform dedicated to live shopping in North America and Europe. 

We met Grant LaFontaine and Logan Head, the co-founders of Whatnot, nearly two years ago. We were incredibly excited by the team’s bold vision, product- and technology-first approach and disciplined execution, which led us to invest in the Company through a secondary opportunity. Since then, we’ve watched them scale Whatnot into a multi-category platform, build durable communities of sellers and buyers, continue to invest in the Whatnot team and culture, and demonstrate impressive revenue growth.

From my experience working with transformative companies like Alibaba, Amazon, eBay, Google and Facebook, I have seen enduring technology businesses share certain key characteristics: ambitious founders with a bold vision, a focus on long-term building, and the creation of entirely new markets or categories. Grant, Logan, and their team share these same qualities as they reimagine commerce with lasting impact for passionate sellers and buyers globally.

A Multi-Trillion Dollar Opportunity

We believe Whatnot is poised to address all of retail, approximately $7 trillion in the United States alone, as it redefines how consumers engage with and experience commerce. Whatnot is pioneering a new, dynamic shopping experience – one that is more authentic, fun, social, and effective. Sellers grow businesses around their passions, while millions of buyers come to the platform to connect with these sellers – swapping stories, learning about items, sharing real-time feedback, and engaging with like-minded enthusiasts.

This “global bazaar” forms the foundation of a community unlike any other online, where sellers can showcase their expertise with the world and foster relationships, trust and a sense of belonging with their audience. Whatnot enables a new way to deliver the entertainment and community value of in-person shopping, but at a fraction of the fixed costs.

Currently in over 140 categories and nine countries, Whatnot has grown its early success in core collectibles, including trading cards, toys, and video games, to become a horizontal, multi-category platform. For example, women’s fashion is the fastest-growing category on Whatnot, with sales growing 7x since its launch in 2022. Sneakers is one of the most popular products on Whatnot. Some fun facts for the sneakerhead community: globally, on Whatnot, 10M hours of sneaker shows have been watched, and over 200,000 sneakers are sold each month – comparable to the monthly sales of around 55 Foot Locker locations combined!

Thriving, Durable Communities

Shopping has always been a social experience – wandering through stores, discovering unexpected finds, and buzzing with the energy of sellers and other shoppers. Whatnot reinvents this dynamic, creating an online shopping experience that is anything but static or solitary. 

On Whatnot, sellers connect personally with buyers in ways traditional ecommerce sites or apps are unable to replicate. Using live-streaming tools, sellers can build loyal communities and multi-million dollar businesses, while buyers can discover products through real-time interactions, storytelling, and shared passions. 

Whatnot combines community, entertainment and commerce in a way that is truly unique and the numbers speak for themselves: over 175,000 hours of live streams are hosted on the platform each week, and daily viewers are engaged for an average of 80 minutes per day. The platform also benefits from network effects with many users who both buy and sell on the platform. About 80% of sellers start as buyers.

Whatnot sellers range from individuals and small businesses to established brands. The top 500 Whatnot sellers have each earned over $1M, and on average, sellers on Whatnot sell 10x more than sellers on other major marketplaces. The Company is enabling an entirely new “digital storefront,” letting sellers and buyers connect live without the fixed costs of brick-and-mortar. 

The stories behind these sellers highlight the platform’s reach and impact:  

• Backyard Breaks, a baseball card seller, has grown to a community of 166,000 followers and has sold over 300,000 items.

• Wittier Coin, a coin shop that has had a brick-and-mortar presence in San Francisco since 1960, generated over $4 million in revenue from the Whatnot platform last year.

• ZKStyles brings in more than $100,000 in revenue per month, joining many other fashion sellers who have launched their businesses on the platform.

• The Shoe Game Co. began as a side hustle but quickly transformed into a full-time venture after experiencing explosive growth just two months into selling on Whatnot, now generating over $500,000 in monthly revenue.

• Major brands, such as Dolls Kill and Callaway Golf, have also set up shop on Whatnot to sell excess inventory.

What's Ahead

The rise of live shopping in Asia, where platforms like Douyin and Taobao have captured significant market share from physical retail and generated hundreds of billions in GMV, highlights the scale of this opportunity. Whatnot is uniquely positioned to bring this transformation to the West.

Whatnot has invested significantly in its technology platform, seller and buyer experiences, and core growth engine. The Company is in a prime position to take advantage of market tailwinds to bring live shopping into the mainstream. In addition to category, geographic, format, and other revenue expansion, we are particularly excited to see Whatnot bring the power of AI and its proprietary data set to create the best live shopping experience – enhancing personalization, discovery, trust & safety, and customer support. 

Over the past two decades, Greycroft has been a proud partner to transformative technology platforms across commerce, entertainment, and social. Whatnot is creating a category of its own – combining the best of e-commerce marketplaces, entertainment platforms, and community-driven social networks. We couldn’t be more excited to support this one-of-a-kind team as they reimagine the future of commerce.