Let's Talk Billions

This week's All Things Fashion Tech Newsroom: eBay officially acquires Depop for $1.4B, Whatnot talks more funding at a $20B valuation and Quince surpasses $2B ins sales.

Quick Headlines

• eBay Officially Completes its Acquisition of Depop For Roughly $1.4 Billion in Cash

• CFDA and SOURCING by Informa Debuts Partnership

• Alta is Partnering With Rent the Runway

• Whatnot is in Talks to Raise a New Funding Round at a $20 Billion Valuation

• Quince Surpasses $2 Billion in Sales

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eBay Officially Completes its Acquisition of Depop For Roughly $1.4 Billion in Cash

eBay’s acquisition of Depop officially went through on Thursday, with eBay paying Etsy $1.4 billion.

The acquisition builds on eBay’s continued momentum in fashion, a more than $10 billion annual GMV category for the company. With millions of users buying and selling fashion items, Depop has built one of the most vibrant and fastest-growing communities in fashion resale and cultivated a distinct, community-driven platform rooted in discovery, creativity, and peer-to-peer connection. Its highly engaged customer base and accessibly priced fashion inventory make Depop a natural complement to eBay’s leading proposition in C2C commerce. eBay intends to support Depop’s continued growth while preserving the elements that make the marketplace unique to accelerate the future of circular fashion.

“As a global leader in C2C and recommerce, eBay’s acquisition of Depop further strengthens our C2C value proposition. This combines two distinct customer experiences and expands our reach with the next generation of buyers and sellers,” said Jamie Iannone, Chief Executive Officer of eBay. “Our goal is to preserve Depop’s strong brand, community, and product experience, while helping the team accelerate the roadmap that is already underway and explore synergies with eBay in areas that can supercharge our combined growth potential.”

“Joining eBay, a company with a longstanding record of driving innovation in recommerce globally, is an exciting new chapter for Depop and our community,” said Peter Semple, Chief Executive Officer of Depop. “We’ve built a marketplace centered on creativity, self-expression, and connection, and we’re just getting started. Depop is a natural fit with eBay and together we can accelerate our growth while continuing to deliver the unique experience our users value.”

As part of eBay, Depop will operate as a complementary business, retaining its distinct brand, platform, customer experience, and culture. By combining Depop’s category leadership with eBay’s global scale and capabilities — including shipping, personalization, compliance, and trusted services — we will enhance the buyer and seller experience and accelerate growth.

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CFDA and SOURCING by Informa Debuts Partnership to Advance Local Manufacturing and Fashion Supply Chain Innovation

By GlobeNewswire
FASHION by Informa and the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) today announced a new partnership launching this September at SOURCING by Informa in New York and continuing into 2027. The collaboration is designed to strengthen American fashion manufacturing, expand access to local production and create new connections between New York-based manufacturers and the global fashion marketplace.

Debuting at FASHION by Informa’s New York Marketplace at the Javits Center on September 9-11, 2026, the partnership will bring CFDA-curated local manufacturers and educational programming to the SOURCING show floor, creating direct access between local production partners and an international audience of brands, buyers and industry leaders.

“As the fashion industry continues to evolve, local production is becoming increasingly important not only as a business advantage, but as a way to preserve craft, improve speed-to-market, and create more resilient supply chains,” said Olivia Lyons, Head of Innovation and Partnerships at FASHION by Informa. “We are thrilled to partner with the CFDA to champion the resurgence of local manufacturing and to showcase the exceptional quality and innovation happening right here in New York City. By bringing CFDA’s expanded network of local manufacturers directly to our global audience at COTERIE and SOURCING, we’re not just facilitating introductions; we’re helping to rebuild the infrastructure of American-made fashion.”

The September event will include two CFDA-led educational sessions and a showcase of six to eight manufacturers from New York City. The partnership will continue in February 2027 with an additional showcase and educational programming, reinforcing both organizations’ shared commitment to sustained support for local manufacturing.

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Alta is Partnering With Rent the Runway

By Mary Korlin-Downs
Jenny, the founder of Alta, is rolling out a new partnership with Rent the Runway over the next few weeks that puts AI-generated avatars and styled outfits on every RTR product page. The experience currently uses six generic avatars, sized 2 to 12, rather than personalized digital twins. Some have criticized generic avatars for threatening retail photo-studio jobs, but Jenny frames the move as additive, not a replacement: RTR could never shoot the volume of outfit combinations Alta generates, and customer research shows shoppers want more variety and a better sense of how pieces might look on them.

That behavior mirrors Alta’s core app, where about one avatar is generated every second by users who upload their closets and compete on a daily leaderboard of most-tried-on outfits. Jenny treats the app as a real-time trend gauge — Brazilcore and Zendaya’s Odyssey press-tour looks are trending now. She sees the avatar as the AI-era successor to the mirror selfie, extending into pets, beauty, perfume, and cars, with a user base spanning high schoolers to retirees united by a love of styling and a comfort with AI tools.

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Whatnot is in Talks to Raise a New Funding Round at a $20 Billion Valuation

By Katie Roof
Whatnot is proving there’s still room for consumer startups in the AI era.

Live shopping startup Whatnot is in talks to raise financing at about a $20 billion valuation, according to people familiar with the matter.

This would be a significant jump from the $11.5 billion valuation at which the company raised capital late last year.

Whatnot hosts livestream shopping across categories ranging from fashion and sneakers to sports cards and vinyl records, taking a cut of each sale made on its platform in North America and Europe.

The round is in progress, and details could change.

Inspired by the large Chinese live shopping industry, such as Taobao, Whatnot has built a following among collectible users who use the platform to interact with and purchase products. The company notched $8 billion in live sales last year.

Consumer internet startups have struggled to attract venture capital amid the AI boom, as much of the industry’s capital chases foundation models, chips, and infrastructure. Whatnot’s potential valuation jump could signal that investors still have an appetite for consumer startups with rapid revenue and user growth.

Livestream shopping is already a massive business in Asia, generating hundreds of billions of dollars in annual sales. The format has been slower to catch on in the West, but platforms like TikTok Shop have helped normalize buying products through social media and live video, giving companies like Whatnot a tailwind.

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Quince Surpasses $2 Billion in Sales

By Kathryn Hopkins
Quince is growing fast. The San Francisco-based company has surpassed $2 billion in sales over the last 12 months, WWD has learned.

Previously, Quince pegged its revenues at over $1 billion for 2025, logging triple-digit growth annually since its founding in 2018.

This comes after the factory-direct luxury essentials player closed on a $500 million series E funding round in March, valuing the company at $10.1 billion. The round was led by Iconiq and also saw participation from Baillie Gifford, Basis Set Ventures, DST Global, MarcyPen Capital Partners, Notable Capital, Wellington Management and WndrCo.

Launched in 2019 with $50 cashmere sweaters, the company has now expanded to more than 100 categories, spanning apparel, home, jewelry, travel, furniture and gourmet food.

The company uses an AI-powered business model, which predicts weekly demand at both size and stock-keeping-unit levels. Then, through partnerships with manufacturers, it places and launches lower-quantity orders and scales them based on consumer demand.

“Cashmere was the first product we launched in 2019: a $50 sweater that still costs $50 today, even after seven iterations driven by customer feedback. The price is proof that the model works, not the point. The point is earning customer trust by relentlessly improving the product until we get it right, then applying that same discipline across categories, from cashmere to couches to caviar. Revenue is an outcome of that trust,” Matt Lippert, chief merchandising officer, told WWD on Wednesday.

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More Headlines

• Salesforce invests in Callimacus, Brunello Cucinelli’s AI platform

• EssilorLuxottica Beats Forecasts, AI Glasses and Myopia Products Drive Growth

• Kiehl’s rolls out permanent AI-driven smart mirror installations as ‘new face of in-store engagement’

• Mango partners with robotics start-up Theker to enhance logistics operations

• Perfect Corp. Delivers Higher Net Income on Stronger Gross Margins

• Inditex collaborates on a project to turn brewing industry waste into textile materials

• New York City women are making up to $30,000 per month by renting out their closets to strangers

• Gen Z say reselling their old clothes on Depop taught them more about business than college—and 85% of hiring managers actually agree

• The Met to host an exhibition about John Galliano

• Grande Luxe Collection launches ‘sale or return’ partnership for indie boutiques

• TikTok says Live Shopping grows fast in UK

Acquisitions

• eBay acquired Depop (from Etsy)
  $1.4B closed July 30, 2026 (originally announced Feb. 2026)

• Vusion acquired In-Store Media (ISM)
  Undisclosed amount announced July 27, 2026

New Additions to The Database

• Alma
  ALMA is the operating system for modern fashion brands, powered by AI.

• Toxome
  Toxome reads the label, scores what is in it, and points you at the pieces worth buying.

• Caimera
  Caimera is an AI Tool that helps brands go from concept to campaign with powerful on-brand visuals & 90% cost savings.

• Silhouet
  The design-to-production platform for emerging fashion brands.

• Syntetica
  Decarbonised circular materials for the textile industry, starting with nylon.

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