ThredUp Next of Resale to File IPO

● ThredUp Inc. enters the first stage of the IPO process, having filed confidentially with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Confidentially, ThredUp Inc. is taking itself public — very soon.

The online resale platform said in a statement that it submitted a draft registration statement to the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday. The IPO process is to begin following regulator review, with ThredUp targeting a listing early next year.

The move follows Redwood Citybased Poshmark, which confidentially began its IPO process at the end of September, despite a series of delays. In both cases, the initial number of shares to be offered and the price range has not yet been determined.

Founded in 2009, ThredUp has worked toward bringing traditional retailers into the secondhand fold with its coined “Resale-As-AService” model, counting Walmart, Abercrombie & Fitch, J.C. Penney and Madewell among its partners.

This comes alongside the company’s deepening proof- case for the domination of thrift, as it bolsters with its annual resale reports.

One such ThredUp report from earlier this year cited Global Data statistics that the secondhand market should reach $64 billion in the next five years.

Resale is part of a broader vision of a circular economy, where items are kept in use longer. Investments in the circular economy is already proving steadfast, as “the past 18 months have seen a steep increase in the creation of debt and equity instruments related to the circular economy,” according to a September report from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. The report was jointly backed by BlackRock, HSBC, and Barclays among others.

As of May, all the company’s distribution centers were up and running despite its physical retail locations remaining temporarily closed into October, due to the pandemic. ThredUp has maintained 20 percent growth according to the chief executive officer and cofounder, James Reinhart.

In August 2019, the company raised $175 million to help build out its retail partnerships, bringing its total venturebacked funding to over $305 million, according to Crunchbase. Investors include Goldman Sachs, Upfront Ventures and Trinity Ventures.

The company is betting big on resale, already processing over 100,000 unique items each day, carrying some 45,000 brands across 100 categories. In the words of Reinhart, ThredUp could “power the next generation of the resale economy.”