Dive Brief:
- Adding to another funding round earlier this year, Archive, a tech company that builds resale operation systems, has raised $15 million in Series A funding, the company announced Tuesday in a press release. Lightspeed Venture Partners led the financing round, and Bain Capital Ventures, Fernbrook Capital, G9 Ventures and other investors participated in the round. Alex Taussig, partner at Lightspeed, will join the company's board of directors.
- The company said it will use the funding to hire more employees for its engineering and branding teams and support its expansion in North America and Europe.
- So far, the startup has added The North Face, Oscar de la Renta, Dagne Dover and M.M. LaFleur as brand partners and plans to add more companies to its roster next year.
Dive Insight:
The latest round of funding brings Archive's total funds raised to more than $24 million. The startup also raised $8 million earlier this year from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Bain Capital and multiple other investors.
The additional funding, the company said, will “empower more brands to establish resale channels and deliver premium secondhand shopping experiences to customers.”
"Resale is a massive online category already and growing three times as fast as new apparel sales," Taussig said in a statement. "Archive has become the standard of choice for well-known brands from Oscar de la Renta to The North Face, that want to embed resale into their supply chain. Emily, Ryan, and team have quickly built the best-in-class solution to integrate resale across all shopping channels and distribution operations."
Over the past few years, more brands and retailers have jumped into the resale market.
Last year, Urban Outfitters introduced its Nuuly Thrift resale marketplace, where shoppers can buy and sell clothing and accessories for men, women and children.
In the past few months, even more brands and retailers have entered the resale game through partnerships with resale platforms or launching their standalone e-commerce operations. In September, Athleta teamed up with Thredup and the discount site Shop Premium Outlets to launch its resale pilot program, "Always Athleta."
The following month, The North Face with the help of Archive introduced new circular design styles and said it would relaunch its take-back program with the name "Renewed." Shein also debuted Shein Exchange, a marketplace where shoppers can buy and sell used items within the company's app.
Brands and retailers are diving into resale as the market is projected to grow. A ThredUp report predicted that the resale market will reach $82 billion by 2026. The report also noted that The RealReal, ThredUp, Poshmark and other re-commerce platforms will make up 18% of the overall apparel industry by 2031. Plus, another report from WD Partners found that 92% of respondents said they buy, sell and trade used goods at least once annually.
