Whatnot Surpassed $3 Billion 2024 GMV, Raises More Funding To Build Future Of Live Shopping
Livestream shopping platform Whatnot kicks off 2025 with a $265 Million Series E funding round at a $5 Billion valuation, co-led by Greycroft, DST Global, and avra to fuel their ongoing mission to build the future of shopping.
The news comes as Whatnot springboards from over $2 Billion in GMV the first quarters of 2024 to closing out the year over $3 Billion, showing significant growth during the important Q4 holiday season.
A company blog post details plans for how the new investment will power the future of live shopping on the platform
Liz Goodno
More Tools to Grow Your Business
In the coming year, you’ll see new features and enhancements designed to help you grow your business. We’re simplifying how you manage inventory and orders, refining streaming capabilities, and providing insights to guide your decision-making.By streamlining your day-to-day operations, we hope to free up more time for you to focus on what truly matters: engaging your community and sharing the products and stories you’re most passionate about.
Expanding to New Markets and Audiences
Shoppers, collectors, and enthusiasts worldwide are waiting to discover what you have to offer. As we strengthen our presence across North America and Europe and introduce our platform to new regions, we’ll also be investing in marketing initiatives to attract new buyers.This means you’ll have an even greater opportunity to connect with like-minded customers — wherever they may be. We’re here to support you as you forge new connections and grow your community across borders.
Building Trust and Reliability
Trust underpins every interaction on our platform. As our community grows, we’re refining how we support you so that every transaction, conversation, and show feels reliable and welcoming.We’re investing in more responsive support for both buyers and sellers and making our policies clearer and easier to understand — so you always know what to expect. We’re committed to evolving in ways that respect your values and meet the needs and expectations of our community.
Growing Together, Every Step of the Way
Your feedback guides our priorities and fuels our mission. Every improvement we make, every new feature we develop, and every market we explore is shaped by your voice. We’ll keep listening, adapting, and evolving to support your success. We’re proud to have you — and our newest supporters — by our side on this journey.
The not so silent elephant in the room about the future of live shopping is the upcoming TikTok ban, which if upheld will leave a not insignificant amount of US sellers and influencers looking for a place to continue live streaming.
Live selling options are available from several competitors but may be significantly limited - eBay Live is only available to select approved sellers and still struggles with many technical issues, Fanatics launched their live selling platform in 2023 and is expanding it to Europe in 2025 but it's limited to trading cards and sports collectibles, and Poshmark Posh Shows are also limited to narrow categories (mostly fashion and accessories).
In the current landscape, Whatnot is uniquely positioned to take advantage of the possible TikTok seller influx, which could make 2025 a good year for the company, it's new investors, and sellers who have built a following on the platform.
much too complicated now for a few pounds a year in sales
They just "killed the golden goose". I imported my 1500+ eBay items to there since it was free. Turned out just to be a lot of work for (maybe) 3 sales a month.
The total fees were higher there before this new $20 a month cost structure, even though they claimed otherwise. When one factors in the 3.49% + 49 cent PayPal processing fees so one can get paid, there went a good chunk of profit.
Now they have boosted their commission to 11%, and still claim that the cost to sell there is less than eBay's. And remember that this does not include payment processing. WHY?? Makes no sense at all.
On eBay, for $27.95 a month, I sell over 100 items there every 30-31 days. Makes ZERO SENSE to pay a site $20 to make just a couple of sales. Since they now allow 50 "free listings", I have trimmed my offerings back to just below that amount. Also had to raise all my prices accordingly to absorb the extra selling costs.
The people who run the show here obviously didn't realize that eBay sellers who imported their listings gave the site a great depth of product, which would attract more buyers. Now that will be gone, because NO ONE will pay them $20 monthly for little to no sales.
The site also has technical issues that they refuse to fix. It was a decent resource to enable the occasional sale, but they will soon be stacked onto the eCommerce trash heap of companies that THOUGHT they could compete with Amazon and eBay. Etsy may also suffer the same fate soon, as many sellers are also leaving their site due to high fees, website issues, and poor management.
Basic eComm rule here: When you do not carry any inventory, and sellers are solely responsible for supplying your site with the goods offered, DON'T BITE THE HAND WHICH FEEDS YOU!!!