There’s a new big acquisition on the block and it’s that of a popular American e-commerce company buying a popular UK-based used clothing e-tailer. Don’t spend much time guessing, the e-commerce company is Etsy and the used clothing e-tailer is Depop.

• Etsy has agreed to a deal to buy Depop for a big amount of money, and it’s a pace-setting deal for the UK startup industry this year.

Details

• Etsy will pay $1.6bn in cash to buy Depop. It’s Etsy’s biggest acquisition so far in its existence.

• Depop is a platform for buying and selling used clothing that’s popular with millennials. It’s just like Etsy in the sense that it doesn’t sell goods of its own but is a marketplace for buying and selling between its users while it takes a cut of transactions as revenue.

• Depop is an ideal acquisition for Etsy given their overlap. The app is popular in the UK and the US which are also major markets for Etsy. 

• With a $1.6bn exit, Depop is setting a pace for e-commerce startups in the UK. It’s a VC-backed startup just like many of its counterparts in the country but now has sealed a solid exit for itself.

• Depop has raised around $100mn in venture funding. Its investors include VC firms like General Atlantic and Balderton Capital and individuals including Klarna founder Sebastian Siemiatkowski.

• Depop had $70mn in revenue last year. At that point, Etsy is paying a 23x multiple of annual sales to buy the company.

• To buy Depop, Etsy is coughing out a great deal of its cash as it reported having $2bn in total liquidity as of March 2021. It signals that buying Depop is a major play for the company, as the clothing resale platform will become its third main business along with the main Etsy and music gear marketplace Reverb.

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