Social shopping app Depop is the new Gen Z obsession, raising $62 million

As technology continues to transform the way we do, well, everything, the London startup Depop has found a new approach to change the retail landscape, raising a solid $62 million in funding and passing 13 million users this year, TechCrunch reported Friday.

Depop, the shopping app that's a sensation among Gen Z and millennial consumers, lets users post, sell and resell clothing items and other goods to followers — much like other apps like Poshmark and Vinted, and kind of like a shopping version of Instagram. Users can also like, follow and message each other in order to secure sales and show off their collections.

TechCrunch reports that the company's impressive funding will be used to improve the app's technology and algorithm as well as expanding sales in the U.S. — which CEO Maria Raga says is "on its way to become Depop's biggest market with 5 million users currently and projections of going to 15 million in the next three years."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

The success of apps like Depop can be directly related to the rise of the "bedroom entrepreneur:" the idea that Gen Z and millennial consumers (about 90 percent of the app's users) are extremely drawn to buying products online and "social shopping" — buying from people they follow rather than going to actual stores. "Our mission is to redefine the fashion industry the same way that Spotify did with music and Airbnb did with traveling," Raga shared with TechCrunch.

With revenue growth of 100 percent year-on-year and gross merchandise value of more than $500 million since launch, Depop is certainly on the path to become the new way we consume fashion.