Investors deliver $265 million funding round to Whatnot as live shopping gets hotter

The platform where users can sell trading cards and whatnot just added $265 million to its account. That’s how much Whatnot raised for a Series E funding round that valued the company at nearly $5 billion.

As reported by Bloomberg, Whatnot’s Series E was co-led by Greycroft Partners, DST Global, and Avra. As it approaches its sixth year of business, Whatnot has now raised $746 million of venture capital since its launch.

Whatnot has positioned itself at the epicenter of a shopping boom that is projected to become a $100 billion business this year. By offering a space where sellers can auction off sneakers, vinyl records, and other collectibles, Whatnot has cultivated its share of overnight success stories, like thrifting queen Zoreen Kabani

In its 2024 State of Livestream Selling Report, Whatnot claimed that its top 500 sellers had earned at least $1 million on the platform. Two-thirds of sellers were reported to earn at least $10,000 per month.

With its Series E round in its pocket, Whatnot will continue to ride the ecommerce wave. As major platforms do what they can to grow live shopping in the United States, Whatnot’s unique focus on collectibles — and its ability to transcend that niche — will help it scale up.

“The opportunity for what live and social commerce can do for sellers and sellers’ businesses is pretty tremendous,” Whatnot Co-Founder and CEO Grant LaFontaine told Bloomberg. “It’s going to be one of those things that changes every kind of category and part of retail.”

Among other stated plans, LaFontaine said that Whatnot would deploy its new funding in divisions like engineering and customer services. New categories, including one that caters to the rising popularity of golf on social media, are also on the way. Whatnot will also target expansion into countries like Australia. As it pursues those long-term goals, it will oversee thousands of sellers across the eight countries in which it currently operates.