Startups
In 2008, Milda Mitkutė faced a common dilemma: moving to a smaller apartment in Vilnius with too many clothes. Instead of discarding them, she wanted to share them with friends. Her friend, software developer Justas Janauskas, built a website for this purpose. Initially a side project with no marketing budget, it allowed friends to trade pre-loved fashion. A couch-surfing guest from Munich helped launch it in Germany as Kleiderkreisel, and similar spin-offs followed across Europe. Eventually, these were unified under the brand Vinted, headquartered in Vilnius. Vinted’s business model is unique: sellers list items for free, while buyers pay a Buyer Protection fee of about $0.70 plus 5% of the item price. This covers payment processing and prepaid shipping labels. Optional promotions like Closet Spotlight and per-item bumps generate additional revenue. This contrasts with rivals like Poshmark and Depop, which charge sellers.
Logistics is a core challenge. Vinted’s delivery network now includes over 500,000 pick-up and drop-off points across Europe, and its own carrier, Vinted Go, operates in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain. In 2025, it expanded to Latvia, Estonia, and Slovenia. Funding fueled growth: a €128 million round in 2019 led by Lightspeed Venture Partners made Vinted Lithuania’s first unicorn. In 2021, EQT Growth led a $303 million round, quadrupling its valuation to $4.5 billion. Vinted turned its first profit in 2023, with €596.3 million revenue and €17.8 million net profit. By 2025, gross merchandise value reached €10.8 billion, up 47%, and revenue hit €1.1 billion. What began as a favor for a friend now powers a second-hand revolution.