The Humble Beginnings of Vinted: A Closet Solution in Vilnius
In 2008, Milda Mitkutė faced a common dilemma many of us know too well: moving to a new apartment in Vilnius with more clothes than space to store them. Instead of discarding her pre-loved fashion, she sought a way to pass these items on to familiar faces. Enter Justas Janauskas, a software developer and friend, who crafted a simple website to facilitate this exchange. Janauskas later reflected in a 2015 Tech.eu interview that although initially skeptical about the idea’s potential, he was encouraged when many of his friends expressed enthusiasm for such a platform.
What started as a modest side project, named in Lithuanian roughly translating to “my clothes,” had no marketing budget and no grand ambitions beyond friends trading with friends. The breakthrough came unexpectedly when a couch-surfing guest from Munich discovered the site, appreciated the concept, and helped launch it in Germany under the local name Kleiderkreisel. This organic expansion model repeated across several countries, each with distinct names and dedicated user bases. Eventually, realizing the inefficiency of a fragmented presence, the company unified these platforms under the single brand Vinted, maintaining Vilnius as its headquarters throughout.
How Vinted’s Free Listing Model Creates Profit
A standout feature of Vinted’s business model is its seller-friendly approach: listing and selling items on the platform costs sellers nothing. Instead, Vinted generates revenue primarily from buyers through a Buyer Protection fee. As of late 2025, this fee consists of a fixed charge of approximately $0.70 plus a variable fee around 5% of the item’s price, calculated in the buyer’s local currency. This fee covers essential services such as payment processing and the prepaid shipping label provided free to sellers, as detailed on Vinted’s Buyer Protection fee page.
This approach contrasts with competitors like Poshmark and Depop, which historically charged sellers a commission. Vinted also offers optional promotional tools: “Closet Spotlight” boosts five listings in other users’ feeds for a flat fee over a week, while the “bump” feature elevates individual listings in search results, with prices dynamically set based on category and demand. This blend of free selling and optional paid promotions fosters a user-friendly marketplace while generating diverse revenue streams.
Building a Logistics Network Beneath the Marketplace
Behind Vinted’s seamless user experience lies a complex logistical challenge: delivering secondhand items reliably and affordably across multiple countries. This necessity transformed Vinted from a simple marketplace into a logistics powerhouse. According to the company’s 2025 financial results, its delivery network now provides access to over 500,000 pick-up and drop-off points throughout Europe.
Further solidifying its logistics capabilities, Vinted operates its own parcel carrier, Vinted Go, in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain. In 2025, the company expanded operations to Latvia, Estonia, and Slovenia, extending its footprint into regions previously untouched by the earlier patchwork of country-specific sites. This logistics infrastructure is a critical backbone enabling Vinted’s rapid growth and user satisfaction.
From Side Project to Lithuania’s First Unicorn
Vinted’s journey from a hobbyist website to a billion-dollar company unfolded through significant investment milestones. In November 2019, the company raised €128 million in a round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from Accel, Insight Partners, Sprints Capital, and Burda Principal Investments. This round pushed Vinted’s valuation beyond $1 billion, marking it as Lithuania’s first unicorn, as reported by Tech.eu.
Lightspeed’s Brad Twohig praised the founders as an “outlier management team building generational companies,” highlighting their transition from solving a personal problem to steering a major enterprise. Two years later, in 2021, a $303 million investment round led by EQT Growth quadrupled Vinted’s valuation to $4.5 billion. This round included many of the same investors, and notably, was the last before the company turned its first profit in 2023, signaling a shift toward self-sustained growth without reliance on continuous external funding.
The 2025 Financial Landscape: Growth Versus Profit
Vinted reported its first profitable year in 2023, with €596.3 million in revenue and a net profit of €17.8 million — a significant milestone covered by The Next Web. By 2025, the company’s gross merchandise value (GMV) soared to €10.8 billion, a 47% increase year-over-year, while revenue reached €1.1 billion, up 38% and nearly doubling its 2023 figure.
However, net profit declined by 19% to €62 million, and adjusted EBITDA fell 5% to €151 million. CEO Thomas Plantenga explained this strategic choice, emphasizing investments in geographic expansion—particularly a renewed push into the German market—diversification into new product categories beyond clothing, and the launch of Vinted Pay, a proprietary payments wallet. These initiatives illustrate Vinted’s commitment to capturing market share and enhancing user experience, even at the expense of short-term profit.
This intentional reinvestment strategy signals a healthy growth phase rather than financial distress, underscoring the importance of context when interpreting profit fluctuations. The company remains profitable, albeit prioritizing long-term expansion over immediate earnings.
Secondhand Fashion’s New Normal and Future Prospects
The €10.8 billion GMV achieved in 2025 reflects how secondhand fashion has evolved from a niche hobby to mainstream consumer behaviour across Europe. This cultural shift is a testament to changing attitudes around sustainability, affordability, and fashion consumption.
Looking ahead, Vinted plans to bring its model to the United States, as noted in Dealroom’s coverage of the 2025 financial results (Dealroom). Whether Vinted’s well-honed European logistics and marketplace playbook will adapt to the U.S.’s distinct postal system and returns infrastructure remains an open question. Nonetheless, the company’s seventeen years of experience and robust infrastructure provide a strong foundation for this next phase.
Vinted’s story is a compelling example of how a simple idea—sharing clothes with friends—can grow into a transformative platform reshaping an entire industry. By integrating user-centric design, innovative logistics, and strategic investment, Vinted continues to lead the European secondhand market while setting its sights beyond.
Source: Here
