Less than three years after its establishment, it has received nearly US$500 million in financing. Live streaming sales in the United States are developing rapidly

Recently, according to foreign media reports, the US live shopping platform Whatnot announced the completion of a US$260 million Series D financing round, led by DST Global and returning investor CapitalG, and followed by BOND and returning investors Andreessen Horowitz and YC Continuity.

Whatnot was founded in 2019. It is a live streaming community market that provides a second-hand trading venue for trendy toy collectors in the form of a live streaming platform, where users can buy and sell collectibles and interact with other collectors. It is reported that Whatnot initially started with the trading of collectibles such as FunkoPops and Pokemon cards, and then the categories of collectibles trading became more and more abundant. Its official website shows that there are currently nearly 17 categories, including: card games, sports, toys, comic books, sneakers and streetwear, bags, watches, coins, handicrafts, etc.

In terms of purchase volume, Whatnot has become the largest live shopping platform in the United States in less than two years, with a strong development momentum. After this round of financing, Whatnot's valuation reached US$3.7 billion, an increase of 146.67% from the previous round of US$1.5 billion. It is reported that Whatnot's financing funds will be used to continue investing in the in-app live broadcast and social commerce markets, and to launch other categories of products for various collectors and enthusiasts.

According to foreign media reports, Whatnot plans to expand its collectibles categories to include die-cast cars, stamps and action figures. In addition, it intends to continue expanding into multiple other new categories to achieve the goal of doubling its collectibles categories.

Yien learned from Qichacha that Whatnot has completed five rounds of financing in less than three years since its establishment, with the amount of financing increasing gradually. The initial seed round of financing in December 2020 was US$4 million, and the D round of financing soared to US$260 million in 2022. Only two years apart, the cumulative amount of five rounds of financing reached US$484 million. This means that not only does collectibles have a broad market, but it also shows that American live e-commerce is favored by multiple capitals.

A research report from Coresight Research shows that the US live e-commerce market is expected to reach US$11 billion by the end of 2021 and US$25 billion by 2023. The Chinese live e-commerce market reached US$150 billion in 2020 and will reach US$300 billion by 2021. Relatively speaking, the US live e-commerce market is still in its infancy and has not yet been widely popularized.

At present, the driving force of the overseas live shopping market mainly comes from e-commerce social platforms and retailer platforms such as Amazon, Alibaba, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook. In recent years, shopping platforms such as Amazon, Alibaba and Walmart have successively launched live streaming sales functions, attracting capital to join and merchants to settle in, and the scale of the live e-commerce market has continued to expand. According to data from streaming media Livescale, the average sales conversion rate of live streaming products has increased from 9.5% in the same period of 2020 to 17.7% in 2021.

E-commerce analyst Zach Weinberg said: Overseas live shopping is still in its early stages of development and it will take a few years to become truly popular.

Live e-commerce in the United States

Whatnot