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Etsy acquires London-based social shopping app Depop for £1.14B

DePop
Image credit: DePop

TempoCap, a pan-European technology investor, has announced that its portfolio company Depop is to be acquired by Etsy. Inc for $1.6 billion (approx £1.14 billion). 

Watershed moment

According to the VC, the transaction marks a watershed moment for the European scaleup ecosystem, as the largest venture-backed acquisition of a private technology company in the UK since 2019. 

Marketplace for fashion

Founded in 2011 by Simon Beckerman, Depop is a community-powered marketplace app, where users buy and sell unique fashion. At present, the platform is home to 21 million+ stylists, designers, artists, collectors, vintage sellers, and more. 

11X cash-on-cash return

Around 90% of Depop’s active users are under the age of 26, claims the company. As a part of the acquisition, TempoCap expects an 11x cash-on-cash return in 3.5 years at closing. 

Adam Shepherd, the Investment Partner at TempoCap, said, “Depop’s runaway success is a fantastic story for the European tech sector. It is one of the very few technology acquisitions of this magnitude in the last several years in Europe – a testament to the success of Maria Raga, Simon Beckerman, and all of the team at Depop. It is also an extremely rare company, as one that has had a major cultural impact too, in changing the narrative of fashion. At TempoCap, we feel proud to have been a part of that exciting journey. We wish Depop great success in this next phase, with a very natural partner in Etsy. Depop’s core pillars of community, entrepreneurship and sustainability are mirrored in Etsy’s values – and we fully expect that Depop will go from strength to strength in its new home.” 

TempoCap offers primary capital for companies to accelerate growth, as well as attractive and flexible secondary liquidity solutions for shareholders in such companies (entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, corporates, angels, etc.

Olav Ostin, Managing Partner, TempoCap, said, “We are thrilled about Depop’s acquisition by Etsy and offer the team our huge congratulations. The transaction marks the third liquidity event in TempoCap’s portfolio in as many months, following last week’s announcement from Acorns that it plans to go public in a $2.2 billion SPAC and Talentsoft’s proposed acquisition by Cegid, announced in April. These three deals combined, alongside previous exits, should mean that TempoCap will have returned 100% of the capital invested across its entire portfolio since inception in only five years, underlining the success of a strategy that has led to investments in some of the world’s best technology companies.” 

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