Mobile Fashion Marketplace Poshmark Raises $12M Series B Led by Menlo Ventures

MENLO PARK, Calif., Dec. 4, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Poshmark, the fastest-growing mobile marketplace for fashion, today announced the closing of $12M in Series B financing led by investment firm Menlo Ventures, bringing the company's funding to $15.5M to date. Existing investors Mayfield Fund, Inventus Capital, and SoftTech VC also participated in the round. Poshmark intends to use the capital to support its rapidly growing community, expand into new platforms, and add world-class talent to the team.

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"Poshmark has created a one-of-a-kind, inclusive community where diverse women across America are coming together to connect around a shared love for fashion," said Manish Chandra, CEO & Founder of Poshmark. "With over 70% of our buyers also selling items, our new vibrant commerce model is set to make a mark on the $300B fashion market by empowering women to unlock the value of their closets."

Since its debut a year ago, Poshmark has leveraged heightened consumer confidence around selling clothing and accessories in order to buy new ones, its mobile-first strategy, and innovative real-time shopping events, to anchor its first-mover advantage. Key milestones include:

• Users add items from their closets to the marketplace at the rate of $100M a year, making Poshmark's virtual inventory more robust than most physical retailers in the U.S.
• Addicted users engage an average of 7 times a day for a total of 25 minutes daily, making Poshmark a top mobile app for most users.
• A social community with over two million monthly interactions between members as they shop, share and communicate with one another about their closets.

"Nothing in my closet is safe anymore. If I don't wear it, I'll sell it on Poshmark and use the money to buy something that I will really love," said Mackenzie Lachey, a 24-year-old cake business owner and Ohio resident who has bought and sold over 300 times in her first three months on the app. "I tag other Poshmarkers who share a common style with me on items I think they'd like. We're always looking out for each other. It makes buying and selling a lot more personal."

With the introduction of iPad, Android and web on the horizon for 2013, the company is directing the funds towards meeting user demand and expanding Poshmark's availability across all platforms while continuing to build upon the strength of the existing community. They plan to add top talent to the team and continue to connect with users online and offline with their unique Posh Parties.

"We couldn't be more excited to lead this investment round in Poshmark," said Pravin Vazirani, Menlo Ventures Managing Director. "We always look at the most disruptive players in each sector and with Poshmark's engaged community, infinite scaling possibilities, and innovative mobile-first approach, they are the clear winner."

"Poshmark has made great progress and flawlessly executed on their vision for building an innovative shopping experience," said Navin Chaddha, Mayfield Managing Director. "With their simplicity of design, real-time curation, and symmetric buyer/seller equation, we believe they are leading the charge in mobile marketplaces."

Poshmark joins the ranks of leading consumer marketplaces and innovative brands in the Menlo Ventures and Mayfield Fund portfolios, including Fab.com, Uber, Lyft, and Siri.

About Poshmark
Poshmark is a mobile marketplace for fashion built around real-time social experiences. Core to the Poshmark experience are Posh Parties, which are themed, real-time shopping events where people gather to shop, share, and sell fashion right from their phones. Poshmark's vibrant community brings fashion lovers together to share their individual style, turning every closet into a unique shopping experience. Founded in 2011, Poshmark is headquartered in Menlo Park, CA. For more information, please visit www.poshmark.com. Poshmark's free iPhone App can be downloaded from bit.ly/poshmark.

Menlo Ventures provides capital for seed through growth technology companies in the consumer and enterprise sectors, with the current portfolio including 41 consumer companies and 19 enterprise companies. For decades, the firm's market-driven research analysis has led to the identification of and successful exits in innovative technology markets. Notable research-areas of investment include Mobile (Siri, MobiTV, TeleNav), Enterprise storage (3Par), Communications (Acme Packet, Cavium Networks), and Consumer (Carbonite, Roku). Founded in 1976, Menlo's portfolio includes 70 public companies and more than 100 mergers and acquisitions. Throughout the firm's history, Menlo's deep network of portfolio entrepreneurs, angels and advisors are a key resource made available to all of our family of investments. Menlo Ventures has $4 billion under management and is currently investing Menlo Ventures XI, a $400M fund with $20m allocated to our Menlo Talent Fund for fast seed funding. For more information, visit www.menlovc.com.

About Mayfield Fund
Mayfield Fund is a global venture capital firm with over $3 billion under management and a 43-year history of investing in relationships. Mayfield invests primarily in early-stage IT companies that leverage the drivers of mobile, cloud/Saas, social, energytech, and big data. Since its founding in 1969, the firm has invested in more than 500 companies, resulting in over 100 IPOs and more than 100 mergers or acquisitions. For more information, visit www.mayfield.com.

SOURCE Poshmark