Trove, the branded resale expert behind Levi’s, Patagonia, Carhartt and numerous other secondhand stores, has closed a $30 million Series E funding round, it announced Thursday.
The Bay Area company plans to use the injection of cash to further grow its network of Trove Recommerce Powered Partner logistics facilities. Just last month, the re-commerce provider announced the addition of five such new facilities in the United States and Canada, including “several” owned by international shipping and logistics provider Savino Del Bene and circular textile operator Tersus Solutions.
Related Stories
“What we’re excited about is the expansion through our software and into Trove-powered partner facilities,” CEO Gayle Tait told Sourcing Journal. “It’s the expansion of our software and to more facilities into new markets. What we’re really excited about is the growth that we’re seeing in the resale market and the position that Trove is in to be able to really be the engine that powers that growth.”
Trove also intends to use the new funding to grow its client base by adding new brands and verticals, expanding beyond the outdoor and luxury spaces it currently operates in, Tait said. The California firm hopes to share news on these other verticals “soon,” she noted.
“The way that we’ll enable those verticals is by being able to put our software into other facilities,” Tait said. “So, where perhaps it may have been cost prohibitive, because needing to ship items between facilities was challenging, now our ability to put that software into facilities where items [are] already coming back in through reverse logistics—that enables us to consolidate processes and really drive the kind of economics that enable a scale solution.”
In the near term, Trove plans to double its business—a goal it is “well on the way” to achieving this year, Tait said. Given the investment the company has made in software, the company hopes it will be able to go “even beyond that,” she added.
“It really is the sky is the limit, frankly, because the ability for us to partner through others unlocks a ton of capacity that helps us meet the needs of the market that we’re seeing,” Tait said.
Though the investment environment has grown more difficult in the past couple years, Trove has seen that there is still money to be invested in the climate tech space, Tait said. “Investors are making very conscious decisions based on businesses that are driving change for the world in the right ways,” she added.
For its fifth founding round, Trove brought in two new investors, including ArcTern Ventures, which led the round with previous investor Wellington Management. Other participants included Mitsui Fudosan’s CVC Fund, G2 Venture Partners, Prelude Ventures.
“What we were really encouraged by was the understanding of the circular space, which was very different for us like two years ago,” Tait said. “What was very encouraging for me was that despite the growth in the space overall in resale, the investors that we have brought on are really kind of backing the Trove model…. While it was more difficult than it was a couple of years ago, the sort of belief in the model that we’re investing in and driving behind was stronger than ever.”
