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EBay is set to announce its first acquisition as a PayPal-less entity, and it’s in an area it knows well: Second-hand clothing.
The e-commerce marketplace has acquired Twice, a startup backed by Andreessen Horowitz that runs an online consignment shop for women’s clothing, according to a person with direct knowledge of the deal. The deal’s acquisition price could not be learned.
An eBay rep confirmed the deal, and said the company will be acquiring some of Twice’s technology as well as 10 of its 40 full-time employees. The Twice website will shut down later this month, he said. Twice co-founders Noah Ready-Campbell and Calvin Young will be joining eBay’s seller experience team and Twice’s technology will be integrated into the eBay Valet assisted-selling service, which recently started accepting used clothing. A source referred to the deal as an “‘acqhire’ for [the] most part.”
As Re/code recently reported, competition in the online market for used clothing has intensified in the last two years as investors poured money into about a half-dozen startups in the space. Twice, which had raised more than $23 million, sells used clothing and accessories from mainstream brands such as Zara, Ann Taylor and Gap, but failed to build a big enough customer base and had been shopping itself to potential buyers, sources previously said. Among its direct competitors is ThredUp, which also buys used clothes in bulk from sellers, and then lists them on its marketplace for sale.
On the surface, the deal makes some sense for eBay because it is likely the leading online seller in the U.S. of second-hand clothing already, but has lost some mindshare in the tech community in the last two years to well-funded startups that focus exclusively on this category. The deal comes shortly after eBay recently updated its eBay Valet assisted-selling service to accept used clothing.
The deal also makes sense for another reason. Industry insiders had previously told Re/code that the company — or at least some employees — would likely find a soft landing spot thanks to the connections of investment firm Andreessen Horowitz, one of its key backers. Well, Marc Andreessen of Andreessen Horowitz was until recently a long-time eBay board member.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
