Whatnot valued at $20 billion as live shopping continues to boom

Building on the growing popularity of livestreamed shopping, startup market Whatnot said on Friday that it has closed its latest round of funding at a $20 billion valuation, nearly doubling its valuation from less than a year ago.

Whatnot, which said that it has more than 650,000 new people joining its platform each week, said in a release that it had already passed the $8 billion in gross merchandise volume it saw last year. Buyers have also more than doubled over the past year.

With the funding from this latest round, a $545 million Series G led by Iconiq, Lightspeed and Avra, the company plans to invest in ways for sellers to grow on the platform, according to Grant LaFontaine, co-founder and CEO of Whatnot.

“This investment allows us to build better tools, bring AI to more parts of the selling experience, help sellers reach more buyers, expand into new markets, and continue building the world’s biggest and most trusted marketplace,” LaFontaine said in the statement.

Whatnot, which ranked No. 8 on this year’s CNBC Disruptor 50 list, raised a $225 million Series F round led by DST Global and CapitalG in October 2025, valuing it at $11.5 billion. In January 2025, it raised $265 million in a Series E round, valuing it at nearly $5 billion. The company has raised approximately $1.5 billion since its founding in 2019.

That rapid valuation growth reflects the rapidly expanding live commerce market, valued at upwards of $22 billion and of which Whatnot says it commands roughly 60%.

But competition in that space is continuing to grow from e-commerce giants like eBay and Fanatics, as well as TikTok’s Shop Live.