Faire, a wholesale marketplace that connects independent retailers with emerging brands, has secured a new tender offer that values the company at $5.2 billion. The deal will be led by WCM Investment Management with participation from Baillie Gifford and True North Fund.
Ultimately, it signals continued investor confidence as Faire pushes deeper into artificial intelligence (AI)-driven commerce and scaled logistics.
As a result, some Faire employees will be able to sell their shares marketplace.
What the valuation and employee share sale mean for Faire
In a November announcement, CEO and co-founder Max Rhodes said the investment “validates our progress toward building a high-growth, durable business and our vision for the future of the B2B wholesale industry.”
Faire was founded in 2016. Since then, it has grown into a major digital sourcing channel for small and midsize retailers. Historically, that group has relied on trade shows or cold outreach to find new products. The company now works with hundreds of thousands of retailers and brands globally and expects $3 billion in gross merchandise volume this year.
Growth has been accelerating. Faire is now annualizing at more than $500 million in revenue. In addition, year-over-year revenue climbed more than 40% in the third quarter, according to Rhodes. Gross merchandise volume has increased for eight straight quarters, while net dollar retention remains above 110% as retailers expand the number of brands they buy from on the platform.
Expansion into Europe is also paying off — growth in the region is nearly double the rate of North America. Meanwhile, the company’s advertising business, launched two years ago, now accounts for more than 5% of revenue.
What Faire does
The Faire platform’s value proposition for independent retail remains tied to efficiency and product discovery, especially as inflation, tariffs and shipping costs continue to pressure margins.
“Before Faire came along, we were spending so much of our time and energy finding vendors,” said Anna Zietz, co-founder of the retailer Glad & Young Studio, in a publicly released statement. “It really feels like they continue to champion our small business and help us succeed.”
To maintain momentum, Faire is placing a significant bet on artificial intelligence. The company already uses deep learning to personalize product rankings and improve listing quality. Longer term, Faire plans to introduce AI buying assistants that can help retailers curate assortments, automate product uploads, and assist with marketing — roles that often consume hours of manual labor.
Similar tools for brands are expected to provide guidance on demand planning and merchandising inside the marketplace.
Faire’s future plans
The largest operational shift ahead involves fulfillment. Faire is launching a consolidated shipping model that allows retailers to place a single order across multiple brands, reducing freight costs and inventory risk. Rhodes compared the evolution to how music shifted from albums to customizable digital playlists — an effort to break wholesale orders into more flexible, brand-agnostic units.
Despite the push into automation and centralized logistics, the company is also expanding software features for independent sales representatives, preserving what Rhodes called the “human connection” still critical in wholesale.
Even with its recent scale, Faire sees significant headroom. U.S. retailers spend hundreds of billions of dollars each year sourcing inventory. However, only about 5% of that purchasing happens online. Rhodes said the company expects digital adoption to accelerate as business buyers demand the same speed and personalization they experience in consumer ecommerce.
“It’s inevitable that this market will move online,” he wrote. “And Faire will continue leading that shift in the decades to come.”
The $5.2 billion valuation marks a return to growth following a recalibration across venture-backed marketplaces and signals Faire’s intention to stay at the forefront of an industry working to modernize procurement for independent retail.
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