Etsy raises $40 million funding – giving craftrepreneurs an international marketplace

Etsy has closed $40 million of funding from a roster of investors who have been believers in Etsy for a long time. I couldn’t be happier to have such a committed set of partners who “get it” along for the next stage.

What do we plan to do with the money we’ve raised? Two simple things, really: we plan to grow Etsy into an economic force all around the world and we want to provide more products and services to help sellers succeed and build their businesses on the Etsy platform. You’ve seen a start in some of these areas — our Etsy in German and French launches…

***

Looking back, Etsy was quite small by today’s measures — the community sold $7.93 million of goods in September 2008. We had about 50 employees and we were in an office in downtown Brooklyn with a broken elevator that famously had a sign that read, “You gotta press up to go down.”

Almost four years later, many things have changed. We have different offices near the Brooklyn Bridge, a working elevator, almost 300 employees, and last month alone, the community sold about $65 million in goods. Each month, 40 million people around the world visit Etsy, with 15 million registered members and 875,000 sellers generating those sales in 150 countries.

(2011 sales – $525 million)

***

We believe, more than ever, that Etsy can help fundamentally change the way the world works by making it possible for individuals to make and sell things to other people around the globe — a people-powered economy.

…we published last fall provides an inspiring blueprint for the better world that we envision:

Decades of an unyielding focus on economic growth and a corporate mentality has left us ever more disconnected with nature, our communities, and the people and processes behind the objects in our lives. We think this is unethical, unsustainable, and unfun. However, with the rise of small businesses around the world we feel hope and see real opportunities: Opportunities for us to measure success in new ways… to build local, living economies, and most importantly, to help create a more permanent future.

via – Etsy News

Screenprinting.

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *