Vinted

Vinted was co-founded in 2008 by Milda Mitkutė and Justas Janauskas in Vilnius, Lithuania. Mitkutė was moving house and needed a way to sell her surplus clothes. This led to the creation of a website where users could trade their clothing items.

In 2012, Vinted partnered with Lemon Labs, a Lithuanian-based app development consultancy, to launch their mobile app.^[4] In 2016, Dutch businessman Thomas Plantenga joined Vinted's management team as a strategy consultant and later became the CEO.^[5]

In 2019, Vinted became Lithuania's first tech unicorn, raising €128 million at a €1 billion valuation in a round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners.^[6] In October 2020, Vinted acquired United Wardrobe, a Dutch competitor.^[7] In 2024, Vinted acquired Trendsales, a Danish competitor.^[8]

As of June 2024, Vinted operates in twenty-one countries and has more than 65 million registered users.^[9] In November 2024, the platform was valued at 5 billion euros.^[10]

Since 2021, Vinted has been under scrutiny of data protection supervisory authorities (SA) from France, Lithuania and Poland, following numerous complaints about GDPR violations and contentious user account blocking practices,^[11] which resulted in a €2,375,276 fine imposed by the Lithuanian SA in July 2024.^[12] The dedicated Vinted working group, consisting of Dutch, French, Lithuanian and Polish SA and supported by the European Data Protection Board, became an example of close cross-border cooperation between national supervisory authorities in law enforcement.^[13]

In 2024, some new users in Sweden were subject to fraud schemes in which their bank accounts were emptied. During the first quarter of the year there were about 300 police reports concerning fraud at Vinted. Comparable platforms had fewer police reports which, furthermore, were related to a less serious type of fraud.^[14]

In October of 2024, Channel 4 produced a documentary with Ellie Flynn looking at the darker usages of Vinted. The show commented on the use of misogynistic websites, sexualising young women modelling clothes on Vinted, alongside harmful and derogatory comments. Some of these women being below legal age, and legally still children. The documentary also warns buyers (particularly, new parents) of the dangers of purchasing items without a safety label, or products which you don't know where they originated from. The one-episode documentary also warns of CBD and similar drug-related products being sold improperly. ^[15][16][17]

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