Whatnot

We believe if you have time to think about whether you're moving fast, you're already moving too slow. On My First Million with Sam Parr and Shaan Puri, our CEO Grant LaFontaine talked about why speed is so core to how Whatnot operates. The idea isn't motion for its own sake. It's that you learn by doing, so the faster you ship and see what happens, the faster you figure out what actually works. Waiting for the perfect plan usually just means learning the same lesson later. Full conversation below. https://lnkd.in/gxPiV_2c #LiveShopping

Selling more on Whatnot now means unlocking industry-leading commission rates. Starting next week, the more sellers grow, the lower their commission rate can go, reaching as low as 3%. No application. No enrollment. No limited-time promotion. Sellers automatically unlock better rates as their sales grow. Sellers come to Whatnot to build a business, and they're succeeding. The number surpassing $1M in lifetime sales has more than doubled in the last year. Lower rates mean more money to invest in inventory, hire a team, host more shows, or take home. When sellers grow, the whole marketplace grows with them. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/g-sG9cuS

Designers and engineers work in separate tools, and staying in sync comes down to people remembering to keep the design and the code matched. When a designer renames something and the code still points to the old name, the animation breaks silently. So our team stopped relying on memory: the animation files already contain everything about how they’re built, so we generate the connecting code straight from them. Rename something now and the app won’t build until the code catches up. This runs every animation in the Whatnot iOS app, including the celebration that fires for each buyer during live auctions. Our engineering team wrote up how they did it, below. https://lnkd.in/gxe4iYfh

Live commerce is built on human connection. Sellers read the chat, welcome familiar names, and answer questions in real time. The right insights help sellers stay in step with their audience. New Live Analytics provides a real-time view of sales, orders, viewership, and who’s new or returning, giving sellers more context to see what’s resonating and adapt in the moment. Read the more in our latest Product Spotlight: https://lnkd.in/geiucYBj

Today we're introducing the Whatnot Trust Center, one place to learn about our work on trust and what we’re doing to keep Whatnot the best place to buy and sell. Live commerce runs on trust. A buyer watches a real seller hold up an item, asks a question, and makes the choice before they buy. That visibility is a big part of why people trust what they buy on Whatnot, and why they come back. Behind the scenes, we invest heavily to support it. One in three Whatnot employees now works on trust and marketplace integrity, from setting policy to backing up buyers and sellers when something doesn’t go as planned. The Trust Center is a new way for us to talk about that work and share our progress. https://lnkd.in/gZfbE6yy

Live shopping is already a third of all retail in some markets. In the US and Europe, it's just getting started. Grant LaFontaine sat down with Andreessen Horowitz and made the case for why the US follows the same path. His argument: the thing most online shopping got wrong is exactly what live gets right. Over the last two decades, e-commerce got efficient by obscuring the people actually doing the selling. Whatnot is built to do the opposite. On Whatnot, a seller is a shop owner, not just a listing. Buyers get to know them, come back to their shows, and buy because of who's selling, not just what's for sale. Some sellers are one or two people. The biggest are running large operations with teams behind them. Together these businesses have driven billions in sales on Whatnot. Catch the full conversation below. https://lnkd.in/gGDhM_Av #LiveShopping

Back-to-school is one of the most expensive stretches of the year for families, and more of them are turning to Whatnot, where they can shop kids' clothing live from real sellers instead of scrolling static listings. Just past the halfway mark of 2026, our Kids Clothing category has already passed its full-year 2025 sales, with sellers moving more than twice as many items as this time last year. Nearly three out of four sellers are new to the category this year, and they already account for more than a quarter of its sales. These are parents going from closet clean-outs to their own clothing lines. Take Rilee Thompson of Remi and Friends. She joined in early 2025 running a children's boutique, and live selling let her move inventory fast enough to test new ideas with a community of parents who show up for her. The business now brings in more than $100K a month, with Rilee and her mom running nearly every part of it themselves. Read how Rilee and other parents are building their businesses on Whatnot: https://lnkd.in/gfFDTbe6 #BacktoSchool #LiveShopping

The Don's Luxury started in a living room. Today it's a $12M business on Whatnot. Harrison and Caitlin had been selling luxury bags since 2017, running weekly drops through social media and their own website. For years it was just the two of them, handling every product and every customer themselves. Then Harrison watched another seller go live on Whatnot, and knew instantly it could change the business. Three and a half years of shows later, the weekly drops have become a community and the two-person operation an 8,500 square foot showroom in Houston with five live sets, a team of twelve, and every piece carefully authenticated before it goes live. Shows that once brought in $2K now clear $200K. Even at that size, Harrison and Caitlin are still the ones on camera. Their buyers know them, and that familiarity is a big part of what the shows are built on. "We could have 500 people watching the same show. Somebody can join in and get a $100 luxury scarf and be celebrated the same as somebody grabbing a $30,000 Birkin," Harrison said. https://lnkd.in/g_Xz-urE #LiveShopping

Today we're announcing $545 million in Series G funding, bringing Whatnot to a $20 billion valuation, nearly double where we were less than a year ago. It's the largest raise in live commerce, and it's going toward one thing: helping small businesses grow. Small businesses bet on live shopping before anyone else would. No playbook, no proof it would pay off, just a hunch that people wanted to buy from someone real. They turned it into the way people shop now, and they're still who we build for. This round puts real money behind their growth. Halfway through 2026, sellers have already sold more than they did in all of 2025, and over 650,000 people are joining Whatnot every week. Over the past year, the number of sellers passing $1 million in lifetime sales has more than doubled. The round was co-led by ICONIQ, Lightspeed and avra, with Kleiner Perkins, Wellington Management, Robinhood, S32, Standard Capital and returning investors CapitalG, Y Combinator, Durable Capital Partners LP, Alkeon Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Greycroft, Bond Capital, and DST Global. Every business on Whatnot started with one person deciding to go live. Thank you for getting us here, and for everything still ahead. https://lnkd.in/g_cCnfqy #LiveShopping #LiveCommerce #Whatnot

Every summer, collectors and dealers gather at the National Sports Collectors Convention, the biggest card show in the country. For more than 40 years it's been the center of the card world, a floor where the dealers with the deepest roots earned their place over decades. What's changed is who else gets to be in the room. This year, 20,000 square feet of it was the Whatnot Live Center, where sellers went live from their own booths for five days. Yankees legend Mariano Rivera signed baseballs and told stories, UFC champion Max Holloway opened packs of cards with our sellers, and dozens more athletes and creators joined shows all weekend. On the last day, we gave away a Porsche 911 to close out more than $150,000 in prizes. Best part? You didn't have to be in Chicago. Everything on the floor was live, so collectors anywhere could tune in, jump in the chat, and feel like part of the show from home. #LiveShopping