Energize Capital is proud to lead the $30 million Series B investment in Archive, a white-label technology solution for brands to launch and scale profitable resale businesses. Existing investors Bain Capital and Lightspeed also joined the round as well as new investors Woodline Partners and Frontline Growth. Archive has now raised a total of $54 million. Energize’s Eileen Waris joins the Archive board, and Katie McClain joins as a board observer. After many years of monitoring circular economy software, this investment marks Energize’s first investment into the space.
Today’s retail industry is in a moment of reckoning. Brands are facing stagnant revenue growth - coupled with an explosion of manufacturing volume driven by fast fashion - leading to massive inventories, skyrocketing return rates, and narrowing customer bases. Additionally, environmental concerns are rising from consumers and policymakers alike, driving brands to search for new models that can drive margins without expanding the industry’s carbon footprint, which already accounts for more than 25% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
At the same time, consumer sentiment is shifting. Young shoppers have made a dramatic move toward secondhand goods, prompting 2.5 times growth in the sector since 2018 to become a $350B global market opportunity by 2028. This has spurred a flywheel of innovation, online marketplaces, and vertically integrated recommerce platforms, diversifying the secondhand infrastructure beyond Salvation Army into Facebook Marketplace, Depop, TheRealReal, and more. Even so, brands have struggled to break into this emerging market, lacking the resources to manage the complex logistics behind collection, refurbishment, and redistribution. As a result, companies are losing customers to third party sellers and missing value opportunities from their products.
Dive Deeper: A Secondhand Opportunity: How brands are reaching revenue and sustainability goals through circularity
Enter Archive, an operating system that works with brands to launch and own profitable recommerce programs uniquely tailored their business needs. Archive’s flexible tools offer wide support to brands with little to no development resources, providing:
Amidst the meteoric rise of consumer resale and sustainable retail practices, Archive’s solution meets the need for resale tools head-on, helping brands improve sales, grow customer loyalty and achieve sustainability goals. Since its founding in 2021, Archive has proven to be an invaluable recommerce partner to over 50 leading brands across ten countries, including The North Face, Oscar de la Renta, New Balance, Faherty and more. In 2024, Archive was named one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies in Retail.
At Energize, we invest in asset-light climate solutions that drive profitability in tandem with sustainability outcomes. Archive is a prime example of this model, which utilizes a digital-first approach to solve real customer concerns around profit, customer retention, and logistics, while effectively decarbonizing what is today a highly greenhouse gas-intensive industry. While we have been monitoring the circular economy sector for many years, we believe we are only now beginning to see the tools that have the scalability and flexibility to meet the opportunity, and we are excited to see Archive emerge as a frontrunner in this space.
Archive was founded in 2021 in the Bay Area by Emily Gittins and Ryan Rowe, now CEO and CTO, respectively. The two draw on deep experience across software, fashion and consulting to generate a unique expertise on software solutions that require complex implementation. Emily began her career at BCG, then continued to Stanford Graduate School of Business, where she founded Archive with Ryan. Ryan joined the Archive mission after founding and selling Kimono Labs—a web-scraping tool—to Palantir, where he remained for another two years as Forward Deployed Engineer. His earlier career included seven years at digital design company Frog. Since its inception, Archive has grown to over 45 employees, and continues to expand to new geographies, including the US, the UK, France, Spain, and beyond.
This new capital infusion will support Archive’s continued global expansion and platform buildout to better serve the world’s largest brands across a growing array of retail categories, including apparel, footwear, accessories, home goods, furniture, toys and outdoor gear. We are thrilled to partner with Emily, Ryan, and the broader Archive team as they redefine consumer resale.
To learn more, check out the Archive website. Explore open positions at www.jobs.energizecap.com.
