Faire

Overview

Faire is a US-based online wholesale marketplace that connects independent retailers (boutiques, gift shops, home-goods stores) with the emerging and established brands that supply them. Founded in 2017 in San Francisco by four former Square employees, it digitizes the traditional trade-show model of wholesale buying, letting store owners discover and reorder products across categories such as home decor, food and drink, apparel, beauty, jewelry, and stationery. As of 2024 the platform hosts over 100,000 brands and more than 700,000 retailers, and by 2025 it was approaching roughly $3B in annual GMV.

What they’re known for

Faire’s signature is taking the inventory risk out of wholesale for small retailers. Independent shops love experimenting with new products but fear getting stuck with unsold merchandise and tied-up capital. Faire’s breakthrough was pairing Net 60 payment terms (pay 60 days after ordering, interest-free) with free returns on a retailer’s first order from any brand. This “buy now, pay later, return what doesn’t sell” model let small stores stock new brands with almost no downside, and it became the core reason the marketplace scaled from zero to a unicorn in under three years. It is essentially “the Amazon for local stores” — filling the wholesale gap Amazon left for independent retail.

History

• 2017 — Founded in January by ex-Square employees Max Rhodes, Daniele Perito, Marcelo Cortes, and Jeffrey Kolovson (originally “Indigo Fair”); part of Y Combinator’s Winter 2017 batch.
• 2018 — Reintroduced Net 60 terms and free returns, driving growth from ~$100K to ~$1M monthly; reached 15,000+ retail locations and a ~$100M annual run rate by December.
• 2019 — Raised a $150M Series D co-led by Lightspeed and Founders Fund, hitting a $1B valuation and unicorn status (up from a $535M valuation months earlier).
• 2021 — Expanded internationally, launching in the UK and continental Europe.
• May 2022 — Raised a $416M Series G extension at a peak $12.6B valuation.
• October 2022 — Laid off ~7% of staff amid a broader slowdown.
• September 2023 — Announced a partnership with Shopify, becoming its recommended wholesale marketplace; Shopify took an equity stake.
• November 2023 — Second, larger layoff of ~20% of staff (~250 people).
• 2025 — Approaching ~$3B GMV with GMV growth accelerating for eight consecutive quarters; a November 2025 tender offer valued the company at $5.2B.

Business model

Faire is a pure third-party (3P) marketplace: it holds no inventory and makes money on a commission (take rate) charged to brands. The standard commission is 15% on orders, with a higher rate (~25%) on brand-new retailer customers Faire sources, and 0% via “Faire Direct” — personalized links brands use to bring their own retailers onto the platform. On top of the base commission, Faire adds payment-processing fees (roughly 1.9%–3.5% depending on payout speed), pushing its effective take rate from ~16.5% up to ~19% after 2023 pricing changes. Revenue is diversified with an Insider subscription ($19.99/month) and a growing advertising business (now more than 5% of revenue). The company annualizes at more than $500M in revenue against ~$3B in GMV.

Why it succeeded

• Solved a real, painful problem first. As co-founder Max Rhodes recounts in The Story of Faire, the team identified inventory risk as the single biggest blocker to small retailers trying new products — and attacked it directly rather than treating symptoms.
• Risk-reversal as the growth engine. Net 60 terms plus free first-order returns removed the downside of stocking unknown brands; reintroducing these terms is what turned linear growth into rapid compounding, and Faire cut return rates by ~75% and defaults by ~90% as it refined the model (YC Q&A with Max Rhodes).
• Massive underserved TAM. B2B commerce lags far behind B2C in digital adoption, giving Faire a large runway to digitize a wholesale channel that previously ran on trade shows and paper catalogs (Contrary Research).
• Strong retention and monetization. Net dollar retention above 110%, take-rate expansion, and new ad/subscription revenue drove 73%+ revenue growth in 2023 even as the broader market cooled (Sacra).
• Distribution partnerships. The 2023 Shopify deal made Faire the recommended wholesale marketplace for millions of Shopify merchants, adding a powerful acquisition channel (Retail Dive).

Notable facts

• Grew from zero to a $1B “unicorn” valuation in under three years.
• 100,000+ brands and 700,000+ retailers on the platform (as of 2024); over 10M brand-retailer relationships and nearly $8B in wholesale inventory facilitated to date.
• Peak private valuation of $12.6B (May 2022); repriced to $5.2B in a November 2025 tender offer — roughly a 59% markdown.
• Has raised approximately $1.7B in total funding from investors including Y Combinator, Sequoia, Lightspeed, Founders Fund, and Khosla Ventures.
• Original idea sparked by co-founder Max Rhodes importing New Zealand-made Blunt umbrellas and struggling to sell wholesale to small shops.
• Shopify became a Faire shareholder as part of their 2023 wholesale partnership.

Links

Title	URL	Type	Note
Faire - Online Wholesale Marketplace for Retailers & Brands	https://www.faire.com	official-site	Official homepage; “The platform for retailers”
Report: Faire Business Breakdown & Founding Story	https://research.contrary.com/company/faire	report	Contrary Research deep-dive on model, history, metrics
Faire revenue, valuation & funding	https://sacra.com/c/faire/	report	Sacra financials: revenue, $5.2B valuation, funding
Faire (research)	https://sacra.com/research/faire/	report	Sacra analysis of take rate and monetization
The Story of Faire (Max Rhodes)	https://medium.com/faire/the-story-of-faire-465d3d4c161f	article	Founder’s first-person founding narrative
Q&A with Max Rhodes, Cofounder of Faire	https://ycombinator.com/blog/qa-with-max-rhodes-cofounder-of-faire/	article	Y Combinator interview on the risk-reversal model
He Built In 24 Months A $500M Business…	https://www.forbes.com/sites/alejandrocremades/2019/05/07/he-built-in-24-months-a-500-million-business-by-addressing-the-retail-gap-left-by-amazon/	article	Forbes profile of Max Rhodes and Faire
Faire now worth $1 billion after $150M investment	https://techstartups.com/2019/10/31/faire-wholesale-marketplace-startup-connects-independent-designers-local-retailers-now-worth-1-billion-150m-investment/	news	Series D unicorn milestone (2019)
Shopify invests in wholesale marketplace Faire	https://www.retaildive.com/news/shopify-invests-in-wholesale-marketplace-faire/695151/	news	2023 Shopify partnership and equity stake
Faire lays off 20% of its staff	https://techcrunch.com/2023/11/03/faire-layoffs-20-staff/	news	2023 layoffs and $12.6B valuation context
Faire Wholesale Fees Explained (2026)	https://www.brahmin-solutions.com/blog/what-is-faire-wholesale	article	Breakdown of commission/fee structure for sellers