Rebelle

In March 2013, Cécile Gaulke, Max Laurent Schönemann, and the Hamburg company builder Hanse Ventures jointly founded the operating company StyleRemains GmbH, and the platform launched under the Rebelle brand at the end of August 2013, selling secondhand designer clothing and accessories. Unlike traditional online marketplaces, Rebelle assessed the authenticity and quality of all items and offered sellers an all-inclusive “concierge service” covering photography, descriptions, and shipping. In October of that year, High-Tech Gründerfonds made a seed investment.⁠[1][2][2][3]

In March 2014, Rebelle received financing in the medium single-digit millions of euros, with new investor HCS Beteiligungsgesellschaft and several media and logistics executives buying in and existing shareholders Hanse Ventures and High-Tech Gründerfonds also participating; the funds were to be used to develop the German-speaking market and drive internationalization. At the time, the website offered more than 7,000 items from 600 brands.⁠[3][2][2][2][2][2]

In August 2014, StyleRemains GmbH acquired, in a cash transaction, all of the shares of ATK Shopping Solutions GmbH, the operating company of direct competitor Glamloop, and merged the Glamloop business into the Rebelle brand, consolidating its leading position in the German market. Glamloop had also launched in August 2013 and had been funded by Capnamic Ventures, OP Ventures, and Holtzbrinck Ventures. At the time, Rebelle had more than 30 employees and shipped to 25 countries.⁠[1][1][3][1][1][1]

In March 2015, Rebelle completed a multi-million-euro Series B round, with new investors North-East Venture of Copenhagen and Deutsche Balaton of Heidelberg, and existing shareholders including High-Tech Gründerfonds, HCS Beteiligungsgesellschaft, and Hanse Ventures making additional investments. At the time, the platform offered more than 20,000 items from more than 600 designer brands, operated in 28 European countries, and had about 50 employees.⁠[3][3][3][3][3]

In February 2022, Rebelle AB held its initial public offering on the Nasdaq First North Growth Market in Sweden at SEK 28 per share, issuing 7,142,858 new shares and raising about SEK 200 million; the offering was fully subscribed, and the company’s market value after the offering was about SEK 626 million. Swedbank Robur Ny Teknik, Skandia Fonder, and a number of existing shareholders, board members, and senior executives had committed in advance to subscribe for 90% of the offering. The shares began trading on February 25 under the ticker BELLE; the company said it was the first company to receive a Nasdaq Green Equity Designation as its shares began trading, and the first German company to hold an IPO exclusively on Nasdaq in Sweden.⁠[4][4][4][4][4][4][5][6]

Major shareholders before the listing included HCS Beteiligungsgesellschaft; Friheden Invest, the family office of fashion entrepreneur Niels Martinsen; North-East Venture, part of the family office behind the jewelry brand Pandora; High-Tech Gründerfonds II; and Reti Televisive Italiane, a subsidiary of Mediaset. At the time, the platform offered more than 200,000 items, focusing mainly on the EU market; founder Cécile Wickmann was Chief Commercial Officer, and Hans-Christian Semmler was chairman.⁠[6][6][6][6][6]

On July 25, 2022, having received a takeover offer, Rebelle released preliminary second-quarter results early: net sales of €5.3 million, down 14% year over year; the number of orders down 22%; a commission rate of 26.2%; and marketing and personnel expenses up 84% and 24%, respectively, from the same period a year earlier. The company attributed the decline mainly to the macroeconomic environment in its core German market.⁠[7][7][7][7][7]

The same day, Vinted UAB, the operating company of the Lithuanian secondhand marketplace Vinted, announced an offer to acquire all shares in Rebelle for SEK 14.10 per share in cash, for a total of about SEK 315 million (about €30 million), a premium of 8.46% over the previous trading day’s closing price and 75.40% over the volume-weighted average price of the preceding 30 trading days, conditional on acquiring more than 90% of the shares. A committee of two independent board members, after PwC issued a fairness opinion, unanimously recommended that shareholders accept; shareholders holding about 64.70% of the shares in total, including board members such as Hans-Christian Semmler, had given irrevocable undertakings. The committee considered that Rebelle’s realization of its long-term strategy on its own would require predominantly consolidation and M&A activity and would be unlikely to benefit shareholders in the short to medium term.⁠[8][8][9][8][8][8][8][8][8][8][8]

On August 22, 2022, with shares representing 96.7% having accepted the offer, Vinted declared the offer unconditional and said it would initiate a compulsory buy-out of the remaining shares; Rebelle’s board then applied for delisting. On August 26, Nasdaq approved the delisting, with the last day of trading on September 9, 2022.⁠[10][10][11]

In October 2023, Vinted had already integrated Rebelle’s authentication process, with a team of experts in Hamburg examining items bought through Vinted. In January 2024, Vinted announced it would close the Rebelle platform and unify the two under the Vinted brand, with Rebelle users able to migrate until March 18; Cécile Wickmann became Senior Director Luxury at the merged Vinted.⁠[12][12][12][12]

Rebelle positioned itself as a “managed marketplace”: the platform took control of the entire sales process, physically verifying the authenticity and quality of items and handling payment processing and shipping to buyers, dealing mainly in secondhand items from brands such as Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Gucci, Hermès, and Prada. Legally, the listed entity Rebelle AB was the parent company of Hamburg-based StyleRemains GmbH, which operated Rebelle.com.⁠[6][6][6][13]