Etsy

Etsy was founded in June 2005 in Brooklyn, New York, initially as an online marketplace for buying and selling handmade goods and craft supplies.⁠[1]

Fred WilsonFred WilsonFred Wilson is an American venture capitalist, co-founder and partner of the New York venture firm Union Square Ventures (USV), and earlier co-founder, with Jerry Colonna, of the internet investment firm Flatiron Partners. He has written the blog AVC since 2003, chaired Etsy’s board for many years, and is a director of Coinbase.Open the full entry, one of the founders of Union Square Ventures, served as an Etsy director from June 2007 and as lead independent director from October 2014; before the IPO, Union Square Ventures Opportunity Fund was also one of Etsy’s preferred stockholders.⁠[1][1]

Chad Dickerson, Etsy’s chief technology officer from September 2008, became president and chief executive officer in July 2011, joined the board in September of that year, and also became chair of the board in October 2014.⁠[1][1]

Etsy’s initial public offering was priced at $16 per share; per the prospectus cover, 16,666,666 shares were offered for gross proceeds of about $267 million, of which about $199 million (before underwriting discounts) went to the company and the rest to selling stockholders. The stock was listed on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol ETSY, with Goldman Sachs and Morgan StanleyMorgan StanleyMorgan Stanley is an American global financial services firm that grew from an investment banking partnership into a publicly traded financial group spanning investment banking, securities trading, wealth management, and investment management.Open the full entry as lead underwriters. The prospectus also stated that Etsy was a “Certified B Corporation” certified by B Lab.⁠[1][1][1][1][1][1][1]

In 2014, before the listing, the Etsy platform connected 54 million members, including 1.4 million active sellers and 19.8 million active buyers; sellers generated GMS (gross merchandise sales) of $1.93 billion for the year, up 43.3% from 2013, while company revenue was $195.6 million and the net loss was $15.2 million.⁠[1][1]

On April 3, 2017, Etsy announced the appointment of Rachel Glaser, formerly chief financial officer of Leaf Group, as chief financial officer, starting on or about June 1 of that year.⁠[2][2][2]

On April 30 of the same year, the board appointed Josh Silverman, a director since November 2016, as president and chief executive officer, effective May 3; Chad Dickerson resigned as president, chief executive officer, and chair the same day. Silverman had previously been chief executive of Skype and president of consumer products and services at American Express, and was a co-founder of Evite.⁠[3][3][3][3]

Etsy announced the acquisition of Reverb Holdings, a Chicago-based marketplace for new and used musical instruments and music gear, for $275 million in cash (subject to adjustments); the deal closed on August 15 of that year, and Reverb continued to operate independently. Reverb was founded in Chicago in 2013; Silverman called it “the ‘Etsy’ of musical instruments.”⁠[4][4][4][5][5]

As mask mandates spread during the COVID-19 pandemic, Etsy mobilized its sellers to make and sell face masks, a previously small category that brought in large numbers of new sellers and buyers. Etsy’s GMS in 2020 was $10.28 billion, up 106.7% from 2019, and revenue was $1.726 billion, up 110.9%.⁠[6][6][6]

Etsy announced the acquisition of Depop, a London-based secondhand fashion marketplace, for $1.625 billion, consisting primarily of cash. Founded in 2011, Depop had 2020 GMS of about $650 million and revenue of about $70 million, and about 90% of its active users were under 26; it continued to operate as a standalone marketplace after the deal.⁠[7][7][7][7]

On July 2, 2021, Etsy completed its acquisition of Elo7, a Brazilian marketplace for handmade and unique items, for consideration with a fair value of about $212.1 million (net of cash acquired); on July 12 it completed the acquisition of Depop for consideration with a fair value of about $1.493 billion. As of the end of 2021, Etsy’s marketplaces had 7.5 million active sellers and 96.3 million active buyers, with full-year GMS of $13.5 billion.⁠[8][8][8]

On August 10, 2023, Etsy completed the sale of the parent holding company of Elo7 Serviços de Informática S.A.⁠[9]

In a letter to employees, chief executive Josh Silverman announced a reorganization of the internal structure and the elimination of about 225 jobs, roughly 11% of Etsy’s workforce. He said the Etsy marketplace was still more than twice its 2019 size, but that amid a very challenging macro and competitive environment, GMS had remained essentially flat since 2021 while employee expenses kept growing.⁠[10][10][10][10]

Etsy announced executive changes effective the first week of January 2025: Kruti Patel Goyal, then chief executive of Depop, became president and chief growth officer, a newly created role overseeing product, marketing, member support, and trust and safety, among other areas, while continuing as acting chief executive of Depop through April 2025; Lanny Baker, chief operating officer of Eventbrite, succeeded the retiring Rachel Glaser as chief financial officer.⁠[11][11][11][11][11]

On June 2, 2025, Etsy completed the sale of its musical instrument marketplace Reverb.⁠[9]

Etsy announced a proposed private offering of $650 million in aggregate principal amount of convertible senior notes due 2030, planning to use up to $175 million of the net proceeds to repurchase common stock and the rest for general corporate purposes.⁠[12][12]

Etsy announced it would transfer the listing of its common stock from Nasdaq to the New York Stock Exchange, expecting trading on Nasdaq to end on October 10, 2025, and trading on the NYSE to begin on October 13, under the same symbol.⁠[13][13]

Etsy announced that Josh Silverman would step down as chief executive on December 31, 2025, and that Kruti Patel Goyal would succeed him and join the board on January 1, 2026, with Silverman becoming executive chair through the end of 2026; Fred Wilson, chair of the board since 2017, would step down as chair but remain a director. Fred Wilson said that during Silverman’s tenure the number of Etsy shoppers had more than tripled, GMS had grown fourfold, and revenue had grown nearly eightfold.⁠[14][14][14][14]

The board approved a new $750 million share repurchase authorization, bringing total available authorization, including remaining capacity under the existing program, to close to $1 billion; it also appointed Fred Wilson as lead independent director effective January 1, 2026.⁠[15][15][15]

eBayeBayeBay Inc. is an online marketplace company headquartered in San Jose, California, United States, founded in 1995 by Pierre Omidyar; it started out with person-to-person online auctions and listed on Nasdaq in 1998. As of the end of 2025, it had 135 million active buyers, and its platform’s gross merchandise volume in 2025 was nearly $80 billion.Open the full entry and Etsy announced a definitive agreement under which eBay would acquire Depop for about $1.2 billion in cash (subject to price adjustments). Depop had 2025 GMS of about $1 billion and, as of the end of 2025, 7 million active buyers (nearly 90% under 34) and more than 3 million active sellers. Kruti Patel Goyal said the deal would let Etsy focus exclusively on growing the core Etsy marketplace.⁠[16][16][16][16]

For fiscal 2025, Etsy’s consolidated GMS was $11.917 billion (down 5.3%, including $10.4607 billion for the Etsy marketplace, $1.0749 billion for Depop, and $381.3 million for Reverb before its sale), revenue was $2.8835 billion (up 2.7%), net income was $163.0 million (down 46.3%), and adjusted EBITDA was $734.5 million; at year-end it had 93.54 million consolidated active buyers and 8.76 million active sellers.⁠[17][17][17][17][17]

In the fourth quarter of 2025, Etsy marketplace GMS was $3.2929 billion, up 0.1% year over year, a return to slight growth; at quarter-end it had 5.6 million active sellers and 86.5 million active buyers, and about 46% of GMS was transacted through the app. The company also announced its integration with OpenAI’s ChatGPT Instant Checkout and “agentic shopping” partnerships with Google and Microsoft that let U.S. users buy select Etsy items directly in AI Mode in Google Search, Gemini, and Copilot.⁠[17][17][17][17][17][17][17]

After receiving the required regulatory approvals, Etsy completed the sale of Depop to eBay for about $1.4 billion in cash, consisting of the $1.2 billion purchase price plus $200 million of net purchase price adjustments and interest, with the final net amount still subject to post-closing adjustments; the company said it would use the proceeds in line with the capital allocation strategy in its April shareholder letter, including accelerated share repurchases.⁠[18][18][18][18][18]

On August 3, the audit committee of Etsy’s board approved a restructuring plan cutting about 220 employees (about 12%), leaving a headcount of about 1,600, with estimated charges of about $35 million, mostly cash severance and related costs, expected to be substantially complete by the end of the third quarter; it also approved a new stock repurchase authorization of up to an additional $2 billion.⁠[19][19][19][19]

In the second quarter of 2026 (with Depop presented as a discontinued operation), Etsy’s GMS was $2.6 billion, up 7.5% year over year on an Etsy-marketplace basis, the third consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth; revenue was $668 million, up 9.3% on a marketplace basis, with a take rate of 25.9%; net income was $114 million and adjusted EBITDA was $195 million. On a trailing twelve-month basis, active buyers rose by about 350,000 from the prior quarter to about 87 million.⁠[20][20][20][20][20][20][20][20]

Etsy describes itself as the global marketplace for unique and creative goods, ranging from handcrafted pieces to vintage items; its mission slogan is “Keep Commerce Human,” emphasizing keeping human connection at the heart of commerce in a time of increasing automation.⁠[21][21][21]

Etsy: Official website: https://www.etsy.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[22]

Etsy Investor Relations: Official website: https://investors.etsy.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[22]

X: Public account: https://x.com/etsy (opens in a new window)⁠[22]