Whatnot, started in a Funko Pop-flooded rental house, is now a $20 billion company.
The live commerce platform exclusively told Fortune it recently raised its $545 million Series G, almost doubling Whatnot’s valuation from $11.5 billion in its October 2025 round. It’s an unlikely story in all sorts of ways, from the tech giant’s previous failed efforts to bring live selling to the U.S. to Whatnot’s own seemingly niche beginning. In a moment where it seems like every venture dollar is chasing OpenAI or Anthropic, Whatnot’s continuous growth is anomalous, and makes for interesting conversations with VCs.
“When you look at Silicon Valley it’s 99.99% AI right now,” said Grant LaFontaine, Whatnot CEO and cofounder. “There can be friction there, where you’ll talk to some firms and they’ll say: ‘No, all I do is AI, sorry.’ But there are people looking ahead, watching everyone chase the same ten AI deals. So, there are some people who say, ‘God, it’s nice to see a consumer company with network effects, strong growth, and a good operating team, because I can see value here.’”
This new round—led by ICONIQ, Lightspeed and Avra—includes investors old and new. New investors in the mix include Kleiner Perkins, Wellington Management, and others. Andreessen Horowitz, Bond, DST Global, and Greycroft, among others, are all returning. Y Combinator, an existing investor, is in along with new backer Standard Capital, the new firm of former YC partner Dalton Caldwell. Alphabet’s CapitalG is also back, having led three previous rounds in Whatnot dating back to its $150 million Series C, closed at a $1.5 billion valuation in 2021.
