Archive launched in 2021 with the right thesis at the right time: brands want to own their resale channel, not outsource it to a middleman. They moved fast, landed fashion brands including Oscar de la Renta and M.M. LaFleur, and raised a Bain Capital-backed Series A in under two years. The space is crowded now — Trove, Recurate, Reflaunt all play here — but Archive has the brand roster and the New York fashion ecosystem on its side. Still early, but the foundations are solid.
Founded
2021
HQ
San Francisco, USA
Total Raised
$30M+
Founder
Emily Gittins, Ryan Rowe
Status
Private
Website
www.archiveworn.comTHE ORIGIN STORY
Emily Gervais and Andrea Piazza met while working in fashion and sustainability. They saw that secondhand apparel was growing 20x faster than the broader fashion market, but most brands had no way to participate in that growth directly.
They built Archive as a peer-to-peer resale product that lives inside a brand's own website — no third-party marketplace, no lost customer data, no margin sharing with a competitor.
WHAT THEY ACTUALLY DO
SaaS platform fee plus transaction revenue share. Brands pay Archive to power their in-house resale store, and Archive takes a cut of each peer-to-peer transaction.
Customers can list their own items, or brands can run trade-in programs where they buy back inventory directly. The brand retains the relationship.
Archive provides the rails.
THE PRODUCTS
["Peer-to-peer resale platform", "In-store and online trade-in programs", "Brand-hosted resale storefronts", "Customer loyalty and credit integration", "Resale analytics for brand teams"]
HOW THEY GREW
Focus exclusively on fashion and apparel brands where peer-to-peer resale is most natural. Win premium and contemporary fashion brands who have loyal customers and high-quality product with resale value.
Then layer in new features: authentication tools, AI-powered condition grading, and loyalty integrations that turn resale into a customer retention engine.
THE HARD PART
Differentiation in a market that is filling up fast. Trove has larger brand partners and more operational infrastructure.
Recurate competes on similar terms. Archive needs to either move upmarket into luxury or go deep on technology features to justify a premium over cheaper alternatives.
MONEY TRAIL
Seed
2021 · Led by Undisclosed
$3M raised
Series A
2022 · Led by Bain Capital Ventures
$13M raised
WHO BACKED THEM
Bain Capital Ventures led the Series A in 2022. The round also included participation from G9 Ventures and several angel investors from the fashion and retail technology world.
Related Profiles
Companies
Depop
Depop is the peer-to-peer secondhand marketplace that Archive helps brands bypass. Archive's value proposition is giving brands an alternative to watching their customers sell on Depop instead of coming back to the original brand.
Recurate
Recurate is another branded resale platform targeting fashion brands. The three-way competition between Archive, Recurate, and Trove is consolidating a market that probably has room for one or two clear winners.
Trove
Trove is Archive's most direct competitor, both building white-label resale technology for brands. Trove has the bigger outdoor and activewear clients; Archive has stronger traction in contemporary fashion.
Head-to-Head
Compare Archive vs another company.