TROVE

Andy Ruben was Walmart's first Chief Sustainability Officer. In 2012 he and environmental activist Adam Werbach started a company called Yerdle, a peer-to-peer app for giving away and swapping used stuff.

It did not take off as a consumer app. In 2016 they pivoted to something far less glamorous: a white-label backend that lets brands run their own buy-back and resale programs.

The first big partner was Patagonia's Worn Wear program online in 2017. In February 2020 Yerdle renamed itself Trove.

B2B SaaS with a marketplace layer. Trove charges brands a platform fee plus a revenue share on resale transactions.

Brands keep their customer data, their brand experience, and the secondhand margin — Trove handles the tech, authentication, logistics integration, and inventory processing. The model scales with partner volume, not employee headcount.

Branded resale platform. Trade-in and buyback tools.

Peer-to-peer resale and Shopify integration (from the 2024 Recurate deal). Authentication and condition grading.

White-label resale storefronts. Recommerce analytics.

Land flagship brands in each category and use them as proof points for the next. REI in outdoor, Patagonia in sustainability, Arc'teryx in premium technical gear, Lululemon in athleisure.

Each major brand win opens the next door. It has also bought its way into new corners.

In August 2024 it acquired rival Recurate, adding peer-to-peer trade-ins and plug-ins for Shopify brands, and in April 2025 it did a deal with Reverse.supply.

Convincing brand executives that secondhand will grow their business rather than cannibalize new product sales. The data says resale brings back lapsed customers and introduces new ones, but the internal politics at major brands are slow.

Sales cycles are 12-18 months and require buy-in from ecommerce, sustainability, and finance teams simultaneously.

G2 Venture Partners led a $77.5 million Series D in August 2021, with Bank of Montreal, Capital One Ventures, Commerce Ventures, Wellington Management and all of Trove's existing board investors. That took total funding to $122.5 million.

Before that, as Yerdle, it raised a $20 million Series C in 2019 and smaller early rounds. Prelude Ventures and other sustainability-focused funds are among the long-time backers.