Fleek has bagged $25 million in Series B funding. Bringing the total amount raised to date to £45 million, the cash will be used to accelerate development of its AI native marketplace, expand its engineering teams, scale its technology platform and grow its global buyer and supplier network.

The investment was led by Burda Principal Investments, an early Vinted backer and lead investor in its Series C round, with participation from eBay, FJ Labs, and H14, alongside existing backers including Andreessen Horowitz, HV Capital, Y Combinator.

Founded in 2021 by Abhi Arora and Sanket Agarwal, Fleek is building an infrastructure for the global secondhand clothing industry through a B2B marketplace and the AI systems digitising the supply chain behind it.

At the centre of the platform is Fleek Sort, a custom vision language model trained on millions of secondhand marketplace transactions from Fleek’s global network over the past four years. Used by graders in sorting hubs in Pakistan, India and Dubai, and in pilots launching in the UK, Europe and the US, this helps identify, categorise, grade and merchandise secondhand garments using photographs or videos, turning a historically manual process into a digital workflow. As more inventory is graded, listed and sold through the platform, Fleek Sort continuously learns from real-world outcomes.

Once processed, inventory is automatically listed on Fleek's marketplace, where AI powered pricing, search, recommendation and matching systems connect stock with relevant buyers around the world. Every transaction generates additional data that improves the platform's understanding of secondhand inventory, creating a proprietary intelligence layer for the industry. Through this, Fleek helps suppliers increase recovery rates, enables buyers to source inventory more efficiently and reduces the volume of wasted clothing.

Its platform currently connects 2,000+ verified wholesale suppliers and graders with 50,000+ retailers, resellers and boutiques across 100+ countries.

Abhi Arora, Co-founder and CEO at Fleek, says: "Most people have no idea what happens to a piece of clothing after they part with it. It travels thousands of miles, gets sorted by hand in a warehouse in Karachi, and finds its way back to a vintage shop in London or New York, if it's lucky. We started Fleek because that system is broken, the market it serves is exploding, and nobody is building the technology and infrastructure to fix it."

Sanket Agarwal, Co-founder and CTO at Fleek, says: "There's more data locked inside the global secondhand supply chain than almost any other market, yet historically very little of it has been captured. We've built the world's first AI trained specifically to understand secondhand inventory - what it is, what it's worth, who wants it and where demand exists. Every transaction improves that understanding, creating an intelligence layer we believe will become critical infrastructure for the future of the industry."

Julian von Eckartsberg, Managing Director Europe at Burda Principal Investments, says: "We backed Vinted when secondhand fashion was still considered niche. We know what it takes to build a platform that scales in this market. From its growing supplier network to the technology behind it, Fleek is building the infrastructure the next generation of fashion will rely on."

2026 RTIH Innovation Awards

AI will be a key focus area at the 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards.

The awards are now open for entries and celebrate global retail technology innovation in a fast moving omnichannel world.

Our winners will be revealed at the 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards Ceremony, taking place at The HAC in Central London on Wednesday, 4th November.

Check out our 2025 winners here.

Our 2025 hall of fame entrants were revealed during a sold out event which took place at The HAC on 16th October and consisted of a drinks reception, three course meal, and awards ceremony presided over by award winning comedian, actress and writer Tiff Stevenson.

In his welcome speech, Scott Thompson, Founder and Editor, RTIH, said: “This is the awards’ fifth year as a physical event. We started off with just 30 people at the South Place Hotel not far from here, then moved to London Bridge Hotel, then The Barbican, and last year RIBA’s HQ in the West End.”

“But I’m conscious of the fact that, to quote the legend that is Taylor Swift, You’re only as hot as your last hit, baby. So, this year we’ve moved to our biggest venue yet, and also pulled in our largest number of entries to date and broken attendance records.”

He added: “This year’s submissions have without doubt been our best yet. To quote one of the judges: The examples of innovative developments across both traditional and digital retail spaces were truly remarkable.”

Congratulations to our winners, and a big thank you to our sponsors, judging panel, the legend that is Tiff Stevenson, and all those who attended our 2025 gathering.