Estonian secondhand fashion marketplace Yaga has raised €4 million in a pre-Series A round as it achieves a rare milestone in the African e-commerce landscape: profitability.
The Tallinn-based company, which has become the dominant fashion resale platform in South Africa, is now targeting expansion into the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The move comes as a wave of high-profile, heavily-funded fashion startups across North Africa have collapsed, highlighting the difficulty of the market Yaga is entering.
The new funding brings Yaga’s total raised to €7.2 million. The round was led by Specialist VC, with participation from H&M Group, Trind Ventures, and StartupWiseguys.
Yaga’s success stands in sharp contrast to the region’s broader fashion-tech scene. While many venture-backed competitors burned millions on high-growth, high-loss models, Yaga has quietly built a profitable business. The company reports a €50 million+ GMV run rate and has achieved profitability with a lean 25-person team and just €3.2 million in prior funding.
The Yaga Model: Capital Efficiency
Founded in 2017, Yaga operates a social e-commerce model focused on making peer-to-peer resale simple and safe. The platform, which draws over 12 million visits monthly, offers an escrow-based payment system and localised logistics. Items are typically 50–80% cheaper than new.
“Secondhand fashion is no longer a niche — it’s becoming the first choice for millions of people who want both affordability and sustainability,” said Aune Aunapuu, CEO and Founder of Yaga.
To date, sellers on the platform have earned more than €80 million, and over 6 million items have been sold. Yaga’s growth in South Africa has been its primary proof point.
“Our growth in South Africa proves that this is a global movement, not limited to Europe or the US,” Aunapuu added.
This traction and capital efficiency caught the eye of investors like H&M Group.
“We strongly believe in the team behind Yaga, which has clearly shown capabilities to scale its marketplace for preloved fashion,” said Nanna Andersen, Managing Director of H&M Group’s New Growth & Ventures. “Their presence on the African continent is also a strong complement to H&M Group’s existing secondhand initiatives.”
A Graveyard of African Fashion Tech
Yaga’s planned expansion into MENA is a bold move, given the recent history of the region’s fashion startup scene. Between 2020 and 2022, venture capital flowed into North African fashion tech, but the boom has been followed by a decisive bust.
The poster child for this collapse is The Fashion Kingdom (TFK). In 2022, the Egyptian e-commerce marketplace announced a $2.6 million seed round led by CVentures and A15, acquiring D2C brand OPIO to build a regional powerhouse. Today, both TFK and OPIO are defunct, their websites offline.
This is indicative of a larger trend:
- La Reina (Egypt): A couture rental pioneer that raised $1 million from Algebra Ventures and 500 Startups, La Reina ceased operations by June 2022.
- Brantu (Egypt): A mobile-first marketplace that raised over $3.2 million from investors including Sawari Ventures, Brantu quietly shut down last year.
- Nessiam (Morocco): This inclusive lingerie startup secured $306,000 in 2022 to expand across MENA. Three years after its launch, it is no more.
These companies, which focused on new apparel, brand marketplaces, or high-end rentals, failed to find a sustainable model. Yaga is betting its lean, P2P secondhand model can succeed where others burned out.
The Booming Secondhand Shift
Yaga’s funding also reflects a wider European investment pattern. Investor attention appears to be spreading from luxury-focused recommerce platforms to the tools and marketplaces supporting mainstream secondhand adoption.
In France, Faume secured €8 million in April 2025 to expand its brand-partner resale platform. Meanwhile, Austria-based Minimist raised €350k in January 2025 to develop machine-learning software for secondhand sellers.
While the global secondhand apparel market is forecast to reach $367 billion by 2029, Yaga’s story suggests that the key to unlocking it, particularly in emerging markets, may lie in capital efficiency and a P2P focus rather than high-cost, inventory-heavy models.