FARFETCH

FARFETCH was founded in London in June 2007 by Portuguese entrepreneur Jose Neves, with a five-person team and a simple premise: give small, independent luxury boutiques a route to a global customer base through a single online platform. The marketplace model — listing inventory from hundreds of physical boutiques and department stores rather than holding its own stock — became the company's defining structure. Growth came partly through acquisition: the London boutique Browns joined the group in 2015, the sneaker resale platform Stadium Goods followed in 2018 for roughly $250 million, and the resale service Luxclusif in 2021. FARFETCH went public on the New York Stock Exchange in September 2018, an offering that raised $885 million and saw shares jump 53% on the first day of trading. That momentum reversed sharply in late 2023, when a liquidity crisis pushed the company toward collapse and led to its delisting from the NYSE. On January 31, 2024, South Korea's Coupang completed a rescue acquisition, injecting $500 million in fresh capital to keep the platform operating; Neves stepped down from leadership as part of the deal. The FARFETCH name endures today as a marketplace rather than a boutique of its own — its London address is a corporate office, not a shop.