Simon Beckerman The Visionary Behind Depop’s Fashion Revolution
Introduction: The Creative Mind Behind a Fashion Empire
Simon Beckerman stands as one of the most influential figures in modern fashion technology. This Italian-born entrepreneur transformed the way young people buy and sell vintage clothing, creating a platform that would eventually be valued at over $1.6 billion. His journey from underground magazine publisher to tech innovator illustrates how creative vision combined with entrepreneurial spirit can reshape entire industries.
Before becoming known as the Depop founder, Beckerman studied industrial design at the Polytechnic University of Milan. However, traditional education didn’t suit his creative temperament, and he dropped out during his first semester. This early decision to forge his own path would become a defining characteristic of his entrepreneurial journey. He spent his early career working as a DJ, immersing himself in the underground creative scenes that would later inspire his business ventures.
About twelve years before Depop’s mainstream success, Beckerman relocated to East London specifically to raise funding for his ambitious marketplace concept. This move placed him at the heart of a vibrant creative community that perfectly aligned with his vision for democratizing fashion.
Early Ventures: Building the Foundation
PIG Magazine: Cultivating Creative Communities
In the 1990s, Simon Beckerman co-founded PIG magazine, a fashion publication dedicated to discovering and showcasing emerging artists. This wasn’t a typical glossy fashion magazine aimed at mass audiences. Instead, PIG focused on underground creative communities that mainstream publications largely ignored.
The magazine was distributed monthly as a free publication, with approximately 3,000 copies reaching readers who were hungry for content about fashion, design, music, and alternative lifestyle. What made PIG unique was its approach to content curation—Beckerman sourced material from the internet, which was still relatively novel in the 1990s, featuring artists and designers who represented the avant-garde edge of creative culture.
Looking back, PIG magazine laid the conceptual groundwork for what would eventually become Depop’s community-focused approach. Beckerman learned invaluable lessons about identifying niche audiences, curating content that resonated with creative communities, and building platforms where underground culture could thrive.
Eyewear Enterprise: First Steps in Fashion Retail
In 2006, Beckerman and his brother launched a glasses brand together. This venture gave him direct experience in fashion retail, manufacturing, and the challenges of building a product-based business. While this eyewear company operated on a much smaller scale than his later ventures, it provided crucial entrepreneurial experience and deepened his understanding of the fashion industry’s commercial mechanics.
The Birth of Depop: From Concept to Reality
Creating a Digital Fashion Marketplace
The story of how Depop came into existence begins in 2011 at H-Farm, an Italian tech incubator where Beckerman developed his initial concept. His original vision was relatively straightforward: create an online platform where products featured in PIG magazine could be purchased directly. However, as he refined the idea, it evolved into something far more ambitious—a digital flea market that seamlessly blended social media aesthetics with peer-to-peer commerce.
Beckerman recognized a significant gap in the online marketplace ecosystem. While platforms like eBay and Etsy served certain audiences, they didn’t cater to the creative, avant-garde communities he knew so well. Young people who valued unique vintage pieces, underground fashion, and individual style lacked a dedicated space that felt designed for them. Depop would fill that void by combining the visual appeal of Instagram with the functionality of an e-commerce platform.
Early Development and Funding
The H-Farm incubator provided crucial early financial support that allowed Beckerman to develop Depop’s initial version. In 2012, the platform received its first seed investment from Paolo Barberis and Nana Bianca, two investors who believed in the concept’s potential to disrupt fashion retail.
That same year, Depop founders made the strategic decision to relocate the company’s headquarters to London. This move positioned the startup within one of the world’s most influential fashion capitals and provided access to a broader investor network and target audience. By October 2013, the company had successfully raised €1 million from Red Circle Investment, validating the marketplace concept and funding further expansion.
Leadership Transition and Personal Crisis
Stepping Back from the CEO Role
In 2013, Simon Beckerman made the difficult decision to step down as CEO of the company he had founded. He transitioned to Depop’s board of directors while Runar Reistrup took over the chief executive position. Despite no longer holding the top operational role, Beckerman continued contributing to product development and helping shape the brand’s strategic direction.
For many founders, relinquishing control of their creation represents one of the most challenging aspects of scaling a startup. The company needs professional management to grow, yet founders often struggle with the emotional difficulty of stepping aside. For Beckerman, this transition came with significant personal costs.
Health Crisis and Stepping Away
Approximately one year after leaving the CEO position, Beckerman experienced a severe health crisis directly linked to the stress of losing operational control over Depop. He developed serious gastritis caused by panic and anxiety, a physical manifestation of the psychological toll entrepreneurship can exact. The condition became so severe that he genuinely thought he might die.
This crisis forced Beckerman to take a year-long break from his board responsibilities entirely. He needed to step away from the company he had built to recover both physically and mentally. This period illustrates an often-overlooked reality of entrepreneurship—the immense personal sacrifice and health impacts that founders endure, particularly when their identity becomes deeply intertwined with their company’s success.
Maria Raga and the Return
In 2016, Maria Raga, who had joined Depop’s leadership team, played a pivotal role in bringing the founder back into active involvement with the company. She recognized that Beckerman’s unique vision and understanding of the brand’s core values remained invaluable assets. Raga brought him back specifically to help articulate Depop’s brand identity and strategic vision.
This return marked a healthier chapter in Beckerman’s relationship with his creation. Rather than bearing the operational pressures of running the company day-to-day, he could focus on the creative and strategic elements where his insights proved most valuable. The collaboration with Maria Raga and the broader leadership team allowed Depop to maintain its authentic connection to underground creative culture while scaling into a major platform.
Depop’s Explosive Growth
Revolutionizing Social Commerce
Depop pioneered what many described as “Instagram meets eBay”—a social commerce model that felt native to how young people already used their phones. Unlike traditional online marketplaces that felt transactional and impersonal, Depop created an experience centered on visual discovery, personal style expression, and community building.
The platform attracted primarily Gen-Z users, with approximately 90% of its user base under age 26 as of 2019. These young consumers didn’t just want to buy products; they wanted to discover unique pieces, follow sellers whose style they admired, and participate in a community that valued sustainability, entrepreneurship, and creative self-expression.
By 2024, the platform had grown to serve over 35 million users worldwide, establishing itself as one of the dominant forces in the resale fashion economy. Depop had successfully tapped into multiple cultural trends simultaneously: the shift toward sustainable consumption, Gen-Z’s preference for vintage and unique clothing over fast fashion, and the desire for social shopping experiences.
Funding Milestones and Expansion
Depop’s growth trajectory attracted significant venture capital investment. In 2015, the company secured $8 million in funding from Balderton Capital and HV Capital, providing resources to expand its technology infrastructure and marketing efforts.
The real breakthrough came in 2019 when Depop raised $62 million in a Series C funding round led by General Atlantic. This substantial investment validated the platform’s business model and provided capital for aggressive expansion. The company opened offices in Milan and New York City, establishing physical presences in key fashion markets beyond its London headquarters.
By 2020, Depop had reached $650 million in gross merchandise sales, demonstrating not just user growth but genuine commercial viability. The platform had proven it could generate substantial transaction volume while maintaining the authentic community feel that made it special.
The Etsy Acquisition: Who Owns Depop Today?
The question of “who owns Depop” changed dramatically in 2021 when Etsy acquired the platform for $1.6 billion in cash. This acquisition represented Etsy’s most expensive purchase in its history and signaled major e-commerce players’ recognition of the resale fashion market’s importance.
The deal structure allowed Depop to continue operating as a standalone brand with its existing team and London headquarters intact. This arrangement proved crucial for maintaining the platform’s authentic identity and cultural credibility with its young user base, who might have been alienated by heavy-handed integration into a larger corporate entity.
For Simon Beckerman, the acquisition represented the culmination of a decade-long journey from concept to billion-dollar exit. While specific details about Simon Beckerman net worth following the sale haven’t been publicly disclosed, as a founder with significant equity, the Etsy acquisition undoubtedly transformed his financial situation dramatically.
Philosophy and Vision: What Made Depop Different
Community-First Values
What distinguished Depop from competitors wasn’t just its technology or user interface—it was the founding philosophy that Simon Beckerman embedded into the company’s DNA. He built Depop around the principle of empowering creative, underground communities that mainstream platforms overlooked or underserved.
Making vintage fashion accessible and “cool” became central to Depop’s mission. Before the platform’s rise, thrift shopping and vintage clothing carried certain stigmas or seemed accessible only to those with insider knowledge. Depop democratized vintage fashion, making it aspirational and culturally relevant for an entire generation.
Sustainability wasn’t treated as an optional add-on or marketing angle but as an essential core value. By facilitating peer-to-peer resale, every transaction on Depop represented clothing kept out of landfills and reduced demand for new production. This alignment with Gen-Z’s environmental consciousness proved both authentic and commercially smart.
Building Authentic Culture
The Depop founders understood that maintaining authentic culture required more than just mission statements—it required embedding those values into daily operations. The company encouraged internal content creation and storytelling, ensuring team members understood the platform from a user’s perspective.
Team participation wasn’t passive; employees were encouraged to use the platform as both buyers and sellers themselves. This firsthand experience kept the company connected to the actual user experience and potential friction points. Additionally, Depop made a point of hiring from within its user community, bringing “super-sellers” who had succeeded on the platform into the company itself.
Beyond Depop: The Delli Venture
Applying Lessons to Food
In 2021, fresh from the successful Depop exit, Simon Beckerman founded Delli, a new venture applying similar marketplace principles to artisan foods. He had noticed the same trend in independent food production that he’d previously observed in fashion—talented producers creating exceptional products but struggling to reach consumers beyond their immediate locality.
Delli became a marketplace for oils, sauces, snacks, drinks, and other specialty food items produced by independent makers. The business model echoed Depop’s approach: connecting producers directly with consumers who valued quality, authenticity, and supporting independent creators. However, Delli operated on a warehouse model, housing products without purchasing inventory outright.
Learning from Experience
The Depop founder’s approach to his second major venture reflected hard-won lessons from his first. Rather than repeating his earlier pattern, Beckerman planned for CEO succession intentionally from Delli’s inception. The incoming CEO, Petrovicka, was involved from the start, avoiding the painful transition that had caused health issues during his Depop experience.
The financial security from Depop’s successful exit also changed the pressure dynamics. Beckerman no longer carried the burden of providing for his family or proving himself as an entrepreneur. This freedom allowed him to build Delli more strategically, focusing on sustainable growth rather than desperate survival.
The Personal Cost of Innovation
Financial Struggles Before Success
Understanding Simon Beckerman’s journey requires acknowledging his financial reality before Depop’s success. He had never maintained consistent income before founding the platform. This precarity wasn’t romantic or exciting—it created genuine anxiety about his ability to provide for his family.
He started Depop partly to solve his family’s economic problems, a motivation that added enormous psychological pressure to the venture’s success. Beckerman has described himself as “unemployable,” not because he lacks talent but because he genuinely cannot work within traditional employment structures. For someone with this disposition, entrepreneurship isn’t just a career choice—it’s a necessity, but one that comes without the safety net of steady paychecks or benefits.
The success of Depop fundamentally changed his relationship with financial security. He no longer harbored fears about “ending up under a bridge,” as he had previously worried. This transformation illustrates how entrepreneurial success isn’t just measured in company valuations but in the personal freedom and security it provides founders.
Balancing Drive with Well-being
Even after achieving success, Simon Beckerman continues wrestling with the challenges inherent to entrepreneurial personality types. He constantly generates multiple business ideas, each seeming urgent and worthy of pursuit. His wife plays a crucial grounding role, encouraging him to focus on Delli rather than fragmenting his attention across numerous projects.
Beckerman acknowledges his tendency to become overly involved in projects, often to the detriment of his well-being. The health crisis he experienced during his Depop transition taught him that sustainable entrepreneurship requires boundaries and balance. It’s an ongoing challenge—learning to channel entrepreneurial drive without sacrificing physical and mental health.
Legacy: Transforming Fashion and Commerce
Disrupting the Fashion Industry
The Depop founder’s impact on fashion extends far beyond creating a successful company. The platform democratized vintage fashion markets, making previously inaccessible or intimidating spaces welcoming to young people exploring their personal style. What was once niche became mainstream, with Depop serving as both marketplace and cultural tastemaker.
The platform generated valuable trend data that fashion forecasters and brands began monitoring closely. By analyzing what sold well on Depop, industry professionals could identify emerging style trends months before they reached mainstream retail. This shifted some power dynamics in fashion, allowing grassroots consumer preferences to influence rather than simply respond to designer directions.
Most significantly, Depop founders influenced Gen-Z shopping behaviors around sustainability. By making secondhand shopping aspirational rather than stigmatized, the platform contributed to broader cultural shifts away from fast fashion’s disposability culture. Resale shopping became not just acceptable but culturally relevant and socially responsible.
A Blueprint for Social Commerce
From an entrepreneurial perspective, Simon Beckerman demonstrated the viability of community-driven commerce at massive scale. He proved that mobile-first marketplace design could capture enormous market share, particularly among younger demographics who conducted their entire digital lives through smartphones.
Successfully building and exiting a billion-dollar company established Beckerman as a model for other entrepreneurs attempting to bridge creative culture and technology. His journey showed that understanding niche communities deeply, staying authentic to core values, and scaling without losing identity wasn’t just theoretically possible—it could create enormous commercial success.
Conclusion: The Ongoing Story
Simon Beckerman’s story represents more than one successful startup. It illustrates how creative vision combined with entrepreneurial execution can identify underserved markets and build platforms that genuinely improve how people connect and transact. From PIG magazine to Depop to Delli, his ventures consistently focus on empowering independent creators and building community-first marketplaces.
The question of “who owns Depop” has a straightforward answer—Etsy—but the platform’s spirit and values remain deeply influenced by its founder’s original vision. Meanwhile, Beckerman continues pursuing new ventures that apply similar principles to different industries, suggesting his influence on commerce and community-building is far from complete.
For aspiring entrepreneurs, particularly those from creative backgrounds, his journey offers both inspiration and cautionary lessons. Success requires not just vision and execution but also attention to personal well-being, strategic stepping back when necessary, and surrounding oneself with leaders who can carry the vision forward. Simon Beckerman built something that changed fashion, but the personal cost and eventual triumph make his story resonate beyond any single industry.
For more information, visit Media Clicks.
