A $30 million investment in a marketplace for surplus beauty products points to growing investor interest in one of fashion and luxury’s longstanding challenges: how to recover value from unsold merchandise without undermining pricing and distribution strategies. Highstock, an AI-powered business-to-business marketplace, raised the funding in a Series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), with plans to expand from beauty into apparel.
The investment comes as fashion companies face pressure to manage excess inventory more efficiently and European regulations restrict the destruction of certain unsold products.
The Business of Excess Inventory
Founded by former Instacart executive Camille van Horne, Highstock connects brands holding excess inventory with vetted wholesale buyers, including international retailers and sellers operating through platforms like Whatnot and TikTok Live. The 2-year old company says that its technology helps match merchandise with buyers, offering brands a means of moving products outside their primary retail channels.
According to figures disclosed in September, Highstock had more than $1 billion in inventory listed on its platform and worked with over 100 brands. Approximately 60 percent of transaction volume came from companies generating more than $500 million in annual revenue. Its beauty clients have included Laura Geller, Bliss, and Versed.
Highstock now plans to enter apparel, where seasonal collections and changing consumer demand contribute to recurring inventory surpluses. Van Horne estimates that the apparel liquidation market is five times the size of its beauty counterpart.
For fashion and luxury companies, the challenge extends beyond recovering the cost of unsold merchandise. Selling products through secondary channels can limit brands’ control over how and where their goods are marketed and sold, potentially chipping away at pricing power, complicating relationships with authorized retailers, and affecting brand image. Highstock’s model seeks to address those concerns by connecting brands with selected buyers, including those operating outside their primary markets.
However, brands’ ability to control subsequent distribution remains subject to practical and legal limits. Trademark exhaustion and first-sale principles generally restrict efforts to prevent the resale of genuine goods, although the applicable rules and exceptions vary by jurisdiction.
Regulation Changes the Economics
Highstock’s expansion also comes as the EU restricts a practice that luxury companies have historically used to manage unwanted inventory: product destruction. Under Article 25 of the EU’s Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation, the destruction of specified categories of unsold apparel, clothing accessories, and footwear has been prohibited for large enterprises since July 19, 2026. The prohibition is scheduled to extend to medium-sized enterprises in July 2030, subject to applicable exceptions.
The regulation also imposes separate disclosure obligations concerning discarded unsold consumer products. Importantly, while genuine exports for resale remain permissible, the regulation includes provisions intended to prevent companies from circumventing the destruction ban through third parties. These requirements create additional incentives for fashion companies to find commercially viable outlets for excess merchandise. Marketplaces such as Highstock could offer one option, although individual transactions must still comply with applicable regulatory requirements.
For a16z, the investment reflects an opportunity to use AI and marketplace technology to improve the economics of surplus-inventory distribution. For fashion and luxury companies, the underlying calculation is changing as restrictions on destruction make alternative channels more relevant.
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