Tech • AI • Robotics • Game
Vinted CEO for 10 years: meeting Thomas Plantenga
5/10TL;DR
Vinted chief executive Thomas Plantenga says the company’s rise from a near-crisis in Lithuania to a European second-hand leader shows both the potential of cross-border tech in Europe and the cost of fragmented regulation.
KEY POINTS
A market leader that still sees itself as small
Vinted became the biggest online clothing seller in France by some measures, but Plantenga argued the business remains small relative to the wider apparel economy. He said about 450 billion euros of new clothing is sold in Europe each year, while Vinted handled roughly 10 billion euros in sales last year across several categories. For the company, that gap shows second-hand remains far from becoming the default consumer choice.
From five-week consultant to long-term chief executive
Plantenga, a Dutch executive who moved to Vilnius a decade ago, initially arrived for a five-week consulting mission backed by Insight Ventures. He found a technically strong founding team but a company in serious difficulty, and decided to stay after drawing up a turnaround plan. He said the combination of direct communication, complementary skills and the determination of the local team made the match work quickly.
A brutal turnaround in Lithuania
The rescue plan centered on survival: closing offices outside Lithuania, including in the United States and Paris, centralizing operations in Vilnius, and cutting about half the workforce. Plantenga described the layoffs as painful but necessary because many employees had been hired for the wrong structure rather than for poor performance. After the reorganization and a strategic reset, Vinted reached break-even in roughly 9 to 12 months.
France became the proving ground
The company’s business model was refined by concentrating for about two years almost entirely on France. Teams in Vilnius focused on lowering shipping and payment costs and improving the product based on French user behavior. Partnerships with Mondial Relay and Mangopay were central to that push, helping establish low-cost locker delivery and payments that made the marketplace more competitive.
Built in Vilnius, scaled across Europe slowly
Plantenga said one of Europe’s advantages is trust, education and relatively safe, low-corruption business environments across countries. The drawback, he said, is that every market still has different tax, payment, legal and financial requirements. That forced Vinted to expand country by country, turning what could have been a three-year continental rollout into roughly ten years.
A single European market remains incomplete
Even now, buyers cannot fully trade across all European Vinted markets because payment systems differ by country. Plantenga said the company currently relies on Mangopay and Adyen, which limits interoperability, and is building its own wallet to connect users across the continent. He argued that a more unified European financial framework would allow companies to scale faster and compete globally sooner.
The UK was not the hardest market
Despite Brexit, Plantenga said operating in the United Kingdom was not fundamentally harder than operating in EU markets because the country remained organized, safe and well developed in e-commerce and logistics. The bigger issue was uncertainty during the Brexit process, which delayed expansion planning. In his view, stable integration matters because it lowers friction for business across borders.
Capital markets are Europe’s weak point
Plantenga rejected the idea that Vinted is mainly owned by American investors, saying it has substantial European backing. Still, he said US capital markets remain larger and more efficient, pushing some European startups to incorporate in America. He called for deeper European capital markets, more bank competition in places such as Lithuania, and rules allowing pension funds to invest more effectively in European growth companies.
Patriotism should not handicap companies
On a future listing, Plantenga said Vinted would choose whichever exchange best serves the company’s needs. He argued that European businesses should pay taxes and build locally, but should not weaken themselves out of symbolism if that leaves them vulnerable to larger American rivals. For him, stronger European execution means making the region attractive enough that companies can stay and scale without sacrificing competitiveness.
Lithuania’s work ethic shaped the company
Plantenga said Lithuania’s modern history helps explain the intensity he found in Vilnius. He pointed to independence after 1991, the difficult years that followed, and a social memory of defending freedom and rebuilding institutions. That experience, he said, produced a workforce acutely aware that prosperity, democracy and business success depend on discipline, anti-corruption and sustained effort.
CONCLUSION
For Vinted, the path from crisis to scale was driven by harsh internal restructuring, deep focus on France, and years of patient expansion from Lithuania. The company’s story also underlines a broader European challenge: strong talent and demand exist, but fragmented regulation and capital markets still slow the rise of continental champions.
Ask a question