Linkshops, Korea's fashion unicorn, folded to Chinese wholesale apps

Linkshops was founded in 2015 as a B2B online marketplace connecting Seoul's Dongdaemun and Namdaemun fashion wholesale districts with independent fashion retailers across Korea. The platform modeled itself after successful wholesale-to-retail marketplaces in other sectors, reasoning that geographic clustering and established margins made the fashion wholesale sector defensible. By 2024, the company had raised 15.4 billion won ($11.4 million) in venture funding, including backing from US VC firm Altos Ventures Management Inc., and was touted as a future unicorn candidate.

The business worked for nine years. Retailers used Linkshops to browse hundreds of Korean fashion brands and wholesalers directly, reducing friction and improving price discovery compared to offline wholesale meetings. The company took a percentage of each transaction—typical for marketplace models. Dongdaemun merchants had built relationships on the platform and depended on consistent buyer traffic.

In late March 2024, Linkshops filed for rehabilitation proceedings with the Seoul Bankruptcy Court and ceased operations. The company's founders stated candidly that they had 'no time to find new investors or sell its business' once the collapse began. Korean venture funding for e-commerce had already contracted by 90% over two years, but the decisive factor was not capital scarcity—it was structural obsolescence.