From a startup to a unicorn: The Vinted phenomenon

Kamilė Valatkaitė

Senior Legal Counsel at Vinted UAB

Kamilė, what can you tell us about Vinted?

We are a Lithuanian founded company with a growing community of millions of members in Europe and beyond. We are on a mission to make second-hand the first choice worldwide.

We operate in 20 markets and have offices in Lithuania, Germany and the Netherlands.

Today, more than 2000 people work at Vinted to help the world sell, buy, and swap second-hand wardrobe items. Our team spans countries and cultural backgrounds, just like our members.

It is so nice to see startups becoming unicorns in less than two decades. This means that the concept is real and it resonates with people! What are some of the challenges you faced?

While expanding globally at a rapid pace, we faced challenges with the operational process in some departments. It is expected that the same actions need to be performed when signing hundreds of documents but such activities become dull when performed by people.

Having offices in several countries and hiring personnel in different locations requires a robust way to handle the operations in HR, IT and Payroll. Different legislations also add to the complexity but our objective has always been streamlining operations if they are expected to be repeated.

The administrative process of forming partnerships with establishments around the globe to provide better delivery infrastructure to our members also required much administrative effort to achieve legal compliance.

When we decide to enter a new territory or take a grand initiative, we are ever more aware that we need to be able to handle the administrative burden of such activities so it reduces the time it takes with every iteration and increases the efficiency of the deliverables.

You are right! Every new business endeavor produces some level of administrative activities. These activities are important to maintain order and information consistency. How do you balance between keeping track of the processes and the efficiency of output?

We have put several systems into place that deal with the administrative burden in different departments. We work with CLM, CRM, project management systems, HR systems, communication platforms, and other platforms that make our lives easier.

Storing data in those systems is great but there’s also the need for all these systems to talk to one another, removing even more repetitive actions that waste time and only frustrate the users.

This is definitely the right way to go - the need for automation naturally arises from complexity. How did you approach solving this challenge?

We knew we needed an automation partner, someone who had experience in automating operational processes and knew what needs to be done to streamline our workday. A couple of years ago I met CoMantis’ co-founder at Legito PowerUp 2022 and they showed me what they did for an in-house legal department.

The level of automation and streamlined operations were exactly what we were looking for and we engaged with them soon after. We started with our contract lifecycle management system and soon moved over to integrating several of our unconnected systems to streamline even more.

What are some of the projects that you completed together and how did they impact the operations at Vinted?

One of the projects with the most impact was for Vinted Go – our logistics business. We were tasked with creating a network of establishments that are able to offer pick up locations for our distribution practices.

We had limited time to sign contracts with hundreds of establishments and this was impossible to be done without automation. Now we automatically pull company data, assemble contracts accurately to our templates, and send them for signing, literally with a push of a button.

Another impactful project that we completed was keeping our internal powers of attorney in order. We have many Vinted group companies and many individuals that receive permissions to act on behalf of those companies. We had to keep track of all internal documents that facilitate daily operations by providing necessary legal permissions.

The process was handled manually and it was very cumbersome. Users took days and were under immense pressure not to make mistakes as the documents were of essential nature. Now we don’t think about copy/pasting or uploading documents on eSignature platforms. With the push of a few buttons the documents get created automatically and get sent to the designated signatories without the need for additional human effort.

This sounds really amazing and we are glad you were able to overcome these difficulties with such productive outcomes. What were some of the impressions CoMantis team had on you?

They are very professional and are not afraid of taking on challenges that they have not been solved before. They take their time to understand the objective and they come up with solutions that are optimal – using our existing resources and introducing a minimal number of new apps to the tech stack.

They also provide a very clear picture of what the final solution would look like and they focus mainly on how easy it would be for the end users to perform their daily tasks. Starting from such a perspective gives them the edge to offer solutions that are low in cost and complexity, and can be implemented in a short period of time thus producing results sooner than expected.

Last but not least, they have quite extensive expertise in several industries and this multidisciplinary point of view is extremely valuable for us as we grow our operations. Having a partner that can mix and match approaches to different solutions and come up with something that eliminates the roots of the issues we face is a very valuable asset for us.

We strive to impress! Now, with streamlined processes, we guess you’re expected to do even more? What are the plans for the near future for Vinted?

At Vinted, we are actively pursuing our goal of global expansion, positioning ourselves at the forefront of an AI-driven market. This expansion naturally leads to an increase in contracts and documents that need to be managed efficiently. Our long-term vision is centered on integrating AI technology from the outset to streamline our workflows and processes. We envision the role of our lawyers as not just legal experts, but as business enablers and partners who contribute significant value through their knowledge.

Additionally, we are committed to developing technology that automates processes, allowing them to operate independently with minimal oversight. Our role, in this context, will be to continuously update and maintain the back end with the latest templates, policies, and accurate databases. By doing so, we aim to ensure our operations remain efficient, effective, and aligned with the latest legal standards.

Thank you for your kind and inspiring words, Kamilė!