Startup profile · funding coverage
Palmstreet funding, valuation and investors
Live-shopping marketplace for rare plants, crafts, and collector goods.
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Funding, valuation & investors
Answer-first snapshotLatest funding
Series A
$25M · May 2025
Latest known valuation
Not publicly disclosed
Total disclosed equity funding
$25M
Excludes debt, grants, acquisitions, secondaries, and IPO proceeds.
Current status
private
series a · Menlo Park, CA
Investors in latest funding
Other: Andreessen Horowitz , Craft Ventures , Headline
Overview
Palmstreet is a mobile live-shopping marketplace where sellers stream and sell rare plants, handmade crafts, crystals, collectibles, and other niche goods. Founded in 2020 by ex-Instagram and Apple engineer Chen Li as Plant Story — a no-sign-up plant identification app — the product evolved into a trusted peer marketplace and rebranded to Palmstreet in April 2024. In May 2025 the company announced $25 million in total funding co-led by Andreessen Horowitz, Craft Ventures, and Headline. The platform lists 1M+ marketplace items and hosts live shows where buyers interact with sellers in real time.
Why Palmstreet is interesting
Chen Li pivoted a pandemic plant-ID app into niche live commerce; a16z, Craft, and Headline backed $25M in May 2025 as categories expanded beyond plants.
Product & use cases
Mobile live-shopping app with marketplace listings, live streams, and purge-style sales events for niche collectors and artisan sellers.
- Live plant and rare-collectible sales to enthusiast buyers
- Handmade goods and artisan live commerce
- Community-driven collector marketplaces beyond general merchandise
Key facts
- a16z portfolio status: Active
- Funding (May 2025): $25M total from a16z, Craft Ventures, and Headline (Palmstreet blog / Wilson Sonsini)
- Founded 2020 as Plant Story plant-ID app; rebranded Palmstreet April 2024; surpassed 3M orders by August 2025 (PRNewswire)
- Categories expanded from rare plants to crystals, reptiles, coins, fashion, and handmade goods
Funding history (newest first)
Investors in our directory
Funds linked from Palmstreet's profile — open a fund page for stage focus and related deal articles.
Competitive landscape
Edge: Category depth in plants and crafts builds tighter seller-buyer trust than generalist live shopping — sellers show exact items on camera.
Palmstreet competes with Whatnot for collector live commerce but narrows to plants, crafts, and lifestyle niches where community trust matters. Its origin as a plant-ID app gave it a dense enthusiast base before expanding categories.
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Whatnot direct
Live shopping for collectibles; broader categories and larger scale.
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Popshop Live adjacent
Creator live selling; less focused on collector niches.
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Etsy incumbent
Async handmade marketplace; not live-native.
Notable stories
- CEO Chen Li built Plant Story in 2020 so his daughter could identify plants on walks — no sign-up walls, just point-and-identify — and the app hit $1M ARR in under six months before pivoting to live selling (Consumer Startups / PRNewswire).
- Early live sales started when an employee streamed rare plants on Instagram Live with Stripe checkout links; Chen Li later onboarded sellers by buying their inventory first, then inviting them onto Palmstreet (Consumer Startups).
Industries
Related funding articles
Venture Capital Tracker pieces that cover Palmstreet's financing or category context.
FAQs about Palmstreet
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