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)
Series A
2025-05 $25MSource: Read source · palmstreet.app
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
Market / IPO context
Editorial / static context — not a live quote.
Related funding articles
Venture Capital Tracker pieces that cover Palmstreet's financing or category context.
FAQs about Palmstreet
Practical answers founders, operators, and investors typically search for.
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Editorial note: AI tools assisted with research, structure, or drafting. Venture Capital Tracker retains human editorial responsibility for factual accuracy, relevance, and source quality before publication.