Fast fashion e-commerce Shein valued at £76.5 billion after investment

The Chinese fast-fashion retailer Shein has a confirmed valuation of £76.5 billion ($100 billion) following a successful investment round.

The new valuation surpasses the combined value of outstanding market capitalisation of the two biggest apparel retailers in the world - Inditex (£52 billion) and H&M (£15 billion).

The new valuation shows the retailer's rapid growth compared to just two years ago when it was valued at £11.5 billion. The valuation follows Shein raising between £765 million and £1.5 billion from investors including General Atlantic, Tiger Global Management and Sequoia Capital China.

Earlier this week Bloomberg revealed that Shein was aiming for an evaluation of £76 billion ($100 billion). The report added that with this valuation Shein would become the third most valuable startup globally, behind ByteDance and SpaceX.

Even before its new investment the Chinese fast-fashion company had been rated as the world’s largest online-only fashion company by Euromonitor. It is also the biggest fast-fashion retailer in the US by sales with a 28% market share, a larger penetration than the largest retailers H&M, Inditex's Zara and Forever21, according to Earnest Research.

The brand has become a Gen Z favourite due to its rock bottom prices, with an average item price of £5.70. By using on-demand manufacturing, meaning that it keeps stock levels at about 100 units per, Shein can replenish and add new items quickly, relying on a tight-knit localised supply chain in China.

According to figures published by The Sunday Times, the business adds 6,000 products daily, with about 600,000 products available at any given day.

The business was founded in 2008 by Chris Xu, who leveraged his background in search optimisation to launch Shein.

The company has been called out before for its unethical labour practices, with reports of workers in its supply chain working 75-hour weeks, and a number of designers and artists have claimed the company had copied its designs.