Rothy's
Footwear/DTCUSA
New to Unitard
✂️ Markdown
Peak $1 BillionToday
~-66%
from peak
- 🦄Became a unicorn~2021
- 📈Peak valuation$1 Billion ’21
- 💔Became a Unitard~2023
- 💸Last valuation~$340M
Current status
PitchBook est. $339M (Dec 2025)
The rise & fall
5 moments · 2012–2024The key moments, with employee sentiment along the way.
2012
2012
Founded in San Francisco
Roth Martin and Stephen Hawthornthwaite set out to knit women's flats from recycled plastic bottles.
Wikipedia
2021
2021
The peak: ~$1B$1B
Havaianas owner Alpargatas pays $475M for a large stake, valuing the recycled-bottle shoemaker around $1B at the height of sustainable DTC.
Reuters
2022–23
2022–23
DTC winter
Sector multiples compress as the direct-to-consumer boom deflates; estimates mark Rothy's down by roughly two-thirds.
CNBC
2023
2023
Slips out of the club
PitchBook's model pencils the brand at about $339M (end of 2025), a third of its peak.
PitchBook
2022–24
From the inside · Glassdoor reviews, 2022–24
Glassdoor reviews from the markdown years described a company in transition: corporate staff recounted priorities and promotions reversed at the last minute, retail workers cited thin hours and low pay — yet many still praised the product and their coworkers.
💬 entries paraphrase anonymous, unverified reviews posted publicly on Glassdoor ↗; dated facts carry their source.
How it happened
Rothy's is a US direct-to-consumer footwear and accessories brand known for shoes made from recycled plastic, reaching a ~$1B valuation around 2021. As DTC valuations fell sharply, third-party estimates (PitchBook) put it at about $339M at the end of 2025 — roughly two-thirds below peak — dropping it below the unicorn threshold.
Source: PitchBook model estimate as of Dec 31, 2025 (CNBC's fallen-unicorn table, Jun 2026), not a priced round
Founders
- Stephen Hawthornthwaiteco-founder & former CEO
- Roth Martinco-founder & chief creative officer
Current roles as self-reported on LinkedIn, retrieved 2026-08-19. See our methodology.
