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 · 2012–2024

The key moments, with employee sentiment along the way.

2012

Founded in San Francisco

Roth Martin and Stephen Hawthornthwaite set out to knit women's flats from recycled plastic bottles.

Wikipedia

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

DTC winter

Sector multiples compress as the direct-to-consumer boom deflates; estimates mark Rothy's down by roughly two-thirds.

CNBC

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 Hawthornthwaite
co-founder & former CEO
Still there — Co-Founder, Chairman, Board of DirectorsLinkedIn ↗
Roth Martin
co-founder & chief creative officer
Still there — Co-Founder and Chief Creative OfficerLinkedIn ↗

Current roles as self-reported on LinkedIn, retrieved 2026-08-19. See our methodology.

Disclosed investors (8)

Historical funding participation; lists may be incomplete and do not establish current ownership or investor losses.

* Lead in a funding round · Crunchbase ↗ · 2026-10-13 · Methodology · Leaderboard