Sophia Amoruso Net Worth 2024: Nasty Gal’s Girlboss Has $25 Million Left

Sophia Amoruso is an incredibly successful American businesswoman, investor, and author who is best known for founding the women’s fashion retailer Nasty Gal. Even though the company eventually went bankrupt, its initial success helped Amoruso bank a ton of wealth and she was even featured on multiple ‘rich lists.’ In 2016, her net worth peaked at $260 million.

However, Sophia Amoruso’s net worth is only around $25 million in 2024.

Let’s explore her career, net worth, and life story to see what we can learn from the fashion designer and serial entrepreneur who has one of the most incredible rags-to-riches stories.

Sophia Amoruso Net Worth Breakdown

Since Amoruso’s wealth is held privately and not through a publicly traded company, calculating her exact net worth is impossible.

However, we have been able to collect plenty of public information surrounding her various sources of income, investments, assets, and business ventures to build a holistic estimate of her fortune which has whipsawed back and forth over the years.

5 Fun Facts About Sophia Amoruso

1. First Sale: The first item she sold on eBay was a stolen book.
2. Girlboss Radio: Hosts a popular podcast where she interviews successful women.
3. Netflix Series: Her life inspired the Netflix series Girlboss.
4. Thrift Store Shopper: Discovered her love for vintage clothing by shopping at thrift stores.
5. Tattoo: Has a tattoo that says “I trust my struggle.” 

Latest News & Controversies

1. New Venture: Trust Fund VC In 2024, Sophia Amoruso transitioned into venture capital, launching Trust Fund, a pre-seed and seed stage venture fund focused on tech-enabled products and business development tools. This marks a significant pivot in her career from fashion to finance, signaling a fresh start after her previous ventures like Nasty Gal and Girlboss Media. Despite her setbacks, Amoruso is now making a name for herself in the VC world, with investments in startups such as Theragun and AI-driven companies​.
2. Post-Nasty Gal Reflection Sophia has often reflected on the difficulties of scaling Nasty Gal, particularly the leadership challenges and the “toxic work culture” that contributed to the brand’s bankruptcy in 2017. She has since shared valuable lessons from her experience, advising aspiring entrepreneurs to gain more management experience before launching ventures​.
3. “Girlboss Reckoning” & Media Sale In 2019, Amoruso sold her Girlboss Media company amid what the media dubbed the “Girlboss Reckoning,” as many women critiqued the Girlboss movement for promoting a narrow vision of feminism tied to capitalism. This led to the dismantling of her brand as she moved towards personal reinvention​.

Early Life of the Fashion Mogul

Sophia Amoruso was born on April 20, 1984, in San Diego, California, and is of Greek, Portuguese, and Italian lineage. After getting diagnosed with depression and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), she dropped out of school and opted for homeschooling.

My So-Called Childhood #tbt https://t.co/Q97ukrxtWW pic.twitter.com/dnqVjBzK2g

— Sophia Amoruso 3.0 (@sophiaamoruso) December 4, 2015

She picked up odd jobs including at a bookstore, a Subway restaurant, and a record shop. Her parents didn’t get along, and she always wanted to move out of the house. The opportunity came when her parents divorced and she subsequently moved to Sacramento, California.

Back then, Amoruso didn’t have a steady stream of income and she relied on stealing and dumpster diving to meet ends.

However, after getting caught shoplifting she decided to stop stealing for good. Amoruso soon discovered that she had a hernia and moved to San Francisco where she worked at the Academy of Art University as a security guard – aiming to save money for her hernia surgery.

Sophia Amoruso’s Net Worth: The Founding of Nasty Gal Vintage

While working at the university, Amoruso opened the Nasty Gal Vintage store on eBay, named after the 1975 album by funk singer Betty Davis.

The store sold used vintage clothing along with other items and the first product to be sold was a book that she stole as a teenager.

When Amoruso opened Nasty Gal Vintage in her bedroom, she only intended to make some extra money to supplement her income. However, the store became an instant hit. Amoruso said in an interview with USA Today:

In a few years, we went from $250,000 to $1.1 million to $6.5 million to $30 million in revenue. I had never even worked in an office before, but I followed my nose and built a really big business

Nasty Gal received a $49 million investment from Index Ventures in 2012. Amid the brand’s soaring popularity, Amoruso became a sensation and the New York Times labeled her the “Cinderella of tech”.

According to Forbes estimates, the company’s annual revenues peaked at $300 million in 2015, compared to a mere $10 million in 2010. The ecommerce sector was seeing stellar growth, especially during that decade, but Nasty Gal’s growth was still way higher than the industry average. The same year, it led the Internet Retailer’s list of 500 top ecommerce performers with a five-year CAGR growth of 92.4%.

Here, she discusses how she reached these business heights with fellow entrepreneur, Steven Bartlett:

“I had lots of crappy dead-end jobs before I started my eBay store.

I literally tried selling seashells on our street corner as a kid, I had a newspaper route… that kinda stuff, but it was only when I started my eBay store that I started to recognize that I had a talent for marketing, and for business,” said Amoruso in an interview with Thought Economics.

Amoruso opened her own retail website after eBay banned her for posting hyperlinks in customer feedback. Her website also saw good initial traction and was popular among young women.

Sophia Amoruso’s net worth spiked to as high of $280 million amid soaring sales – and by extension the valuation of Nasty Gal. She was featured on America’s Richest Self-Made Women list and was the second youngest on the coveted list after singing sensation Taylor Swift.

While Taylor Swift has since become a billionaire – and Beyonce is almost one despite her worth being below that of Sophia Amoruso in 2015 – Amoruso’s net worth plummeted as Nasty Gal went bankrupt.

Nasty Gal’s Bankruptcy

Nasty Gal was growing fast which prompted Amoruso to launch her fashion own line. In 2015, Lululemon veteran Sheree Waterson, the chief product officer of Nasty Gal at the time, became the CEO while Amoruso became the executive chairman.

The next year, Nasty Gal filed for bankruptcy, and in its filing it blamed several issues like “strained relationship with vendors”, “liquidity issues”, and its failure to adjust the product mix for the fall in revenues which ultimately led to its failure.

A Wall Street Journal report said that hiring people with “traditional retail backgrounds clashed with the startup mentality” at Nasty Gal. The company made some expensive bets like leasing a large warehouse in Kentucky and a new Los Angeles office which drained its liquidity.

There was also widespread attrition amid the mounting troubles which didn’t make things any better for the company.

Eventually, Nasty Gal was sold to British fashion retailer Boohoo for $20 million, a huge markdown from the company’s peak valuation.

Sophia Amoruso Net Worth: Life After Nasty Gal

Amoruso moved toward other business ventures even before Nasty Gal’s failure. In 2014, she became a bestselling author with her memoir Girlboss and also started a new podcast named Girlboss Radio. The first guest on her podcast was none other than actress Charlize Theron who was an executive producer of the Netflix comedy series Girlboss which was based on Amoruso’s life.

Amoruso was a contributing editor at Marie Clarie between August 2015 to May 2017. In 2016, Amoruso published her next book Nasty Galaxy.

In December 2017, she founded Girlboss Media which publishes editorial content. According to the company’s website, “Girlboss is a community of strong, curious, and ambitious women redefining success on our own terms. We are here to inform, entertain, and inspire action through the content and experiences we create. We are unapologetic in our beliefs and values of supporting girls and women who are chasing dreams both big and small.”

In 2020, she resigned as the CEO of Girlboss and started focusing on other business ideas.

She’s invested in several startups, including Passport, Blueland, Taika, Base, and Ceremonia.

In July 2020, she founded Business Class, a membership-based digital entrepreneurship community and course that targets founders, freelancers, and creators. The company’s membership base currently stands at 3,000.

In December 2022, she founded her venture capital firm Trust Fund with a target capital of $1 million.

The company invests in early-stage tech companies and is looking to invest in lower ticket sizes. Here are some of the investments that the VC fund has made.

• Browse AI
• AI.Fashion
• Packsmith
• Toothio
• BinStar
• Baton Market

@sophiaamoruso

Starting a venture fund is no joke. In the spirit of transparency, I’m sharing my most recent investor update with you to share a bit about what I’ve done so far, including making three investments into @Plot, Baton Market, and GiftShop (!) Click my 🔗 in bio to check out the full update! #venturefund #venturecapital #womeninVC #venturecapitalist #trustfund #trustfundvc #sophiaamoruso #nastygal #girlboss #losangeles #womeninfinance

♬ original sound – sophia amoruso

Sophia Amoruso Net Worth: Stock and Cryptocurrency Investments

In a LinkedIn post a few years back, Amoruso admitted that she was a novice when it comes to investing in stocks. She however said that Public.com, a company that she invested in, made her stock investment journey a lot easier. There is not much in the public domain about her cryptocurrency investments though.

What Can We Learn from Sophia Amoruso’s Life?

There is a lot we can learn from Sophia Amoruso’s life, starting with her resilience.

As she said in the interview with Thought Economics, “When you keep moving, the wind moves behind you, and you leave behind who you once were and move towards something new. Resilience for me has also been rooted in necessity.”

She built a multi-million dollar business in her bedroom while suffering from a hernia, a famously painful injury, and working as a security guard at the same time.

From a troubled life as a teenager where she even resorted to stealing, Amoruso went on to become a celebrated entrepreneur and a best-selling author.

We see a similar determination in many other celebrities who overcame all odds to become successful. What’s common among the most is their resilience and determination which helped them become successful.

In a Forbes interview, she had the following 3 tips for entrepreneurs:

• She advised not starting the entrepreneurial journey unless “you’re not ready to work all day, every day, for the foreseeable future.”
• She added that while things don’t get easier with time, you do get smarter with experience.
• She also advised to respect everyone and learn from others.