Happy Tuesday everyone! Sorry we’re a day later than usual. Rest assured this is by exception and we will revert back to regular programming next month. Apologies!
Now if you are like us you are probably planning that long overdue summer holiday or for parents, looking for a way to escape the kids as they are home on a six week break! Either way, hopefully our Marketplace Snippet can be a nice distraction while bringing you all the latest Marketplace insights and news. Happy reading! 📖
In this edition of our marketplace insights, we share nuggets on:
We are thrilled to announce the final close for our second fund aimed at specialist marketplaces and consumer startups, which was heavily oversubscribed at $70+ million. In addition, the fund was backed by a roster of leading marketplace founders and executives from Ankorstore and Vinted to Planetly and JustEatTakeAway, reinforcing our thesis on the platform and marketplace model. Our General Partner Mathias Ockenfels shares why we are so bullish on marketplaces here.
Shahed Khan, Co-founder of Loom tells us about the importance of structure in recruiting the right team, leveraging different channels to generate high-quality leads and prioritizing for the most critical roles at the right time of a product’s development.
Christian Hülsewig founder of our portfolio company Schüttflix, explains to our friends at OMR the challenges of going after legacy industries and how product-led growth can build reinforcing moats fending off competition. (German only)
Morning Brew Co-founder and Founders Pod host, Alex Lieberman, shares how Jeff Bezos identified the root cause of Amazon’s lackluster growth and turned that into a $54bn behemoth called AWS. The source of this success? Customer obsession!
The third in a series of blogs we are publishing on how to ace your marketplace fundraise, here are our top tips and investor insights for how to ace your Series A marketplace pitch.
Veteran Dan Rose, Chairman of Coatue reflects on his learnings gleaned from entrepreneur and long time friend Jeff Bezos. In summary, build the plane in flight: Act first, plan forensically later!
$1bn+ has been invested in rapid delivery startups since the pandemic accelerated the rise of online grocery. Gorillas, Getir, Flink, Zapp and other companies are working to build sustainable unit economics around delivery and build the next CVS.
Introducing Katch, the anti-calendar app and latest addition to the Marketplace & Consumer family. Katch enables seamless triaging of meetings on the go, prioritizing them as they come in and facilitates “adaptive” availability for serendipitous communication (goodbye 30-min blocks).
byrd, the leading digital fulfilment platform in Europe has raised a $19m Series B round - led by Mouro Capital - following the explosive growth experienced from the surge in eCommerce across the region. Speedinvest, Verve, Rider Global and VentureFriends also participated.
Raus is revolutionizing the tiny home market with its first generation of smart, sustainable cabins launching imminently. Serving as a welcome escape from the busyness of modern life, Raus’ simple cabins with a fully digitised guest experience will be close enough to the city for a spontaneous getaway but far enough away to completely unwind and disconnect from the daily urban grind.
There has been tons of activity in the marketplace ecosystem over the past month, from big seed and mega rounds to IPOs and SPAC deals. Over $2.9bn in transaction volume has occurred showing investors’ continued appetite for companies with strong network effects. Here is the updated list for the month…
We are currently hiring for a Visiting Analyst in Berlin so if you are passionate about marketplaces and consumer companies, we would love to hear from you here.
Also, our portfolio companies are always hiring exceptional talent! If you or someone you know would love to work in a fast-paced marketplace startup, check out the open jobs at our startups here.
We hope you enjoyed this issue, brought to you by Toyosi on behalf of the Speedinvest Marketplaces & Consumer team ✌🏾
Comments, questions, tips, feedback? Give us a thumbs-up or thumbs-down below, we look forward to hearing from you!
The Speedinvest Marketplaces & Consumer team invest in SaaS-enabled platforms and marketplaces and other Network Effects-driven businesses where the value of a product increases with every new user. Enabled by new technologies in areas we cannot even imagine today, the team believes these are the businesses that will continue to revolutionize the world.
