Marketplace investors
Marketplace investors back businesses that connect two sides, buyers and sellers, riders and drivers, hosts and guests, and take a share of what passes between them. The model has its own metrics and its own failure modes, and the firms that specialise in it know both.
The firms on this list name marketplaces or platforms as a focus on their own website. Each cites its own site as the source for what is written here.
Founded in 2020 by former Rocket Internet executives Alexander Kudlich and Ludwig Ensthaler, alongside Mesosphere founder Florian Leibert, 468 Capital bridges the European and US tech…
Adevinta Ventures was established as the strategic investment arm of Adevinta, a global online classifieds specialist managing household brands like Leboncoin (France), Mobile.de…
Alpha Protocol Ventures (APV) is a venture capital firm and incubator founded in 2023 and based in Athens, Greece. The firm launched with a $20 million fund to target the Web3…
Founded in 2001 by Anne Dias with initial seed capital from Tiger Management's Julian Robertson, Aragon Global Management rapidly grew into one of the largest female-led asset…
Founded by Wall Street veteran and venture capitalist Amy Nauiokas, Archer Gray operates at the intersection of storytelling, brand-building, and venture capital. The firm is…
Founded in late 2018 as a spinout from Kleiner Perkins by legendary tech analyst Mary Meeker and her growth equity team, BOND is a premier late-stage venture capital firm. The firm is…
WCM Investment Management is a high-conviction, active global equity firm based in Laguna Beach, California. They are distinctive for their philosophy that a company's corporate…
Conexo Ventures is an investment firm that backs exceptional individuals with a passion for solving hard challenges and bringing disruptive innovation to high-growth markets. The firm…
Epakon Capital is a venture firm investing in bold founders building the next generation of category-defining companies. The firm positions itself as an early backer of ambitious…
Handmade Ventures is an organization that provides executive management advice and support, including guidance on surviving crises and implementing best practices. It also helps…
HardGamma Ventures is a venture capital fund that invests in startups that focuses on computing, internet, biotechnology, and more. Early stage VC fund focused on Polish and CEE…
Human Act was founded by Djaffar Shalchi and Ané Maró, who donated personal wealth to create a self-sustaining foundation. In 2021, they launched Human Act Development to scale their…
Founded in 2018, Neventa Capital is a specialized growth capital firm that partners with proven technology companies ready to accelerate their growth trajectory and market expansion.…
New Fare is an investment fund that focuses on serving the modern eater. The company is based in New York and was founded in 2022.
Octahedron Capital is a growth-oriented technology investment firm focused on the global internet economy. The firm describes itself as a global, growth-oriented technology investment…
PADEInvest is a venture capital firm that does seed and later stage investments.
Paralect is a Venture Studio + Accelerator for early-stage startups. We developed and launched 35 products all over the world and helped them to close 40+ rounds for $20M in total.…
Princeville Capital invests in breakout-stage technology companies and helps them fulfill their global aspirations. Princeville Capital is an investment firm focused on backing…
RAA Ventures is an investment firm that makes early-stage investments in internet and mobile ventures led by extraordinary entrepreneurs with game-changing ideas. The firm positions…
Rice University is a private research university that focuses on providing undergraduate education services. The university is organized into eleven residential colleges and eight…
Science identifies entrenched markets and societal shifts and invests in disruptive companies with new ideas and highly focused teams. The company has co-founded and invested in more…
TrueSight Ventures is a venture capital firm with offices in London and Stockholm, focused on seed and early-stage investments in Europe. The firm partners with founders at the start…
Founded in 1997, Adveq is a leading asset manager investing in private equity and real asset funds globally. It offers specialized investment solutions which allow the firm’s clients…
What marketplace investors look for
Liquidity.
Whether a buyer who arrives finds a seller, and a seller finds a buyer, within a time and a distance that keeps both coming back. It is the first thing a marketplace investor checks and the reason marketplaces launch city by city.
A take rate the market will bear.
The share the marketplace keeps, and whether it is sustainable once the two sides know each other. Investors ask what stops them transacting off the platform.
Repeat on both sides.
Retention of buyers and of sellers, measured separately. A marketplace that must reacquire its supply every month is an advertising business with extra steps.
Fragmentation.
Markets with many small buyers and many small sellers are where marketplaces thrive. A market with a few dominant players on either side does not need one.
A wedge that builds the network.
How the company gets the first side to show up before the other exists. Investors want to see the sequencing and evidence that it worked in the first market.
Raising in marketplaces
Marketplace investors read gross merchandise value, take rate, net revenue, and retention by side and by cohort. A founder who arrives with those numbers, and with liquidity measured market by market, has already answered the first hour of questions.
Have ready: gross merchandise value and its growth, take rate and net revenue, buyer and seller retention by cohort, liquidity metrics such as time to match or fill rate, acquisition cost for each side, and the share of transactions that stay on the platform.
Marketplaces often need to spend to build supply before demand arrives, and investors accept that when the plan for reaching liquidity in each market is specific and the first market has proven it.
Questions
What is liquidity in a marketplace?
The likelihood that a transaction can happen: a buyer finds what they want, a seller finds a buyer, quickly enough that both return. It is measured per market, because a marketplace can have it in one city and lack it in the next.
What is a good take rate?
It depends on the value the marketplace adds and the margins of the sellers. Investors look at whether the rate is stable, and whether sellers stay at that rate once they have found their customers.
How do marketplaces prevent disintermediation?
By doing things the two sides value beyond the introduction: payments, trust, insurance, scheduling, dispute resolution. Investors ask which of those the company provides and how much of the transaction it therefore controls.
Are B2B marketplaces different?
The transaction sizes are larger, the sales cycle is longer and the buyers are more concentrated. Many investors specialise in one or the other, and the firms on this list state which on their sites.
How do investors think about managed marketplaces?
As marketplaces that take on more of the work, and more of the cost, to guarantee quality. The margin is lower and the control is higher. Investors price the trade-off and want to see that the extra cost buys retention.
Marketplace investors by city
Marketplace investors by stage