⏱️ Etsy buys Depop for $1.6bn
⏱️ Etsy buys Depop for $1.6bn
Plus, growth frameworks for your marketplace
3rd June 2021 | 6th Edition
1. Etsy is acquiring UK-based social selling site Depop for $1.625B in a mostly cash deal
Etsy, the New York-based marketplace where crafty creators and those interested in their styles can discover and buy those goods, announced on Wednesday that it is acquiring Depop, a London-based marketplace targeting millennial and Gen Z consumers with a new take on social shopping.
This is not just Etsy’s biggest acquisition to date, but a huge acquisition for e-commerce in Europe and also a massive endorsement of companies that are building business models, namely commerce models, specifically targeting younger and/or more creative users.
2. Growth frameworks for your marketplace
Marketplaces are some of the most valuable businesses on the Internet. Uber, Airbnb, Amazon, Zillow, DoorDash — there’s much to learn by studying them. But every marketplace is different, including your own.
NFX are investors and advisors in over 60 early marketplace startups. They’ve also written about how to get your marketplace started, drawing from their own experience building marketplace businesses like Trulia.
But after overcoming the chicken-or-egg problem, they see that marketplace Founders commonly overfit their growth strategies to existing playbooks. And what worked for other marketplace businesses rarely maps perfectly to yours.
The right playbooks, tactics, and case studies are only clear after you’ve identified what type of marketplace you’re building.
In this article, Pete Flint, General Partner at NFX shows you his framework for custom-building your own marketplace expansion playbook.
3. Indonesian agritech platform TaniHub Group harvests a $65.5M Series B round
TaniHub Group, an Indonesian startup that helps farmers get better prices and more customers for their crops, has raised a $65.5 million Series B. The funding was led by MDI Ventures, the investment arm of Telkom Group, one of Indonesia’s largest telecoms.
Founded in 2016, TaniHub now has more than 45,000 farmers and 350,000 buyers (including businesses and consumers) in its network. The company helps farmers earn more for their crops by streamlining distribution channels so there are fewer middlemen between farms and the restaurants, grocery stores, vendors, and other businesses that buy their products.
4: Chesky confirms that Cornwall is now more popular than London!
The way we think about travel, holidays and accommodation is changing as societies adjust to the pandemic, says Airbnb chief executive, Brian Chesky.
"Everyone is going to live a bit differently because they have more flexibility and are less anchored to the city… The line between travelling and [just] living is blurring,"
Airbnb was hit hard by Covid last spring, shedding a quarter of its workforce. Throughout 2020 it experienced booking levels lower than 2019. But despite an unprecedented drop in international travel, people still booked accommodation for domestic holidays when local lockdowns eased. So property rental firms like Airbnb, whose revenues grew by 5% in the first quarter of 2021, were not as badly hit as airlines or package holiday operators.
However, its figures now reveal a big change in customer behaviour.
Got any feedback? Get in touch with me at marketplaceminute@substack.com
You can also find me on Twitter @marketplaceux
Finally, if you’re interested in working with me, check out my website: https://www.fimacd.com