Road to New York and Berlin: Our 2024 Lineup
Happy New Year to all fellow Marketplace enthusiasts and network effects aficionados! Not only do we have to celebrate a new year but also the 50th edition of your beloved The Marketplace Snippet curated by Irene and Mathias on behalf of the Speedinvest Marketplaces & Consumer team 🔥
In this edition:
- Save the dates: Our upcoming Marketplace Meetups in New York and Berlin
- The offline to online struggle of marketplaces
- “AI and everything else”: A 2023 recap from Benedict Evans
- OC&C on the evolution of marketplaces in the post-Pandemic era
More on these topics and additional thought-provoking discussions below.
If you’ve missed past newsletters or simply can’t get enough, catch up on recent editions here.
Our Marketplace Meetup is landing in New York and Berlin!
During the keynote of our last Marketplace Conference, we promised you a great lineup for 2024 and we didn’t want to disappoint. Starting right with our #MPC agenda, we are already planning the first two Meetups of 2024: New York 🇺🇸 and Berlin 🇩🇪!
If you’re based in the US or would love to expand your network there, save the date for February 20th. We are proud to announce our first overseas edition of the Marketplace Meetup in the Big Apple, organized in partnership with the New York Stock Exchange. The event will provide all guests with great discussions and plenty of time to mingle and connect with all attendees. For more news about the event, the main topic and how to attend, stay tuned to our newsletters and our website.
And if you’re based in Europe and can’t wait for another event to connect with the Berlin ecosystem, it’s still your lucky day! We will host another Marketplace Meetup in Berlin on February 29th. The event will be held in collaboration with Pentalog and will be centered around the theme of “Mastering Marketplace Monetization.” Here too, many guests and panel discussions, as well as networking opportunities, are awaiting all marketplace enthusiasts.
In order to ensure everyone a great experience and enough opportunities to connect, both events will be invite-only. If you think you should get a spot and would love to connect with us, stay tuned on our Marketplace website for the sign-ups opening or reach out to katharine.spooner@speedinvest.com! 🚀
Insights From Marketplace Operators
On building consumer businesses and timing an IPO…
Dominik Richter, Founder & CEO of HelloFresh, joins this new episode of 20VCs, discussing how he built one of the largest direct-to-consumer businesses of the last decade and #1 recipe box delivery service and how he approached the timing of their IPO.
AI vs Big Tech: What’s the Agenda?
Do AI-focused startups depend on Big Tech? Amba Kak, Sarah Myers West, from the AI Now Institute and Meredith Whittaker, from Signal, deep dive into their view on how big tech is shaping the AI policy agenda for the years to come.
Road to US: A company’s marathon to global expansion 🌎
Stefan Batory, Founder of beauty-booking platform Booksy and previously speaker at The Marketplace Conference, uncovers the challenges about their road from Poland - their home country - to the US and why global expansion has been in their objectives since day one.
Offline vs Online: The marketplace struggle
Sangeet Paul Choudary, Author and Founder of Platformation Labs, dives deeper into the challenges of moving from offline to online sales, the theory of distribution advantage, the importance of demand-side data integration and the Amazon role-play.
Insights From Marketplace Investors
“AI and Everything Else”: A 2023 recap 🧠
Benedict Evans, Investor and former partner at a16z, shares his annual presentation on macro and strategic trends that characterized the tech industry in 2023, from Generative AI and its application, to the Metaverse and new regulations. A must read for everyone in tech.
And more on AI… & Marketplaces 📊
Olivia Moore, Consumer Partner at a16z, presents her analysis on how GenAI will shake the foundations of the supply side for marketplaces… for good: creating a better user experience and unlocking a new level of accessibility.
B2B Marketplaces: Why now?
Oliver Kicks, Principal at Concept Ventures, analyzes the recent rise from bubble to boom of B2B Marketplaces, why they failed before and what is different this time, as well as what opportunities lie ahead.
And, to conclude, some more Speedinvest-themed content featuring our own Mathias Ockenfels:
- What’s the outlook on commerce for 2024? Venture Capitalists from Insight Partners, PayPal Ventures, Plug and Play, Speedinvest, and more, give their predictions on what trends will transform Commerce in the year to come.
- And for some entertainment on the go, check out 2023’s last episode of Startup Insider on the topic of “Investments & Exits”: the 2024 market outlook, the financing environment, success stories and much more (in German).
News From Our Portfolio
Write better together: What’s new in Ellipsus
We are proud to see our portfolio company Ellipsus share the results of months of intense building. Check out the latest updates of Ellipsus’ collaborative writing tool for the future of storytelling, including real-time collaboration, live chats and more. If you’re a writer, you should give it a try! 📖
Our companies are making the news:
- Lapse is recognized among 2023’s top consumer apps according to a16z, alongside others like Temu, Remini and many more!
- We are proud to see Joshua Magidson, Founder & CEO of HomeCooks, being featured in TechCrunch and TechNews180. From Facebook group to their first VC financing: check out how this team is revolutionizing food delivery.
- Interested in discovering more about the Greek ecosystem? Check out Endeavor Greece’s latest report on the country’s most high-impact founders, including our Antonis Malaxianakis from Harbor Labs.
- From Vienna to Wall Street? Congrats to refurbed on being featured on Nasdaq’s NYC billboard on the back of their recent €50M Series C.!
- And again on refurbed… Take a look at the latest report from OC&C on The next wave of Digital Marketplaces, where our portfolio company, as well as many other great businesses, are being analyzed in this interesting study on the world's top 250 digital marketplaces by gross merchandise value (GMV) to understand how they’ve been evolving in a post-pandemic area.
- Complori made it into Business Insider Germany’s list of the top five rising German EdTechs startups. They were also featured in the “Startup Magazin” show of German news channel NTV (in German).
New Investments in Marketplaces Around the Globe
FoodTech, EdTech, HealthTech, Sustainability and much more…
With 23 deals announced, including Urban Sports Club, Udaan and our own HomeCooks, December 2023 marketplace deal activity is closing the year strong.
Join Us!
We are always on the lookout for top-tier talent! Have a look at our open positions at Speedinvest and across our portfolio and check out our talent pool, an exclusive platform connecting top executives (like you?) with over 300 dynamic companies in our portfolio. Join now to gain access to a pool of 1000+ open positions across various industries.
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