Online products and services have been with us for many years now, but incredibly, they continue grow and develop and from time to time someone appears who still manages to find a niche or a new angle in an old marketplace.
Sometimes they simply create a market that simply didn’t exist before.
These are the disruptors – the startups who leverage the latest tech to bring a new or improved service to the consumers.
Many times, these are trading posts that bring together business and customers, but even in the list below you will find one or two B2B marketplaces that have spotted – or created – an opportunity.
Even more so during 2020 and now 2021, customers are relying on online and tech-based solutions for almost every purchase and service, and some of these companies have seen their business flourish in almost unexpected ways as a result.
So here now, is our list of 25 Marketplace Startups to keep an eye on.
Autozen Technologies
Startups are about disruption, and Autozen is about to disrupt the car sales market. Usually, Autozen states, when a consumer sells their car, they get one offer from one dealer (especially when they are trading in) which often results in not achieving the best price for the vehicle. Autozen will provide a C2B marketplace where an individual can advertise their car and get competing offers from multiple dealers – thus attaining its true value. In a recent interview, Olivier Vincent said “It’s baffling how selling a car in 2021 is as aggravating as it was 20 years ago. We’ve consistently heard from consumers that this industry has been stubbornly low tech for too long.”
Kalle Radage, Olivier Vincent
Total funding: CA$4.2m
Cashaa
Cashaa connects businesses and individuals on Blockchain to decentralised crypto-currencies. The Cashaa platform is an exchange, liquidity provider mechanism and asset-backed blockchain gateway, blending crypto and fiat. They describe themselves as on a mission to become a first choice “better than the bank” for the next generation of business and individuals who are dealing in cryptocurrencies.
Janina Lowisz, Kumar Gaurav
Total funding: $5m
Chatterbox
A corporate language learning platform that uniquely offers active practice alongside algorithmically matched native language coaches who share their students’ professional backgrounds and interests. On the app, engineers are learning Arabic from engineers and aid workers are learning French from medical doctors and achieving industry topping
course completion rates. Chatterbox gives work opportunities to refugees and asylum seekers.
Guillemette Dejean, Mursal Hedayat
Total funding: £230k
Chegg
Chegg is a student media learning platform offering services to universities and community colleges. They offer a full range of services, from a range of learning assistance tools and student money advice, to a scholarship advertising platform and internship help.
Aayush Phumbhra, Josh Carlson, Osman Rashid
Total funding: $252.3m
Clippings
Clippings is an online source for furniture and lighting, where interior professionals can discover and buy over a million products from 850 high-end design brands including Vitra, Knoll International, Flos, HAY, Gubi, and many more. It’s the go-to destination for product discovery – you can also create mood boards using catalogue products, collaborate with clients, get quotes, order and track deliveries. A one-stop shop for everything for interior design.
Adel Zakout, Tom Mallory
Total funding: $21.1m
Deliveroo
Deliveroo owns and operates one of the most well-known and popular online food delivery platform in the United Kingdom. Its platform allows users to order food from local restaurants from one central website, and have the food delivered direct to their door.
Greg Orlowski, William Shu
Total funding: $1.7b
Depop
Depop is the fashion marketplace where the next generation buy, sell and get inspired. Headquartered in London, they also have locations in Manchester, New York, Los Angeles and Australia, and currently have more than 21 million registered users across 147 countries. They have recently become the only European player to enter the top 25 shopping apps, by daily active users.
Fashinza
Fashinza is a B2B manufacturing marketplace that solves apparel/fashion supply chain challenges by connecting fashion brands to experienced manufacturers. The Fashinza marketplace currently has over 250 manufacturers serving 200+ brands in 10 different countries. Their online platform give brands total tracking over every stage of production and quality control which, they say, gives them 4x faster supplier matching and pricing, a 60% reduction in sample approval time and 90% less follow-ups required.
Total funding: $2.6m
Hometree
Hometree is a UK based Smart Home Services company, offering homeowners unparalleled peace of mind & control in the running and maintenance of their home. A platform that brings together customers and registered professionals, they offer a range of products and services from Home Cover plans which protect homeowners against breakdowns in their heating, plumbing & electrics, to heating installations.
Andreu Tobella, Simon Phelan
Total funding: $24.4m
Lendinvest
LendInvest operates an online marketplace for property lending and investing. Its online marketplace platform lets everyday investors access various types of asset classes; and underwrites and pre-funds various investments. LendInvest also offers short-term property finance, such as bridge loans, development loans, and buy-to-let loans.
Christian Faes, Ian Thomas
Total funding: $2b
Lovecrafts
LoveCrafts is a social marketplace for the crafts sector. Beginning with LoveKnitting, they quickly added LoveCrochet and in 2019 brought them together with other crafts as LoveCrafts. They now have suppliers, facilities and customers all over the globe, growing from strength to strength.
Cherry Freeman, Edward Griffith, Nigel Whiteoak
Total funding: $82.7m
Lyst
Lyst is a global fashion search platform used by 70 million shoppers every year, bringing together the widest inventory in luxury and contemporary fashion online. Set up to create a way for people to find the fashion they always wanted, Lyst is now the largest global fashion search platform, letting users search thousands of online fashion stores at once, bringing together 5 million products from 12,000 of the world’s leading brands and retailers in one place.
Chris Morton, Devin Hunt, Sebastjan Trepca
Total funding: $60.5m
Moonlight, by PullRequest
Moonlight is a professional network of remote software developers. Companies join the membership to get access to vetted engineers and designers, and hire them as contractors or full-time employees. Developers apply to find remote work opportunities and engage with the community.
Emma Lawler, Philip I. Thomas
Total funding: n/k
Perlego
Perlego is an eBook subscription service for academic and professional titles. Having partnered with over 2,600 of the world’s best publishers, it gives its users unlimited access to over 500,000 eBooks and publications across 900+ topics, via an affordable monthly subscription. It aims to make learning material more accessible and affordable for both students and professionals alike.
Gauthier Van Malderen, Matthew Davis
Total funding: $15m
Policygenius
Policygenius describe themselves as America’s leading online insurance marketplace. Their mission is to help people get insurance right by making it easy for them to understand their options, compare quotes, and buy a policy, all in one place. Since 2014 they have placed over $75 billion in coverage. As an insurance marketplace, they believe they offer the best way to compare the many insurance companies available – and they combine the marketplace experience with online tools, an expansive educational library, and guidance from real, licensed humans to help customers “get covered with confidence”.
Francois de Lame, Jennifer Fitzgerald
Total funding: $161m
Web: https://www.policygenius.com/ (website not available within the EU)
Poppy
Poppy is a tech-enabled, managed marketplace in the $13 billion flower industry. The company partners with Fair Trade Certified and Rainforest Alliance Certified farmers and wholesalers to provide fair floral practices, transparent supply chains, and trimmed costs.
They use technology to create ease in the ordering process, sourcing flowers from the best, eco-friendly farms in the world, and letting customers choose whether they want their flowers handcrafted by one of their nationwide network of talented floral designers, or would prefer to design themselves.
Push Doctor
Push Doctor is Europe’s largest digital health brand – and began connecting patients to a smart network of thousands of UK qualified GPs in as little as 6 minutes on any device, and providing nine out of ten patients with a resolution during their digital consultation. Today the brand is evolving to encompass the widest range of medical, health, wellness and lifestyle products/services with the core goal of enabling its customers to live happier, longer lives. Speak to a GP online at pushdoctor.co.uk or via the iOS and Android apps – anywhere in the world, seven days a week, 365 days a year, and receive diagnosis, referral letters, fit for work notes and if necessary, prescription medication.
Eren Ozagir, Matt Elcock
Total funding: $55.3m
Refurbed
Refurbed operates as an online marketplace for refurbished products. It sells renewed phones, laptops and tablets which are up to 40% cheaper and 100% more environmentally friendly than their brand-new, store-bought counterparts. Refurbed devices are renewed through a 40-step process, making them look and function like new. In addition, each device comes with at least a 12-month guarantee.
Jürgen Riedl, Kilian Kaminski, Peter Windischhofer
Total funding: $19.2m
ShareRing
The world’s first trusted token for sharing services. One way to pay for sharing everything, no matter what it is or where you are. ShareRing is an on-demand platform that centralises the highly fragmented sharing economy by bringing together sharing services across all industries and geographies. Using their decentralised marketplace, users can
securely access, connect, and pay for services anywhere in the world. They describe themselves as developing an ecosystem that is essentially the Amazon for the sharing economy.
Neville Christie, Tim Bos
Total funding: $3.8m
Stasher
Stasher services a major travel need connecting short-term visitors with a network of local hotels and shops who have space to securely store luggage. The Stasher platform allows its customers to book online and can be booked in advance or on the day. For example, you may arrive in London at 10:00 but cannot access your AirBNB until 16:00 – Stasher offers a low-cost solution to storing your luggage for a few hours – or longer – to save you carrying it around all day. Think of Stasher as a marketplace of secure luggage lockers situated on every street corner.
Anthony Collias, Jacob Wedderburn-Day, Matthew Majewski
Total funding: $5.4m
Udaan
Udaan is a B2B trade platform that brings manufacturers, traders, retailers, and wholesalers into a single platform. The platform is about making business easy in India, about making B2B commerce convenient and efficient. They believe B2B is the new B2C in India. It connects retailers with wholesalers and traders, ranging across categories from electronics and apparel to grocery and fresh produce. Udaan chat feature allows users to have a personal and secure conversation in real-time, in a language of their choice. It enables a direct connection between buyers and sellers which allows one-on-one discussions to negotiate terms of trade between transacting parties. India has 50m+ SMBs, who form the core of the Indian economy and society.
Amod Malviya, Sujeet Kumar, Vaibhav Gupta
Total funding: $1.2b
Upgrade
Upgrade is a neobank that offers credit to mainstream consumers through cards and personal loans, together with free credit monitoring and education tools that help consumers understand and manage their finances. They operate as a credit marketplace, connecting customers with credit lenders, banks etc. Upgrade Card provides an innovative credit card that brings the low cost and responsible credit of instalment lending to millions of
retail locations in the U.S., while Upgrade Account is a mobile banking product offered to mainstream consumers.
Adelina Grozdanova, Jeff Bogan, Matt Wierman, Renaud Laplanche, Soul Htite, Visar Nimani
Total funding: $222m
Vivareal
VivaReal is an online real estate marketplace that connects buyers, sellers, and renters with properties in Brazil. It enables its users to sell, buy, rent, or invest in residential and commercial properties, vacation homes, beachfront properties, and investment properties. VivaReal lists approximately 5 million properties on its site and has over 15 million visits every month.
Brian Requarth, Diego Simon, Thomas Floracks
Total funding: $74.8m
Vivino
Vivino empowers people everywhere to enjoy wine to the fullest. Vivino is the world’s largest online wine marketplace and most downloaded wine app, powered by a community of millions. Vivino’s unique wine shopping experience uses community data to suggest personalised wine recommendations, make wine discovery, and purchase fun, accessible, and
effortless for wine drinkers of every level of expertise. The Vivino app is available for download on Android and Apple devices.
Heini Zachariassen, Theis Sondergaard
Total funding: $218.8m
Waresix
Waresix is a logistics platform for freight-forwarding, warehouse, and land transportation. It is a platform that matches unused warehouse space with users in need of such facilities and looks to capitalise on the demand for flexible warehousing given the booming e-commerce market in the country. Waresix provides a solution for dynamic warehousing strategies that allow customers, retailers, distributors, and manufacturers to quickly adapt to variable demand.
Andree Susanto
Total funding: $129m
The list above includes startups whose aim is to help improve – and even disrupt – the marketplace industry.
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