Marketplace Memo #16
Whatnot Raises $225M at $11.5B, Mercor Raises $350M at $10B, Whop Hits $2B GTV and $142M Revenue, Kalshi x StockX and Coinbase, GetYourGuide $1B+ Revenue, Vinted Breaks $10B GMV and $1B Revenue
Hi, it’s Colin! Welcome to the 37 new subscribers who have joined Take Rate since the last Marketplace Memo. I am excited to have you join the 4,150+ marketplace founders, operators, and investors who subscribe. Join the fun! 👇
👋 Welcome to the 15th edition of the Marketplace Memo. My goal is to share curated news, content, and stories about marketplaces, with a splash of my own color. Please enjoy and share with others!
Power your marketplace with...
Whop Rails – Build a marketplace or platform on our global payment rails.
Built for marketplaces by a marketplace. Platforms are using Whop Rails to get the most competitive pricing, global payouts in ACH, Venmo, PayPal, & stablecoins, payment orchestration, and more! Learn what the hype is about here.
When Everything Becomes a Market Vibe
Here’s something new: you can now bet on whether Labubu dolls will hit a certain resale price without actually buying the dolls themselves.
Kalshi, the prediction market that just raised $1B at a $11B valuation, partnered with StockX this week to launch “product event contracts” on sneakers, Pokémon cards, and collectibles. Want to predict which brands will see the most Black Friday trading volume? There’s a market for that.
This partnership might sound a bit niche, but it’s actually the logical endgame of a trend of marketplaces bringing offline inventory online: as more things get priced transparently, more things become tradable. And once something is tradable, someone will build a marketplace around it. The pattern plays out the same way every time: transactions generate data and transparency; transparency reveals accurate prices; accurate prices create liquid markets; and liquid markets attract more participants looking to trade, speculate, or hedge.
StockX started by creating transparent pricing for sneakers, turning them into an asset class. Now, Kalshi is building financial products on top of that asset class. It’s marketplaces layered on marketplaces, and we’re only seeing the beginning.
The first wave of marketplaces built the pricing infrastructure that makes all of this possible. Now AI is accelerating what comes next. With AI handling data analysis, risk modeling, and market-making at scale, the cost of spinning up derivative markets for niche categories is collapsing. We’re entering an era where any asset class with measurable outcomes and pricing data can support layers of financial products.
🔥 The Highlight
Whop just delivered a whopping $2B in GMV and hit $142M in revenue. Most people haven’t heard of Whop, but they should pay attention. Founded in 2021, Whop is a services marketplace and selling infrastructure—think Shopify—for creators to sell and gate digital products, communities, and tools with built-in payments and permissions.
Sellers come for the tooling, stay for the marketplace. Buyers come for the services, stay for the selection.
This strategy is the Marketplace+ model in action:
Build the infra → attract supply
Aggregate supply → attract demand
Aggregate demand → compound supply
Take rate + SaaS → scale revenue
Marketplace + SaaS for the win!
📰 News
“Travel site GetYourGuide nears €1 billion in sales, profit after pandemic slump” - The Berlin-based experiences marketplace hit profitability for the first time with revenue approaching €1B ($1.2B) and a record 10M experiences booked in Q3, up 30% YoY. Bloomberg
“Vinted CEO announces €10B GMV and €1B revenue milestone for 2025” - Thomas Plantenga shared that the secondhand marketplace is on track to surpass €10B in annual GMV and €1B in revenue this year, driven by turning Germany into a top market, expanding Vinted Go (their verification service) to 5 markets, and launching Vinted Pay. LinkedIn
“Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky says ChatGPT integration not ready for Airbnb app” - While competitors like Booking and Expedia have integrated with ChatGPT, Chesky held back because the SDK isn’t “quite robust enough” for Airbnb’s verified community model, but is open to integration once the platform matures. The company is instead relying heavily on Alibaba’s Qwen model for its AI customer service agent, which is “very good, fast, and cheap.” Bloomberg
“Airbnb will test adding Instacart grocery delivery to its app as a guest service” - Starting January 5, Airbnb will pilot “kitchen stocking” in Phoenix, Orlando, and Los Angeles, allowing guests to order groceries up to three weeks before arrival. Hosts will receive $25 per completed order ($100 for their first) for receiving and putting away groceries before check-in, expanding Airbnb’s Services strategy that CEO Brian Chesky expects will add $1B+ in annual revenue. Bloomberg
“SideShift crosses 500,000+ creators milestone” - The creator marketplace platform announced reaching half a million creators, with CEO Nick Lawton declaring ambitions to build “the largest creator marketplace on earth for the next generation.” LinkedIn
“Turo launches a new alternative to leasing and financing a vehicle that reimagines car ownership” - The car-sharing marketplace is expanding beyond short-term rentals with month-long bookings, monthly payment plans, and all-inclusive pricing. Trips lasting three or more months are Turo’s fastest-growing segment year-to-date with triple-digit YoY growth, reflecting the shift from ownership to access. PR Newswire
“ElevenLabs launches Iconic Marketplace with Sir Michael Caine partnership” - The AI voice company launched a two-sided platform where companies can request access to iconic talent for projects, starting with 25+ voices, including Sir Michael Caine, Dr. Maya Angelou, Alan Turing, Liza Minnelli, and Art Garfunkel. The marketplace is positioned as a “performer-first approach” with partnerships through CMG Worldwide, ensuring collaboration is rooted in respect, consent, and creative authenticity. ElevenLabs
“Amazon demands Perplexity stop AI agent from making purchases” - Amazon sent a cease-and-desist letter to Perplexity after the AI search company’s new “Buy with Pro” feature began autonomously purchasing items on Amazon without proper authorization. The feature, which uses Perplexity’s AI agent to complete checkout flows, highlights the emerging friction between AI agents and existing marketplace infrastructure. Bloomberg
“Facebook Marketplace gets a glow up” - Meta rolled out major updates targeting Gen Z users, including collections for collaborative shopping with friends, reactions and comments on listings, AI-powered suggested questions for sellers, AI insights for vehicle listings, and expanded inventory from eBay and Poshmark. One in four young adult daily active Facebook users in the US and Canada now use Marketplace, making it a critical platform for social commerce. Meta
“Certified pre-owned Ford vehicles now available on Amazon Autos” - Ford expanded its partnership with Amazon by adding certified pre-owned vehicles to Amazon Autos, the e-commerce giant’s growing automotive marketplace. The move signals Amazon’s continued push into the vehicle marketplace beyond new-car sales. Ford
“Beehiiv ad network hits $50K revenue days, approaching $20M run rate” - Tyler Denk, Beehiiv’s founder, shared that the newsletter platform’s ad network has had multiple $50K revenue days in recent weeks, translating to nearly a $20M annual run rate. The Marketplace+ (SaaS + Ad Marketplace) strikes again. X
“New Army-led task force plans to stand up digital marketplace for counter-drone tech” - The Joint Interagency Task Force 401 is establishing an online marketplace where military leaders and agency heads can purchase counter-unmanned aerial systems (c-UAS) equipment. The marketplace will provide authoritative data on how systems perform under varying conditions, allowing buyers to select tools that match their specific requirements. Breaking Defense
“Athletes Untapped expands private coaching access across 16 sports with 3,000+ vetted instructors” - The Philadelphia-based marketplace has facilitated over 100,000 private coaching sessions since 2022 at an average rate of $40-70 per hour, positioning specialized instruction within reach for families who previously found it cost-prohibitive. Youth Sports Business Report
“EVQLV launches Abtique, the first marketplace for AI-designed molecules validated in independent labs” - Scientists can now order lab-ready antibody sequences online in minutes through this “click-to-sequence” platform, backed by EVQLV’s HyperBind2 AI system. PR Newswire
💰 Fundraising
SuperMe raises $6.8M Seed - The AI expert network platform, founded by Casey Winters and Ludo Antonov, enables experts to create AI versions of themselves that answer questions in their voice by training on their content, private documents, and work history. Mike Duboe led the round at Greylock. Upstarts
Big Rentals raises $2.8M Seed - The Los Angeles-based equipment rental marketplace is building an asset-light platform that aggregates inventory from independent trailer, dumpster, and equipment rental businesses. Led by SNAK Venture Partners with participation from Ironspring Ventures, Forum Ventures, Jason Calacanis’s LAUNCH Fund, and NuFund Venture Group. SNAK VC
Tractor Junction raises $22.6M Series A - The India-based rural vehicle marketplace raised $17M in equity funding led by Astanor, plus $5.6M in debt, with participation from existing investors InfoEdge Ventures and Omnivore. AgFunder News
Agentio raises $40M Series B - The creator marketplace connecting brands with YouTube creators for sponsored video campaigns uses AI-powered matching and content review to automate ad buying at scale. Led by Forerunner with participation from existing investors Benchmark, Craft Ventures, AlleyCorp, Antler, and Starting Line, the round values the company at $340 million and brings total funding to $56 million since its 2023 founding by ex-Cameo president Arthur Leopold and former Spotify engineer Jonathan Meyers. TechCrunch
ShopMy raises $70M at $1.5B valuation - The curated commerce infrastructure company raised from Avenir (lead), with participation from Bain Capital Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Menlo Ventures. ShopMy operates an integrated marketing system serving premium brands, 185,000+ hand-picked tastemakers, and consumers, facilitating over $1B in annual platform sales. PR Newswire
Whatnot raises $225M Series F at $11.5B valuation - The livestream shopping platform more than doubled its valuation from $5B in January, with the round co-led by DST Global and CapitalG. The company has surpassed $6B in GMV so far in 2025 (more than double all of 2024) and has become the #1 shopping app in Apple’s App Store, expanding from collectibles into 140+ categories. Previous investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Greycroft, Sequoia Capital, and Y Combinator. Crunchbase
Mercor raises $350M Series C at $10B valuation - The AI talent marketplace 5x’ed its valuation from $2B in February, with the round led by Felicis and participation from Benchmark, General Catalyst, and Robinhood Ventures. The 22-year-old founders (Brendan Foody, Adarsh Hiremath, and Surya Midha) are now the youngest self-made billionaires in history. TechCrunch
Kraken raises $800M - The cryptocurrency exchange reached a $20 billion valuation in a dual-tranche funding round, up from $15 billion just two months prior. The primary tranche was led by Jane Street, HSG, Oppenheimer Alternative Investment Management, and Tribe Capital, with Citadel Securities contributing $200 million as a strategic second tranche investment. Reuters
Kalshi raises $1B at $11B valuation - The prediction market platform, allowing users to bet on future events, has more than doubled its valuation in less than two months, led by returning investors Sequoia and CapitalG. The company reached $50B in annualized trading volume in October and is currently navigating legal disputes with state regulators over gambling classification. TechCrunch
Faire announces employee tender offer at $5.2B valuation - The wholesale marketplace connecting independent retailers with brands initiated an approximately $100 million tender offer allowing select employees to sell shares, marking its first public valuation since raising $400 million at $12.4 billion in 2021 and representing a 58% markdown from that peak amid broader tech valuation resets. New investor WCM Investment Management leads the secondary share sale with participation from existing holder Baillie Gifford and new investor True North Fund, positioning the company closer to an eventual IPO while providing liquidity to early employees. Faire
📖 Reads
“Yonder Q3 2025 Update” - My update on the Yonder portfolio covering the state of marketplace investing, what I am looking for next, and a bit about the portfolio companies. Yonder
“Marketplaces in the Age of AI, Take Two: Graveyard to Greenfield” - Olivia Moore’s latest piece arguing that AI isn’t opening brand new marketplace categories but rather reviving categories where marketplaces previously failed (talent, home services, real estate, repairs). AI as the middleman reduces CAC through automated intake/vetting and increases LTV through reducing manual coordination and driving repeat transactions. Andreessen Horowitz
“Our Source of Truth on Prosumer Software” - Forerunner Ventures analyzes the $90-120B prosumer market, tracing its evolution through four waves from bundled licenses (Microsoft Office) to AI-powered platforms (ChatGPT, Cursor). Forerunner Ventures
“Kalshi says its prediction markets will compete directly with U.S. equities within a few years” - Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour now believes prediction markets could reach a trillion-dollar scale and compete with traditional equities much faster than his original decade-long timeline, accelerated by the company’s legal win allowing election contracts. Cryptopolitan
“The Coasean Singularity? Demand, Supply, and Market Design with AI Agents” - NBER research paper examining how AI agents will transform digital markets by dramatically reducing transaction costs. The paper evaluates agent adoption as derived demand (users trade off decision quality against effort reduction), supply-side design and monetization decisions, and market-level impacts, including efficiency gains from lower search/contracting costs alongside new frictions like congestion and price obfuscation. NBER
“San Francisco’s youngest billionaires are betting on a new kind of job boom” - Deep profile of Mercor’s 22-year-old founders and their vision that humans will spend the next decade teaching machines “the judgment, nuance, and taste that only humans possess,” creating a new dominant labor category rather than experiencing white-collar job displacement. SF Standard
“Big Things: Mercor’s Vision for Human Expertise in the AI Economy” - Brendan Foody outlines Mercor’s three strategic pillars: building a vast talent network (with 50%+ of new experts from referrals), advancing matching systems to pair experts with opportunities where they create 10x value, and accelerating delivery speed across the entire data production lifecycle. The core thesis: human data is the foundation of the new economy, and as AI expands its capabilities, new categories of work will emerge in which humans provide the context that models lack. X
“Klook IPO: S1 Breakdown” - Comprehensive breakdown of the experiences marketplace approaching $3B in GTV with $540M in revenue, revealing the unit economics of the mobile-first, last-minute booking platform that just achieved breakeven with $3.5M adjusted EBITDA. Mostly Metrics
“#32 - Marketplaces & Market Caps: Why Some Public Marketplaces Thrive and Others Nosedive” - Analysis of the top marketplace IPOs of the last decade showing Uber up 160% from IPO, DoorDash up 200%, and Etsy up 250%, while Lyft is down 60% and Coupang down 16%. Winners share: path to 20%+ EBITDA margins, positive cohort payback on CAC, market share leadership, defensible supply, and multi-product potential. Losers are structurally unprofitable with commodity products and weak network effects. SNAK VC
“4 Reasons Meta Will Win the Local Job Market” - Meta relaunched job listings in October 2025, this time focusing exclusively on local, entry-level, trade, and service jobs rather than competing with LinkedIn. The company’s advantages: 300M+ US Marketplace users (30% aged 25-34), integration into the highly-trafficked Marketplace feed where jobs appear organically, free posting (vs. paid competitors), and built-in Messenger recruitment automation. EJ Lawless
📽 Watch or Listen
“The Marketplace Plus Model Explained | Colin Gardiner of Yonder VC” - I share lessons from scaling Outdoorsy’s peer-to-peer RV platform, where the biggest unlock came from power hosts optimizing utilization through SaaS tools rather than casual users. The conversation covers monetization strategies, pricing psychology, take-rate optimization, the balance between product-market fit and margin obsession, and how AI and the decline of SEO are reshaping marketplace discovery. YouTube
“Kalshi Founders Tarek Mansour & Luana Lopes Lara On Turning Events Into Assets” - Kalshi’s co-founders discuss how prediction markets are emerging as a legitimate new asset class by turning real-world outcomes like elections, inflation, and sports into tradable event contracts.
“Vibe analysis: How Faire uses Cursor, enterprise search, and custom agents to analyze data” - Faire’s data team demonstrates how AI tools like Cursor, ChatGPT, and custom agents are transforming analytics workflows, allowing product managers and engineers to investigate business metrics, analyze experiments, and extract survey insights with dramatically less time and technical expertise required.
“Turo Adds Months-Long Rentals as Ownership Alternative” - Andre Haddad, Turo CEO, discusses the company’s new offering, which allows users to access cars for months at a time without committing to a lease or traditional ownership, and explains the consumer shift from ownership to access models.
Thanks for reading!
That is a wrap for the week! As always, please email me at colin@yonder.vc with any feedback or news I missed. Hot tips are always welcome. Please don’t forget to subscribe and follow me on X and LinkedIn for other great marketplace content. If you’d like to schedule a call, you can find me on expert marketplaces Hubble or Intro.
Power your marketplace with...
Whop Rails – Build a marketplace or platform on our global payment rails.
Built for marketplaces by a marketplace. Platforms are using Whop Rails to get the most competitive pricing, global payouts in ACH, Venmo, PayPal, & stablecoins, payment orchestration, and more! Learn what the hype is about here.
About Me:
Colin is a marketplace geek and the General Partner of Yonder, a pre-seed marketplace fund that invests in marketplaces that create new economies. He has also been a longtime advisor to marketplaces, helping them with product growth, monetization, liquidity optimization, and strategy. Previously, he served as the CPO/CRO at Outdoorsy and has worked at Tripping.com, Ancestry.com, JustAnswer, and the Federal Reserve.