Marketplace Memo #8
Stubhub IPO, Mercor at $100M Run Rate, Napster Comeback, Flexport Lawsuit, Pickle Raises $12M and Much More!
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👋 Welcome to the 8th edition of the Marketplace Memo. My goal is to share curated news, content, and stories I am seeing related to marketplaces with a splash of color from me. Please enjoy and share with others!
StubHub's IPO: A Founder Forgotten in the Fine Print
Last week, StubHub filed its S-1, initiating its journey to the public markets a quarter-century after its founding in 2000. Like Craigslist's recent 30th anniversary, this milestone reminds us how resilient marketplace businesses can be. StubHub's path to IPO hasn’t been linear—from its Stanford Business School genesis by Jeff Fluhr and Eric Baker to its $310 million acquisition by eBay in 2007, followed by its 2020 acquisition by Viagogo for $4 billion right before the pandemic devastated live events.
The S-1 provides the first public glimpse at the ticketing behemoth’s numbers. At the end of 2024, the company had produced $8.7 billion in Gross Merchandise Sales, growing 27% YoY. This transaction volume generated $1.77B in revenue, growing 29% YoY with a ~20% take rate. A 20% take rate is the hallmark of a scaled consumer marketplace, allowing the company to produce $299M in Adjusted EBITDA (17% margin). The business seems to be strong and performing well. However, the S-1 has one glaring omission.
The S-1 states: “Our journey began in 2000 when our Founder and CEO, Eric Baker, founded StubHub,” which glazes over the other Co-founder, Jeff Fluhr. Jeff has publicly acknowledged this and provided a succinct history of the company for the record:
"I co-founded StubHub with Eric when we were first year students at Stanford Business School. I wrote the 2 page executive summary that resulted in our selection as a finalist for the Stanford business plan competition in February 2000. I dropped out to be StubHub’s CEO, built the team, built the product, signed our first major partners (Major League Baseball, the Seattle Mariners, the Arizona Diamondbacks, and MSN), raised our Series A and launched the company. Meanwhile Eric elected to finish business school and joined 18 months later in the summer of 2001 as a remote employee based in L.A. Eric focused on PR, business development and fundraising and was a valuable contributor in these areas. To put this all in perspective, as co-founders we agreed to a 75/25 equity split, with me getting the larger share."
Eric Baker later left StubHub in 2004 to start the European ticket marketplace Viagogo, creating an unusual situation in which he eventually acquired the company he co-founded. The timing of that acquisition couldn't have been worse—just before the pandemic shut down live events worldwide. Nevertheless, StubHub weathered the storm under Eric and seeks to go public for between $8B and 10B. This IPO will be the first major marketplace to go public in quite some time.
The Highlight
Mercor keeps growing fast and profitably. Again, this is the annual revenue run rate, so it is not $100M earned but the revenue if the current trajectory is maintained. As they define it, whether this is Gross Service Value or actual net revenue is still an open question. Either way, it is impressive.
Some other data points are that the average pay rate is $61.50 per hour, 71% of active contractors are in the US, and 3,216 people were hired in the last 30 days. The CEO has also shared the company’s “Secret Mercor Master Plan”.
They are also hiring, and you can find a link to the role below.
News
"Napster pioneered music sharing over 25 years ago. It just got bought for $207 million" - The OG peer-to-peer music sharing platform that disrupted the music industry a quarter-century ago has been acquired by Infinite Reality to create 3D virtual music spaces for fans. Don’t call it a comeback yet. CNBC
"Match Group CEO admits dating apps feel too much like ‘a numbers game’ so he’s asking employees for ‘unvarnished feedback’ on how to improve Hinge and Tinder" - Marketplaces are all about matching, and it’s in the company name. The unique problem of dating apps is that they have a positive churn if they do their job well. The churn dynamic isn’t necessarily bad but can create a moral hazard when optimizing for MRR. A plethora of choices can have perceived value to the customer, but it might keep them from finding a match, too. Fortune
"Flexport accuses former employees of stealing its source code to create a rival startup" - The logistics platform has filed a lawsuit alleging intellectual property theft by former employees who started Freightmate. TechCrunch
"DoorDash Partners with Klarna to Offer US Customers Even More Convenience with Flexible Payments" - You can now pay for your food in installments. This partnership is part of a larger push by Klarna ahead of its IPO and on the heels of its deal with Walmart. DoorDash
"Edible Brands Launches Edibles.com" - The company behind Edible Arrangements is entering the hemp products market with a new delivery marketplace platform. Corporate marketplaces continue to be popular for growth. PR Newswire
"Ulta Beauty to launch Mirakl-powered marketplace in 2025" - The beauty retailer is expanding its business model to include a third-party marketplace, joining other major retailers in this strategic shift to corporate marketplaces. Mirakl
"LG to Shut Down NFT Marketplace Art Lab on Smart TVs by June" - This seems like a vestige of the Covid-era NFT boom. It's a bit wild that this ever got built. Decrypt
“Greg Brown, the CEO of Udemy, steps down” - Greg Brown announces his departure from the learning marketplace and will be replaced by Hugo Sarrazin. LinkedIn
"Deliveroo makes annual profit for first time" - The food delivery company earned a small profit in 2024. The Guardian
“Bounce now has more locations than Burger King 💪” - The luggage storage marketplace has 20,000 locations across 100+ countries. LinkedIn
Fundraising
Pickle raises $12M Series A led by FirstMark and Craft Ventures. Pickle is a peer-to-peer fashion rental app. Fortune
SaySo raises $4M Seed led by UP.Partners. SaySo creates co-branded buying experiences for retailers to offload excess inventory directly from warehouses. Yahoo Finance
Recess raises $1.75M pre-seed round led by Baukunst. Recess is a marketplace for parents to find after-school classes and camps. LinkedIn
Whop raises unannounced Series B at $800M valuation led by Bain Capital Ventures. Whop is a marketplace and storefront for creators to sell all sorts of goods and services. Arthur Rock on X says the company is at $80M GMV with a 4-6% take rate. Twitter/X
AMT raises $3.5M Seed round led by NFX. The AI-powered company aims to be the Google AdWords for influencers, e.g., a marketplace to connect advertisers and influencers. TechCrunch
Reads
“When Brokers Become the Marketplace” - This is an excellent read on the future of agent-led marketplaces from Jared Rosner, an investor who works with Elad Gil.
"Wonders' COO Tony Hoggett Talks Grubhub" - An insightful discussion on the evolving food delivery landscape and strategic partnerships. The Curbivore
"Our 2025 Annual Consumer Trend Report" - Forerunner's comprehensive analysis of emerging consumer behaviors and market opportunities for the coming year. Forerunner
"A Commerce Evolution: Agentic Commerce as the New Frontier" - A thought-provoking exploration of how AI agents are transforming online shopping and marketplace dynamics. Medium
"The SEO Maturity Curve: Where Does Your Strategy Stand?" - A practical framework for evaluating and evolving your marketplace's search engine optimization approach from RVShare's SVP of Marketing. Martijn Scheijbeler
Watch or Listen
“Flexport CEO on Tariff Drama, Supply Chain Conspiracies, and Hard-Earned CEO Wisdom” - The founder of Flexport, Ryan Petersen, shares some great insights on tariffs and how Flexport is navigating them.
"Building Defensible Marketplaces: Network Effects & AI with Pete Flint" - It's always great to listen to the folks at NFX. Sharetribe
"Apartment Marketplace" - A podcast episode with Matthew Woods, CEO of Apartment List, and Mike Williams of Everything Marketplaces.
Marketplace Jobs
Field Sales (Outside Sales) Representative - hampr
Software Engineering Manager - Boom & Bucket
Strategic Projects Lead - Mercor
Senior Manager, Host Acquisition and Onboarding - Peerspace
Manager, Digital Ordering - Strategy & Operations - DoorDash
Senior Product Manager – Data - StubHub
Content Marketing Specialist - Downstream
Business Development Representative - Sotira
Creator Partnerships Lead - Whop
Want to see your job listed here? Email colin@yonder.vc with the subject line “Job Posting” to be included or get your job featured!
Thanks for reading!
That is a wrap for the week! As always, please email me at colin@yonder.vc with any missed feedback or news. 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 want to book a call, you can find me on Intro.
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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 long-time advisor to marketplaces, helping them with product growth, monetization, liquidity optimization, and strategy. Previously, he was the CPO/CRO at Outdoorsy and worked at Tripping.com, Ancestry.com, Justanswer, and the Federal Reserve.
thanks for content bro!