Fashion marketplaces: in or out? 

In the last year, fashion marketplaces have shown signs of quick adaptation due to supply chain bottlenecks.

When COVID hit, low consumer confidence and supply chain bottlenecks forced high discounts to be applied to products. To move away from this trend, players had to unlock supply chain bottlenecks not only with logistics partnerships and expansion, but also with a focus on predictive capabilities for product demand in different geographies. 

The need for consumers to feel connected to their brands was also heightened, generating a demand for better communication from marketplaces and brands. Now players must continuously make better use of data to drive hyper personalization in scale, creating higher loyalty with customers. 

And while consumers have higher standards for sustainability in their clothing, with examples of green-focused e-commerce platforms such as Allbirds partnering with Adidas, marketplaces focused on sustainable practices still represent less than 5% of total segment enterprise value. The move to green seems to come from internal changes in today’s large players.

Discover over 4,100+ fashion marketplaces on Dealroom.co and use Dealroom Signal to see which ones stand out as most promising up-and-coming startups in the market.

In other news: 

🍎 InstaCart Health is live. One of the largest marketplaces in the world has launched a new health vertical, letting users not only know more about groceries and healthy options, but including features for caregivers to assist their patients. - TechCrunch

💵 Crypto exchange FTX to buy Voyager's assets. The crypto giant bid $1.4B on the crypto lender's assets that declared bankruptcy in July. - CoinDesk

🛵 Glove fined $78M in Spain for gig-worker labour laws. The food delivery platform was fined after Spain approved gig-worker labour rights in 2021. The move threatens not only Glove but delivery platforms in general that rely on freelance work conditions to operate in many countries. - Reuters

🇵🇦 Deribit, a Panama-registered crypto trading platform, has raised $40M in a new round at a $400M valuation. The round comes at a valuation drop from a reported $2.1B in the its last round in 2021. The company was struck in the Terra dive last year with its $200M holding in the ecosystem. 

🇮🇳 KuKu FM, the India-based content marketplace, has raised a $21.8M Series B extension round. The platform counts on over 30,000 creators which produce half of content exclusive to KuKu FM. 

🇺🇸 The Muse, a NY-based recruitment and development platform, has raised a $8M funding round to help expand its product.  

Other promising marketplace deals:

🇮🇳 LiquiLoans, the India-based peer to peer lending platform, is set to raise $10M from its partner Cred to further expand its platform's technical  capabilities. 

🇹🇷 Octovan, a Turkish logistics marketplace, has raised $600k to expand nationally. 

Explore 100+ funding rounds of the last week.

Notable exits:

🇫🇷🇩🇰 JobTeaser, the French recruitment platform focused students and recent graduates, has acquired GraduateLand, its Nordic competitor, as part of its expansion strategy. 

Explore 7 exits of the last week.

Tip of the week

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We’ve ranked the top 100 startups for 6 different industries to watch based on our Dealroom Signal: a powerful algorithm helping VCs, Corporates and Governments find the most promising up and coming startups.

Explore the top 100 startups built by our data-driven algorithm. 👈

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Christopher V. Dobereiner

Innovation Analyst
Dealroom

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