Q3 2021 Portfolio news
It’s hard to believe that we are heading into the home stretch of 2021. But before we do, let’s look back at the busy summer that the Version One family had! Fundraising and Exits Patch, an API platform for negative emissions, raised a $20M Series A led by Coatue Management with participation from existing investors […]
A Guide to Marketplaces: Third Edition
We’re thrilled to announce the third edition of “A Guide to Marketplaces.” We published our first edition five years ago and the second nearly three years ago. So much has changed since then – from the rise of B2B marketplaces to new crypto-native platforms. Even as we explore emerging sectors like climate and crypto, we […]
Announcing our investment in DemandStar, a marketplace for government procurement
Today we’re excited to announce that we led DemandStar’s $2m seed round. The Seattle-based company provides an online marketplace for business-to-government commerce – it connects local and national suppliers with government procurement officers. It should come as no surprise that government procurement is riddled with inefficiency. $1.5 trillion is spent in the local government procurement […]
What exactly is a managed marketplace?
Over the past few years, the term “managed marketplace” has become so widely used that Bill Gurley from Benchmark recently tweeted that it is not clear to him what the difference is between a “managed marketplace” and a “true marketplace.” I think this is an important discussion to have and I am trying to develop […]
Three Questions with Bala Subramaniam: Marketplaces
I recently caught up with my good friend Bala Subramaniam, who is the Head of Fulfillment at Instacart. You may remember Bala’s talk on supply-demand equilibrium at our data-driven marketplace meetup back in May 2017. Bala is a seasoned product, business, and technology leader. Before Instacart, he was at LinkedIn and Microsoft. I always learn a ton […]