Reads

Are You Ready to Become An Ecosystem Player? - Ulrich Pidun, Martin Reeves and Balázs Zoletnik

[Incumbents] need to rethink their management principles, question deeply held beliefs and build new capabilities. We identified eight major shifts (four shifts in mindset and four shifts in their operating models) that traditional companies must accomplish if they want to become successful ecosystem players

Ecosystem business models: A teardown - Sangeet Paul Choudary

Gaining competitive advantage in digital ecosystems

Value creation in the metaverse - McKinsey

With its potential to generate up to $5 trillion in value by 2030, the metaverse is too big for companies to ignore.

The report examines the emergence of the metaverse: its history and characteristics, the factors driving investment, how consumers and businesses are using it today and may in the future, its value-creation potential, and how leaders and policy makers can plan their strategies and near-term actions.

Governance rigidity, industry evolution, and value capture in platform ecosystems - Bilgehan Uzunca, Dmitry Sharapov, Richard Tee

-Initial governance arrangements between platform owner and complementors have lasting effect on ability to capture value.

-Initial bargaining power of platform owner and industry life cycle stage shape initial governance arrangements.

-Complementor heterogeneity and continuity, governance formality, and platform type and dominance shape governance rigidity.

-Controlling hard-to-replace segment may be neither sufficient nor necessary to capture value created by an ecosystem.

How to build trust in a marketplace - Lenny Rachitsky

Six effective ways to build trust in a new marketplace:

-Reviews

-Verifying your supply

-Leaning on social proof

-Creating a perception of quality

-Providing a safety net

-Delivering magic

To build trust, platforms should try a little democracy - Casey Newton

Meta has its Oversight Board; Spotify has a new safety council. But where are the average users?

Casey discusses with Aviv Ovadya about his idea for ‘platform democracy’ — putting key policy questions directly to users as part of a deliberative process.

Here is the link to the paper written by Aviv Ovadya -

Towards Platform Democracy: Policymaking Beyond Corporate CEOs and Partisan Pressure - Aviv Ovadya

The paper proposes using a modern form of platform democracy to create a "platform assemblies"

Audios

Auction design for web3 - Scott Kominers , Tim Roughgarden

Auctions are used in web3 for everything from NFT drops to block space itself -- as auctions, simply put, are ways of allocating scarce resources. But how does mechanism design work, in both theory and practice, when it comes to such permissionless contexts? Two of the top experts in these and related areas provide a quick overview of auction types, incentive design choices, and much more in the latest episode of ‘web3 with a16z’

As Bitcoin Busts, What’s the Future of Web3? And What Even Is Web3? - Chris Dixon

Kara Swisher talks to Chris Dixon of Andreessen Horowitz about why Silicon Valley is doubling down on crypto despite its slide.

Fundings

Deal size > $10m; includes platform companies only; non-exhaustive list

Company Profiles

• Wonder | Series B - $350M | New York, United States

Wonder is a food-tech startup offering a food delivery platform that brings delicious food to people anytime, anywhere.

• Rohlik | Series D - $231M | Karlín, Czech Republic

Rohlik is a grocery delivery company that offers a 90-minute same-day delivery service.

• upGrad | Venture Round - $225M | Mumbai, India

upGrad is an online higher education platform providing various programs.

• Coachhub | Series C - $200M | Berlin, Germany

CoachHub is the leading global talent development platform.

• Magic Eden | Series B - $130M | San Francisco, United States

Magic Eden is an NFT marketplace for users to discover, trade, and create NFTs.

• Fountain | Series C - $100M | San Francisco, United States

Fountain is a talent platform that develops to make workforce management and hiring easier.

• Cashify | Series E - $90M | Gurgaon, India

Cashify is an online marketplace for reselling used electronic gadgets.

• Omio | Series E - $80M | Berlin, Germany

Omio offers a multi-mode search tool that compares and combines rail, air, bus, and car for destinations.

• HomeLight | Series D - $60M | San Francisco, United States

HomeLight is a real estate platform where users can buy or sell homes.

• Dastgyr | Series A - $37M | Karachi, Pakistan

Dastgyr is a B2B e-commerce marketplace that connect retailers with suppliers through an android app

• Sesame | Series B - $27M | New York, United States

Sesame is the healthcare marketplace that delivers “half-price health care” to Americans priced out of the everyday care they need.

• NFTPort | Series A - $26M | Tallinn,  Estonia

NFTPort provides one-stop and developer-friendly NFT infrastructure and APIs for developers.

• Airbank | Series A - $20M | Berlin, Germany

Airbank is an all-in-one finance platform that automates financial management for SMBs.

• Vahak | Series A - $13M | Bangalore,  India

Vahak operates an online transport marketplace and directory platform for small and medium-sized businesses.

For more visit Funding rounds at Platfirms

Acquisitions

eBay acquires NFT marketplace KnownOrigin

eBay made its biggest move yet into the world of digital collectibles with news today of the company acquiring NFT marketplace KnownOrigin. The online auction company is keeping lips sealed on the deal’s value but confirmed in the press release that the deal is closed as of June 21st.

“This partnership will help us attract a new wave of NFT creators and collectors,” said KnownOrigin co-founder David Moore.

KnownOrigin describes itself as “one the world’s first, and largest, NFT Marketplaces,” and it currently ranks No. 12 on all-time trading volume for Ethereum-backed NFTs at $7.8 million, according to DappRadar. 

Source - The Verge

View more Acquisitions at Platfirms