The a16z Marketplace 100: 2020 Index

This is an itemized list of the a16z Marketplace 100: 2020, a ranking of the largest and fastest-growing consumer-facing marketplace startups and private companies. See the full list and analysis here, and visit a16z.com/marketplace-100 for the latest edition of the Marketplace 100.

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Methodology

A marketplace is any platform that connects buyers and sellers of goods/services with each other and facilitates a transaction.

Marketplace categorization: When the vertical-specific subset of a larger category accounts for more than a third of the overall category’s GMV, it is broken out into a separate category. For example, “streetwear” and “fashion” are subsets independent from “shopping” because they each account for at least one-third of all GMV in the greater category. 

Data source: Second Measure, a company that analyzes billions of anonymized, aggregated credit, debit and ACH transactions to track real-time consumer behavior and relative sales across 4,500 public and private merchants. The marketplace 100 is drawn from companies in Second Measure’s coverage list.

• Second Measure data is made up of billions of anonymous U.S. consumers’ credit card, debit card, and bank transactions. It excludes non-U.S. consumers, business spending, receipt-level information, and payments made via cash, check, or EBT.
• Second Measure cannot reliably attribute bundled revenue streams.
• Tips are not reliably differentiated from purchases on marketplaces and may be included in some merchants’ GMV.
• Second Measure does not observe revenue from third-party retailers or other B2B revenue streams.
• Second Measure does not observe spending made with gift cards.
• Second Measure cannot reliably attribute purchases financed through third-party companies like Prosper and Affirm to the marketplace associated with the purchase.
• Second Measure cannot reliably observe spending financed through credits from selling on a marketplace.
• Second Measure does not observe revenue from corporate benefits partnership programs.
• Transactions correspond to some companies’ Gross Merchandise Volume, a significant portion of which is not revenue to the company. 
• Second Measure does not observe online payments through iTunes or the Apple Store.
• Second Measure cannot reliably observe marketplace fees.
• Second Measure does not observe marketplace revenue generated by third-party referrals.
• Companies that recently turned on online payments—as opposed to online transactions—will appear to be growing more quickly than it is, in reality. This is because payments processed by that merchant is growing, not the total GMV. We included such cases because online transactions are fundamental to a marketplace’s ability to charge a service fee and monetize. 
• There may exist companies that meet the criteria of the Marketplace 100, but they are not included because they are not on Second Measure’s coverage list.

Timeline: Observed sales are calculated over dates spanning December 2018 to November 2019. Year-over-year growth rates are counted as sales between December 2018 through November 2019 vs. December 2017 through November 2018.

Charts: To account for data anomalies in our growth charts, we exclude the bottom 5 percent of companies in terms of 2018 GMV, as well as businesses that began processing payments with the past 12 months.

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The views expressed here are those of the individual AH Capital Management, L.L.C. (“a16z”) personnel quoted and are not the views of a16z or its affiliates. Certain information contained in here has been obtained from third-party sources, including from portfolio companies of funds managed by a16z. While taken from sources believed to be reliable, a16z has not independently verified such information and makes no representations about the enduring accuracy of the information or its appropriateness for a given situation.

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