First check for marketplace founders building new economies

Liquidity you can feel. Supply that actually shows up. Buyers who come back. A take rate (or another monetization path) that makes sense once the market starts moving. I care about whether a small group of people is already transacting for a real reason, not a huge TAM slide. Constrained or hard-to-reach supply, a workflow that makes the transaction easier, and early proof that density improves matching are usually the story. AI can help with ops and matching, but the durable part is still the network: people participating, proprietary data, and the ugly work around the transaction. More on the numbers I use: Marketplace metrics. More on what Yonder underwrites: Investment criteria and the thesis.

It depends on the round, but the bar has gone up. For first-check and pre-seed, I often back companies before the numbers look obvious. A small set of suppliers who respond fast, demand that will actually transact or change a workflow, and repeat behavior on at least one side can be enough if the market story is sharp. Seed is a different conversation. Across US VC-backed tech (SVB H1 2026), median revenue at Seed moved from about $156K in 2021 to about $363K in 2025. That is not a marketplace-only dataset, and it is not a hard cutoff, but it is the direction of the market. For marketplaces, translate revenue into GMV at your take rate. A company doing about $15M GMV at a 10% take rate is about $1.5M in revenue. Getting from a typical Seed level of progress to a typical Series A level can mean growing GMV on the order of about 11x at a constant take rate. Full Carta / SVB / Yonder breakdown: Marketplace Startup Fundraising 2026

Yes, especially at first-check and pre-seed. Plenty of marketplace companies still raise with little or no revenue if the founders know the customer, the supply is real, and there is a clear path to early liquidity. Pre-product or post-product with little revenue (roughly up to about $50K annual revenue run rate) often clusters around lower valuations in the Yonder ask data. Once you have early revenue, the conversation gets easier. By Seed and especially Series A, most institutional rounds want paid activity, repeat behavior, and a credible path to the next milestone. Seed extensions are common now because the Seed-to-Series A jump got harder. Yonder's typical first check is $50K–$100K at first-check / pre-seed. Pitch anytime: Pitch Yonder

Lead with the metrics that prove the market is moving, then show that the economics can work. Put GMV (or the right volume metric for your category), take rate / transaction revenue, match or fill rate, completion, time to match, retention on at least one side, and contribution after variable costs where you have them. Label booked vs completed, and keep refunds and cancellations honest. A pretty signup chart with no transactions does not help. For the deck itself, I use a simple structure: intro, team, metric hook, market, problem, solution, business model, go-to-market, traction, competition, financials, ask, close. Pull traction forward if it is your strongest slide. Guides: Marketplace metrics and Pitch deck structure

Start with a beachhead you can actually win, then show the expansion. Do not lead with a giant industry number and hope people squint. I want customer count × expected spend for the first segment, with sources next to the math. Then SAM and TAM as the same buyer job getting bigger, not a different company. The beachhead is proof. It is not the ceiling. If the first vertical died tomorrow, what job-to-be-done still exists? A useful deck pattern: a metric hook that reframes the category (for Outdoorsy it was "one in six U.S. households owned an RV"), then the market-size slide with assumptions visible. More: Pitch deck structure and thesis

At early stages, valuation is mostly about progress, demand for the round, and how clean the story is. Revenue helps, but it does not print a price by itself. From Yonder's sample of 2,243 fundraising asks (what founders asked for, not always what cleared), marketplace annual revenue run rate tends to cluster like this as a starting point: - Little to no revenue (up to about $50K): roughly $5–8M - Early revenue (about $50K–$500K): roughly $8–12M - Meaningful revenue (about $500K–$1M): roughly $12–15M - A year-ish+ of revenue (about $1M–$3M): roughly $15–20M+ - Consensus / hot AI deals: much wider, and often much higher Carta's marketplace data for 2026 shows fewer companies getting funded at Pre-Seed and Seed, while median caps for the ones that clear the bar have held up better than the volume numbers suggest. Series A is where round count, capital, and valuations have been hit hardest. Source: Marketplace Startup Fundraising 2026 — Yonder first-check posture: Investment criteria

Raise enough to hit the next proof points with margin, not just the smallest dilution number on a SAFE. Work backward from the revenue, GMV, liquidity, and runway the next round will want. At Seed, I increasingly think in two steps: the first Seed proves the wedge; an extension often funds the climb toward an obvious Series A. Plan for that gap instead of treating an extension as failure. On the ask slide, say the amount, the major uses (product, GTM, key hires), and the milestones that make the next raise obvious. Low dilution only helps if the round actually buys the runway. More: Pitch deck structure and Marketplace Startup Fundraising 2026

The list changes every year, and a generic marketplace-investors spreadsheet goes stale fast. What has been true lately: a lot of generalist capital stepped back from classic marketplace pitches, while specialists and operators who understand liquidity still write early checks. That is a big part of why I started Yonder. I write first checks of $50K–$100K into marketplace and network-effect companies at first-check / pre-seed, usually around $10M post and under when the deal fits. After investing, I help with market sequencing, the fundraising story, and introductions to the next believers. If you want the specialist check first, pitch Yonder (Pitch Yonder). For the broader market picture, start with Marketplace Startup Fundraising 2026

Most passes I see cluster around a few patterns: - It is not really a marketplace (directory, affiliate, media, or software with no transaction). - Thin matching that looks easy to copy, especially once AI makes the interface cheap. - No path to liquidity: supply will not engage, demand will not change behavior, or both sides stay cold. - Lumpy or infrequent transactions with no clear way to increase frequency or AOV. - Fundraising story that asks generalists to believe a giant TAM without beachhead proof. - Stage mismatch: asking for Seed or Series A terms without the revenue, retention, or density those rounds now want. I pass for fit all the time. Sometimes I am wrong. If the market is real and the wedge is working, keep compounding liquidity and come back when the numbers make the next round obvious. Criteria for Yonder specifically: Investment criteria