The Periodic Table Of E-Commerce Startups

E-commerce startups saw multi-year highs in funding and exits in recent quarters.

We put together a periodic table of e-commerce to spotlight the top e-commerce startups, industry categories, exits, and investors.

The table is meant to serve as a guide to navigate the key players in the space. The 131 companies and investors in the table were chosen using CB Insights data and analytics around momentum, financial health, and investor quality.

Below is the full periodic table.

Note: click on the image to enlarge.

Navigating the Periodic Table of E-Commerce

The table’s top section lists notable e-commerce startups, while the bottom two rows show top investors and notable recent exits. The top investors include prominent early-stage VCs such as 500 startups and SV Angel. Some of the biggest IPOs include Alibaba’s in September 2014 and JingDong’s in May 2014.

The diversity of the e-commerce space meant we broke down our table into several subcategories:

• Apparel & accessories: This category consists of companies that sell clothing and related style accessories, including Warby Parker and VANCL.
• Marketplaces: These are Amazon-type e-commerce sites that offer a wide range of products, including companies such as Flipkart and Coupang.
• Food and grocery: This category encompasses companies that specialize in on-demand restaurant food, prepared meals, and grocery delivery, including players such as DoorDash and FoodPanda.
• Beauty and hygiene: These companies cater to cosmetics and grooming needs, and include startups like the Dollar Shave Club and BirchBox.
• Used cars: This increasingly large category includes companies like UK-based Carwow and India’s Cartrade.
• Auctions & classifieds: This category includes startups Avito and Quikr.
• Home and furniture: Companies such as One Kings Lane and Houzz cater to home improvement and decoration needs.
• B2B commerce: These startups focus primarily on the business-to-business market. They include companies like IronPlanet, which is an online auction site for used farm and construction equipment.
• Electronics and toys: Startups in this category include including electronics trade-in service Gazelle and Kiwi Crate, which ships educational “hands-on” project kits for kids.

Note: For this post’s analysis, we focused solely on companies selling physical goods. We excluded e-commerce startups focused on services or digital goods (e.g., video, apps, and music).

If you think an investor or company should be added, please leave a comment below, with your rationale.

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