Hi, it’s Colin! Welcome to the 216 new subscribers who joined Take Rate since the last Peer-to-Peer. I am excited to have you join the 2,830+ marketplace founders, operators, and investors who subscribe. Join the fun! 👇
Episode #2 of Peer-to-Peer is live!
We are still in the startup phase with the live recordings here (jump ahead to 00:15). This one had a few kinks; you must hear me talk alone in the middle, but it was still a great session. In the end, Amrita joined us, which was a pleasant surprise! Thank you to everyone who joined us live. Amantha and Amrita are amazing founders!
This one was special because I got to bring together two amazing founders who are building excess inventory marketplaces in very different spaces. Yonder has invested in both companies, and I am honored to back them.
Excess inventory is a BIG problem. It is estimated at $800B annually, which probably doesn’t capture all of it. The excess inventory space is ripe for B2B marketplaces, and we have already seen traction from companies like Ghost ($30M Series B) and Max Retail ($15M Series A), who raised rounds in 2024. But this isn’t a new model by any stretch of the imagination.
The
team shared the chart below, which shows that “off-price” retailers like T.J. Maxx and Ross deliver operating margins of more than 10%, higher than those of their industry peers. This profitable model can be stamped out across many more verticals.
What makes excess inventory an excellent space for marketplaces is a few things:
The supply is often unavailable to sell online or offline, and it is also not easily legible for buyers, so making it sellable is a win.
The suppliers generally have two choices: throw the inventory away or sell it. This urgency creates downward pricing pressure and urgency.
Excessive supply is a constant issue as production forecasting is imperfect, and there are general expiration dates.
Many suppliers never had a solution quickly offload inventory at scale and discreetly via blind marketplaces.
A little about each company in this context:
RxPost is a B2B marketplace that allows pharmacists to buy and sell excess inventory from each other. In this instance, the supply wasn’t ever available, so bringing it online for purchase creates the market and allows the sellers to recoup some of their costs. In this case, the sellers are the pharmacies that pre-buy their inventory to sell. If medicine expires, they must throw it away, and no costs are recouped. Selling at a discount allows the seller to recoup costs while providing a discounted wholesale pricing to the buyer, which they can mark up as they resell. RxPost has the unique quality that supply and demand are highly interchangeable and can be both buyers and sellers.
Sotira is a SaaS-enabled B2B marketplace for excess consumer packaged goods inventory that is shelf stable but has an expiration date on it. Sotira has a unique approach to solving this by providing end-to-end workflow automation software that manages suppliers expiring/surplus inventory, transactions, and logistics. With a system of record for the inventory, companies can efficiently distribute it to Sotira’s marketplace for discrete and rapid offloading to thousands of long-tail surplus buyers. Again, this inventory typically is thrown away if not used, and Sotira allows its sellers to recoup significant costs while creating an arbitrage opportunity for the buyers.
Now, listen to the episode!
About Amantha Bagdon
Amantha Bagdon is a dedicated pharmacy technician and tireless advocate for the profession. As the founder of RxPost, she leads an innovative secondary pharmacy marketplace that helps pharmacies effectively redistribute overstocked medications to reduce waste. She raised venture capital from notable Los Angeles funds, Slauson & Co., and Fabric VC to fuel her mission. Drawing on nearly two decades of firsthand experience and her passion for community and mentorship, she champions the needs of pharmacy professionals in local, state, and national industry groups. Amantha’s unwavering commitment to sustainable solutions sets a new standard for the future of pharmacy.
About Amrita Bhasin
Amrita Bhasin is the co-founder and CEO of Sotira, workflow and compliance automation software for surplus inventory. Sotira is partnered with the biggest instant commerce company in the US, CPG beverage and snack brands, grocery companies, delivery companies, and 3PLs. Amrita was awarded second place at the 2023 AWS Startup Competition and is based in the Bay Area, CA.
Thanks for listening!
As always, please email me at colin@yonder.vc with any questions or feedback. For other great marketplace content, please subscribe and follow me on X and LinkedIn. If you want to book a call, you can find me on Intro.
Join me for my next live video in the app
About Me:
Colin is a marketplace geek and the General Partner of Yonder, a pre-seed marketplace fund that invests in marketplaces that create new economies. He has also been a long-time advisor to marketplaces, helping them with product growth, monetization, liquidity optimization, and strategy. Previously, he was the CPO/CRO at Outdoorsy and worked at Tripping.com, Ancestry.com, Justanswer, and the Federal Reserve.
Share this post