Emerging Platforms and Trends in the context of the dRural project
Since the beginning of 2021 Boundaryless took part in dRural, the multi-year project whose aim is to bring together innovation ecosystems around the digital transformation to support rural citizens and businesses for a multiplicity of (novel) services. The dRural project funded the research activity connected to the deliverables and the writing of this blog post, authored by Andrea Valeri and reviewed by Luca Ruggeri.
The overall goal described for the dRural project is to “co-develop and implement a digital solution that delivers multiple services to rural citizens while creating opportunities for economic growth and quality of life improvements”. Less densely populated areas, generally lower incomes and less access to opportunities, a shrinking and aging population, and poor access to healthcare, education and other essential services are some of the challenges faced by rural areas in Europe today. A Europe fit for the digital age recognises digitalisation as a system-level catalyst that increases efficiency, boosts performance, and unlocks innovation, across and between all European sectors.
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Since last year, we have experienced turmoil in the economies around the world, with some industries being hit very hard (e.g. tourism and air transport), while others thrived (e.g. grocery, retail, online education). Platforms and marketplaces dominated the landscape, bringing end-to-end services, becoming the best interface available suitable to engage with consumers' needs and expectations. You can find further elements to dig deeper in our friend Sangeet Choudary’s podcast. Capital investments grew enormously, especially in Europe, where the highest number of unicorns has been established so far in the continent.
For the purposes of this blog post, we scanned and dug into an enormous amount of data and reports, especially Adevinta Dealroom, A16Z Marketplaces 100, evaluating hundreds of platforms and marketplaces, setting some of them in the dRural context. When speaking of platform-marketplaces, you would probably think about the biggest players such as Amazon and Alibaba. Undoubtedly, they are interesting, especially in the light of Alibaba’s recent vow to beat Amazon in fast international shipping. However, today we will delve into other incredible platforms that are either promising or show interesting features, knowing that our shortlist does not make justice to the multitude of those out there, and we welcome you to post a reply and hear your opinion on the matter.
In this blog post, we will go through some platforms and marketplaces that achieved significant results in the last year. We will divide them into 3 sections, namely into scale, reach and adoption, and profitability. Then, we will go through specific features in the transaction or learning engine that we found particularly interesting. In the end, we highlight some of the most typical business models encountered during our research and relevant to the project. We will frequently connect platforms and their features to the dRural context.
Scale
Let’s start by listing some platforms that are making the difference through the lenses of some common Unit economics, such as GMV and MAU. Furthermore, we look at examples of a technology that lowers running costs at the local level and industries for which it is expected to have a boom in the near future.
Instacart is the top listed marketplace in the A16Z Marketplaces 100 report, with a huge Gross Merchandise Value and yet accompanied by solid growth. The company serves North American markets and allows users to shop groceries online, choosing from local stores and supermarkets, and receiving the goods directly at home. Of course, last year’s lockdowns contributed to fuel its growth, but the consumer preferences are clearly showing that online grocery shopping is a trend that is here to stay.
This service is particularly hard to attain in rural areas, but there is a lot to learn from this platform anyway: to obtain goods from farther shops, users pay additional fees, which get reduced as long as you buy more goods (in dollar terms). Additionally, users who decide to pay a monthly subscription fee get reduced fees and commissions, making it more convenient to place orders frequently.
An alternative solution for rural areas that we found is represented by Lifvs. We loved it and you will, too. It is a Swedish business and it is not (yet) a platform. Basically, the company runs completely automated small shops in rural areas. The origin of the low cost is that they don’t have employees operating inside, as the user experience is completely managed through an app, and hence it is open 24/7. Through it, the user can open the door, scan the products, pay, and leave. The company is currently testing new services to be built on top of the automated boutiques, which are becoming a local meeting place.
Maybe you are not aware of the next exciting marketplace, but despite its young age (founded in 2015), it rivals Alibaba in Monthly Active Users (MAU). PinDuoDuo, a Chinese company, had a meteoric growth and scale. By making agricultural products more easily discoverable and enabling the aggregation of demand, it is widening market access for farmers by connecting them with end buyers, cutting off unnecessary intermediaries and hence lowering the final price for the consumers. On top of that, the marketplace offers an interactive and fun “virtual bazaar” experience to users, which is an increasingly common feature of the Chinese market.
Other interesting marketplaces are Whatnot and GoodDog. The former is a marketplace for collectibles, especially from the gaming category, while the latter, as the name suggests, represents an all-round marketplace for dogs. These two categories are expected to boom in the near future. While not necessarily linked to our work in dRural, they offer some interesting points, namely live-streaming services to “geek out”, show and sell (collectible) items valued by the community, with the quality guaranteed by the platform itself (Whatnot), or connecting breeders, shelters and rescues with wanna-be adopters, all while accessing for free its learning center to have the best tips before and after adopting a pet (GoodDog).
The category of marketplace builders received a boost during the pandemic thanks to the whirling increase in e-commerce. Wix is among the companies that performed well, but Shopify surely had an edge: Shopify, the marketplace builder and matchmaker for marketplace-related services reported to have almost doubled their Gross Merchandise Value at around $120b in 2020!
Here is a nicely wrapped set of statistics on Homeschooling. Despite still not being comprehensive, it clearly shows how it was already on the rise before the pandemic, but the latter helped it to become more accessible, with many platforms, old and new, jumping in to provide quality schooling, especially to kids. Probably you are already aware of amazing platforms such as, among others, Coursera, EdX and Skillshare, and we will talk more about an alternative thought entirely for kids and teenagers aged 3–18: Outschool. This platform allows users to take courses in what they are most passionate about, while the courses vary depending on the structure given by teachers. It is possible to subscribe to courses and take 1-on-1 sessions, and all the teachers must pass all the minimum requirements set by the platform, but notably not formal certifications, as their belief is that many adults could provide high-quality classes on topics they are expert in.
Reach and adoption
In this section, we present some of the platforms and industries that are lowering the barrier for users to get products and services, the extent to which particular platforms are being adopted at the Country and regional levels, and those that engage users across multiple Countries.
Outschool recently raised around $120M in a matter of a few months, in rounds B and C. There are hundreds of thousands of learners in the platform spread across 160+ Countries. The platform benefited enormously from last years’ restrictions, however, thanks to the aforementioned Homeschooling trends, it seems that it will reach more and more users in the foreseeable future. It is important to note that the platform offers services for employers to support the parents of homeschooled children. Additionally, the platform collects donations to provide education also for families’ kids who are in financial hardship.
Contextualizing this with our focus on rural areas we can consider another element, which is the lack of the same “freedom of choice” of in-person schooling alternatives that large cities and dense-populated regions can offer, so it’s not really possible to access a tailor-made educational offering. Homeschooling is a phenomenon that may bring higher quality and wider breadth education even in the most remote areas, with the implication that it can actually lead to increased local developments, over time.
A huge opportunity that finally took hold is represented by refurbished and second-hand marketplaces, whereby Back Market, Vestiaire Collective, Vinted and Depop are some of the examples that fall in the “re-commerce” industry. More people are willing to reuse stuff instead of throwing them away, especially when there is a faster way to get rid of them while earning some bucks. When the marketplace is also able to certify and/or warrant the quality of the second-hand items we talk about a managed marketplace approach, in which the producer is normally heavily commoditized and can be substantially controlled. These types of marketplaces are much more dependent on a reliable and replicable experience both in terms of product and pricing. Read more about it here and here. The trend of second-hand marketplaces is also useful when dealing with rural areas, in which Underutilised Fixed Assets (UFAs) can be not only sold or borrowed but also exchanged, such as land and equipment.
For the latter point let us introduce you Cazoo. If you don’t live in the UK you might have never heard of it, but it is one of the fastest-growing marketplaces in the Country and it operates in the automotive industry, especially in selling, leasing, financing, delivering and exchanging new and second-hand cars in record time. The interesting characteristic is the possibility to exchange your car, whose value is calculated instantly online, with another one by just paying the difference between the two cars values.
We want to close this section with some “classic” retail marketplaces, but instead of Amazon and Alibaba, let us introduce you to Coupang and Jumia. The former is the biggest online retailer in South Korea, which had enormous success last year and keeps growing (during the first quarter of 2021 it almost doubled its revenues with respect to the one in 2020), while the latter is arguably the biggest retailer in the African continent. There would be a lot to talk about both Jumia and African development, however, to make things simpler, the African market is growing, fostered by, among others, common policies. The African Continental Free Trade Area has entered into force since the 1st of January 2021, which is the largest in the world in terms of the number of participating countries. While not all of them have ratified it yet, it still represents a huge event, which will lead to further opportunities for the African Countries and platforms and marketplaces operating locally.
Profitability
In this section, we present industries and platforms that have been most profitable in the last couple of years, mostly by digging into their financial statements and allowing comparisons between companies operating in the same industries, when applicable.
According to the reports mentioned at the beginning of this section, some of the most profitable industries in the last period have been the delivery, grocery, healthcare, edtech but also entertainment (think about celebrity engagement platforms such as Cameo), and interestingly enough, fashion. Furthermore, Creator Economy-enabler marketplaces are gaining huge momentum (for instance, the subscription and pay-per-view site Onlyfans grew five times during 2020).
In the healthcare industry there is an enormous number of interesting marketplaces, however, Teladoc Health added 15 million paid subscribers over the last year and doubled its revenues to $1.09b, providing an umbrella of services through its various brands, but mainly related to the whole-person virtual care industry. The implications for the dRural project are similar to homeschooling: as rural areas are more underserved, online healthcare visits with generalist and specialist doctors, as well as booking in-person visits and services will come in handy (e.g. with platforms like Doctolib and Kry).
Another brand that keeps growing fast in 2021 is Farfetch, operating in the luxury fashion industry. In 2020, it increased its revenues by 67%, while it grew another 60% in the first quarter of 2021 alone over the same period in 2020!
We are particularly and proudly attached to Farfetch, since we have collaborated with them for a long period of time. You can read more about our previous collaborations here and here.
Other companies that gained momentum are Delivery Hero and HelloFresh, which increased revenues by a whopping 108% and 106%, respectively, according to the Adevinta Ventures report. However, having high revenues and growth does not mean being profitable. And, in that respect, there are some clear winners.
We anticipated earlier the skyrocketing performance of Shopify regarding its GMV performance. On the profitability side, they reported achieving a Net Income of more than $300m compared to a loss at $125m in 2019.
HelloFresh successfully combined growth and profitability, doubling the number of active users and its revenues, while increasing the Adjusted Earnings Before Interest, Tax, Depreciation, and Amortization (AEBITDA) and reaching an overall comprehensive income of $350m, up from a loss of $10m in one year! However, this explosive growth could be hard to sustain as economies try to reopen up, and this can be Achille’s heel of Instacart as well. Despite having the largest GMV among the selected Marketplaces by a16z, as mentioned earlier (around 70% of the combined GMVs), Instacart business model may also need to adjust to factor in the rather high fee for grocers, which amounts up to 10%, that can be unsustainable for their businesses in the long run. More information in that respect will be available if the company goes public in late 2021.
Despite growing at a fast pace, Farfetch was not so profitable in 2020, especially if we take into account their adjustment of asset evaluations (see note 2) if compared with another European marketplace, Zalando, which more than doubled their Net Income. However, Farfetch demonstrated to be on the right path to profitability by disclosing an increase in GMV and Profit after tax of 50% and $600m, respectively, in Q1 2021 over the same period in 2020, even if the AEBITDA still remains negative.
Creator Economy enablers, led by Onlyfans, are showing high margins for both the creators and the marketplaces themselves, and there is still a steep earning potential for the top performers entering the market. Onlyfans experienced a meteoric growth and charges a 20% fee on every dollar spent by users on their marketplace, but more accurate information on its actual profitability is yet to be verified.
Lastly, despite being known to most people in the US, DoorDash and DeliveryHero are still not profitable (check here and here, respectively). However, while DoorDash reduced its losses, DeliveryHero accumulated a whopping $1.4b in losses. On the other hand, the group has performed a series of investments, both internally and externally, acquiring a slate of other companies, most notably partly acquiring important shares of Glovo. In the healthcare industry, Teladoc Health greatly improved its net losses, while operating a series of acquisitions in the sphere of counseling, especially psychological.
The Transaction Engine
The Platform value creation is given by two engines: the Transaction Engine and the Learning Engine. In the next two sections, we will go through both engines, highlighting relevant features we found in the platforms studied. Either way, these engines represent two sides of the same coin and they are both relevant for the success of a platform strategy, albeit they may contribute to unequal footage.
Just a quick recall on the Transaction Engine: it’s all about deep diving into the existing transactions/exchanges of value among the supply and demand sides, and the platform works to reduce the overall transaction cost. That means reducing friction wherever possible, lower down entry barriers, simplify bureaucracy, provide risk management solutions, and provide a seamless end-to-end experience in the exchange of the value unit. If you want to know more about it, you can read our blog post here.
Better access to Underutilised Fixed Assets
Let’s start with the access to the Underutilised Fixed Assets (UFAs). We covered UFAs multiple times in the past (for example during The New Growth Landscape research), which Kevin Kwok simply defines as “things with fixed costs that are not being used as much as they could be.”
It is interesting to take into consideration “re-commerce” marketplaces in relation to UFAs, such as those we discussed above. As anticipated before, they create a secondary, profitable market for users. On top of that, the consumer behaviour might further shift and be geared towards purchasing and consuming more as more marketplaces allow to lease, sell, exchange goods with more ease and in faster time frames. Finally, even if they do not allow items to be used more in a given time frame, they open an important market, since they effectively extend the life of goods.
Via mobility provides microtransit services to public transit authorities, schools and universities to find new routes to better serve citizens, while harnessing data to increase the number of users to use already existing public transportation services. The more public authorities use Via Mobility-as-a-service solutions to analyse data, the more efficient the service becomes, potentially attracting more citizens to use it. On top of that, Via allows private citizens to become drivers to test routes and be listed as on-demand drivers, even if they don’t have their own car: the platform connects rental partners that offer hourly and weekly solutions. The implications for rural areas are crystal clear, as data and software can provide the means to better design public transportation in the region, improving efficiency while saving time and money, on aggregate.
A phenomenon partly created by quick meal deliveries is that of ghost kitchens, which is related to UFAs and already covered in this previous post. New platforms are popping up to allow delivery-only restaurants to operate in city centers, where normally the costs associated to start an activity would be in the order of dozens of thousands of euros, while marketplaces such as Cloud Kitchens or Karma Kitchen offer a cooking space for a limited amount of time, even daily slots. These solutions leave the floor to experimentation and low running costs.
Managing the financial risks
Many platforms are internalising the financial risks to provide higher quality products and services to the final consumers, for example by providing marketplace-backed warranties, hence increasing the trust and transactions between users. These solutions are common across industries, spanning from the car industry (Cazoo) to Healthcare (Teladoc Health), from collectibles (Whatnot) to “re-commerce” (Back Market).
On the other hand, third parties can ensure and/or legitimise the marketplace, through services such as insurance and financing, so that the users bear lower burdens. This opens the space, for instance, to attract third parties that have an embedded ethical principle, or that take care of a regenerative perspective / new social contract, as for instance, James Currier at NFX pointed out recently.
Aggregation and bundlisation
We assist in different transaction models, depending on the angle the marketplace takes. For example, Farfetch and Outschool effectively unbundle and fragment products and services in a way that the final users get the lowest price possible. Farfetch, despite not being able to autonomously set the prices for high-quality designer products, allows producers to avoid many of the costs associated with stores, while the platform takes care of the legwork associated with the delivery.
Outschool provides single courses, whereby parents can enroll their children by paying a subscription fee that depends on the course taken into consideration and without enrolling in full-fledged programs, reducing the costs and optimising the learning to what the kids are interested to learn the most.
On the other hand, some companies aggregate and bundle different services and products, as is the case of Instacart and HelloFresh. The former provides a user interface that makes it possible to shop throughout multiple local stores, while calculating in real-time what is the final cost associated with the deliveries, as well as by when the goods will be delivered. The latter bundles ingredients and recipes based on users’ preferences, delivering them once a week.
Standardize transactions and business processes
From grocery shopping to delivery and fashion, many are the platforms that are standardized transactions and business processes, like Instacart, Farfetch, and DoorDash.
However, a notable example of a platform-marketplace that standardized transactions and business processes for users is Shopify. It provides a plethora of solutions itself to open an online business in minutes, while it builds on top of that a marketplace for the most disparate activities, from seeking help from experts to market the business to even selling your shopify business! If, instead, you are looking forward to creating your own marketplace, you can take a look at Sharetribe, which standardized the tools needed for you to onboard the sides you want to join in.
To conclude this section, let’s highlight the differences between marketplaces competing in the same industry with different scopes. For example, Chewy is an all-round pet marketplace and it operates in a significantly different way with respect to GoodDog, because it permits to match wanna-be pet owners and the pets in shelters or owned by other pet owners, while GoodDog aims to customise each interaction happening inside its marketplace. However, on the other hand, Chewy offers a wide array of products, namely food, pharmacy and miscellaneous treats and supplies for pets.
What if you want to build your own community?
Defragmenting the available channels
We assist in the defragmentation of available channels, especially in the community-building platforms category. Companies such as Mighty Networks and Disciple Media provide the means to both standardise the process to build, nurture and engage your community, but also centralise the communication channels for a seamless user experience.
In general, the creator economy requires the most effective and engaging communication possible, so the most successful platforms ought to be able to compete and provide the highest value possible to creators, but also to users, who should be able to browse, find, consume and be engaged overtime in the platform. In this context, TikTok is a horizontal platform that uses algorithms to show both the most popular content and the emerging ones, so that more new creators can have a higher probability of succeeding with respect to other platforms. While TikTok is an “open” platform, meaning that everyone can have access to it and browse its content, Patreon is a platform for those supporters who sustain the creator’s work by funding subscription fees to access premium content. Vertical marketplaces can be represented by the aforementioned Onlyfans, which hosts selected categories spanning from music to fitness, albeit being associated only with the sex workers category, and bandcamp, which operates in the music industry only.
Access to (new) funding streams
An interesting platform is Auxmoney, which enables peer-to-peer aggregation of funds to provide loans. Those who lend money will receive a percentage at the end of the period, while borrowers have the advantage to receive funds way more rapidly than with banks, with background checks being performed by the platforms themselves.
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The Learning Engine
What we intend for the Learning Engine is the set of support services that the platform shaper provides and maintains for the participants, so that they can evolve and become the best version of themselves through continuous learning and improvement. Is the way the platform shaper helps entities to cope with and adapt to the complexity of the networked age. To know more, check this post out and download the Platform Design Toolkit and the User Guide here.
Access to (new) funding streams
With respect to funding streams, the more the users match the platform’s requirements, the more they will be able to obtain funds with lower interest rates. Conversely, peer-to-peer funders will be able to diversify their investment risks thanks to tools inside the platform (e.g. the Portfolio Builder in Auxmoney). The Italian Soisy gives shop owners the possibility to sell their goods to people who get directly financed by other people.
Uncapped offers an alternative way to get financing for an online business. The marketplace is backed by European investors and they offer a flat fee for the financing with a revenue share model, instead of asking for shares or securities. The result is that a company with a proven track record can return back at each time and require financing fast and reliably while being intermediated to digital agencies and other platforms to receive further help to grow.
Community building and support
We already discussed community building platforms before, let’s add the learning engine perspective. When the community is engaged and creates value, it is possible for it to grow faster. These community-building platforms give tools to platform shapers to understand the performance and the engagement as a whole, even providing the possibility to add additional services and amplify the offering (such as allowing both peer-to-peer and platform shapers to give courses). In addition, community building platforms can give tools to empower certain members to help the community shaper to facilitate and spur interactions while moderating them. Lifvs, the Swedish company that supports rural areas by building automated shops, is seemingly going towards this direction, testing a platform on top of their shops to let their customers and local residents meet and interact among them in more dynamic ways.
Improving skills and knowledge
The improvement of the skills and knowledge inside platforms is becoming increasingly relevant, as users want to get better inside of it and get new opportunities untapped.
Lately, we had a meeting with Josh Breinlinger, who depicted how many freelance platforms are not only providing suppliers to perform gigs, but they actually teach and certify the skills acquired by their users and effectively provide a career path. This is highly interesting, considering how many people are stuck with their careers or have lost their jobs and need to reinvent themselves. At each time new (sets of) skills are acquired, new possible works are unlocked, creating tiers of expertise through a gamification strategy. Josh has invested in NANA Home, an appliance repair platform with these characteristics. Another similar example is the UK-based CERA Care, which trains professional carers.
A variation of this model is represented by GoodDog and Cazoo, which teach and counsel the consumer side to understand which is the best option for them, and which are the best tips to enjoy the relationship with their pet or how to use their car and make it more durable.
Solving the trust problem
Trust can make or break a marketplace. It can be earned by showing the transparency of their procedures, partnering and/or serving well-known brands, acquiring legitimation by third-party organisations and technologies companies, or a mix of both.
For example, B Corporation audits and certifies businesses that contribute towards a sustainable and inclusive economy. Consumers that recognise B Corporation are more prone to trust and deal with a company that is accepted by the organisation. Technologies such as payments and processes through blockchain may help consumers to trust the marketplace and trusted intermediaries, such as the payment processing company Paypal, made the fortune of marketplaces like eBay.
We already mentioned the managed marketplace approach before, namely by performing background checks (Outschool), sell products refurbished by the original manufacturer (Back Market) and guarantee the quality/originality of the item (Whatnot), to the common “get what you asked for or your money back” policy (from eBay to Amazon to Allegro.pl, across all industries), to connecting known brands to the final consumer (Instacart, Farfetch), to internalising the risk of the transaction (DoorDash, Delivery Hero), to set a barrier to entry for suppliers (TopTal selects the “top 3%” freelancers of the industry).
Let’s draw a comparison between two equally interesting “company marketplaces’’ (yes, where you can buy and sell actual companies). We introduced Shopify before, and another marketplace is MicroAcquire, which audits, lists and provides a seamless communication channel between the buyer and the seller. There is a caveat, though. Shopify has a huge advantage because it already gathers data and information over time from business owners operating on its platform and using its website builder, while MicroAcquire’s process starts from scratch at each time. The bottom line is that once the platform provides an environment in which it enables users to build on top of their software, the platform can also gather and audit data more easily. That being said, MicroAcquire competes to another level as well, which includes the evaluation of both traditional businesses and more complex ones, such as SAAS companies.
Condensing the most typical business models and emerging trends.
Open the accounts that you have created in various marketplaces. Is there something in common?
Odds are that you are subscribed to at least one of your preferred marketplaces. Coincidence? Maybe. Or maybe not. Many platforms are nowadays using subscription-based models and various forms of it, such as pay-per-use, pay-per-view, and rental models instead of a one-time purchase or ownership-based model.
It is based on the idea of selling a product or service to receive monthly or yearly predictable recurring subscription revenue. By doing so, platforms also foster the frequency of interactions per user by reducing fees and providing other perks to subscribed users.
As the technology improves over time, it unlocks faster supply chains and real-time information that results in more complex services provided on subscription fees.
And when new technologies become more widespread, new platforms and marketplaces will come along.
Additionally, there are platforms that are able to dynamically adjust prices based on the user, so as to be able to capture the highest price that a user is willing to pay. It is often coupled with referrals.
The market for second-hand products is booming, with marketplaces taking the role of the “guarantor”, albeit in different ways: from those that simply address quality issues only after being manifested (“your money back”) to those that take a proactive role in assessing the quality of the products before they are delivered, either directly or indirectly.
Many platforms allow you to work on gigs, which are desultory, mostly one-off jobs that are intermediated by the platform (think about Upwork and Fiverr, for example). However, an emerging trend is that platforms themselves are teaching their potential service providers marketable skills, opening up new career streams. Some of these “career-path” marketplaces even tier the possibility to respond to a service request based on which skills the providers learned through the platform itself, as we discussed in the section above — examples related to that are CERA care, Airbnb (the infamous co-host who takes care of other people’s property), NANA Home.
Connected to it are platforms that enable the Creator and Passion economies. There is a huge opportunity for creators nowadays, with the learning curve being still steep.
As the platform business model matures, not only are platforms re-intermediating the markets and enabling interactions between actors, but many of them are focusing on providing efficient, reliable or quick services. AI-powered marketplaces are becoming increasingly relevant, as their models learn from each interaction happening inside of them and predict with more accuracy the next interactions. Finally, the supply chain is optimised and sometimes incorporated like in the case of HelloFresh or Lingoda), as network effects are arguably becoming more understood and more entrepreneurs try to levy on them.
The banking sector is changing, too. First of all, companies such as Cardlytics offer intelligence services to companies by using anonymous and aggregated consumer purchase-related data by partnering with some of the top banks. For this reason, they are also able to tell how much spending is made to competitors. On top of that, banks such as ING are starting to offer more services, either in-house or through third parties, with the aim to lock in more users. For example, ING offers to its Polish customers services to open a business activity and run the accountancy on their behalf (webpage available in Polish only). Furthermore, third parties connected to the bank can offer additional services, such as leasing and e-commerce building — from marketing to logistics. Top banks are opening up to their ecosystems, and perhaps we will see this soon at the regional level as well, with the unfolding of the dRural project.
A final note on the dRural project. Historically, rural areas have not benefited as much as urban areas from the most recent advances in technology. Many rural towns have been abandoned because of the lack of services and opportunities. However, since last year we are witnessing an increasing number of initiatives and marketplaces that aim, directly and indirectly, to improve the livelihoods of rural citizens. From remote schooling and home office to transportation, from telehealth to a reorganization of the banking system around their local ecosystems, to the deployment of technologies such as automation that make feasible what was not possible before, maybe to the point where the trend of abandoning towns to go to live in cities could be actually reversed. We believe that this is the right time to bring value to rural areas and widen access to services and resources.
Before You Go!
We enjoyed writing this article and we hope you extracted some valuable information from it. Let us know whether and about which topics discussed you wish to know more about. Feel free to drop us a line to Andrea (andrea@platformdesigntoolkit.com) for feedback, recommend more platforms, business models and resources to learn from,
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