- French startup Ankorstore wants to dominate the European retail market.
- Tiger Global has twice backed Ankorstore in the last year, which was dubbed an “anti-Amazon.”
- Cofounder Nicolas Cohen wants to make becoming an independent retailer as easy as driving for Uber.
French retail-marketplace Ankorstore wants to reject the notion that startups need to go global to excel and instead focus on dominating the European market.
The Paris-based company, which was founded in 2019 by veterans of Etsy and Vestiare Collective, has been backed twice in the last 12 months by US investing giant Tiger Global and touts a valuation of around $2 billion.
The startup is building out a wholesale marketplace that makes it easier for independent shops to source merchandise from a variety of brands.
Nicolas Cohen, the Ankorstore cofounder, wants to ensure the future of retail in Europe remains independent, with his startup having previously been dubbed the “anti-Amazon.”
“We think Europe will be the biggest market for e-commerce penetration in the world,” he told Insider. “The continent is still made up of independent retailers, compared with the US and China which are more concentrated.”
Ankorstore needs to move “very fast,” according to Cohen, who said it is not a “winner takes all market” but that there is definitely a first-mover advantage.
The startup has raised $419 million to date, with much of the cash going to building out teams in core countries. Ankorstore’s model is designed to help smaller retailers that would regularly struggle to compete with bigger players, because the brands they want to showcase will have a high minimum-order requirement.
Ankorstore effectively acts as the middleman with a minimum order of €100 ($120), allowing smaller retailers to buy a greater variety of stock. Brands are then charged a commission on sales by Ankorstore.
Like many digital-first businesses, Ankorstore benefited from widespread lockdowns that shuttered physical stores across the world.
“The pandemic has been a good point for us and a benefit, because it accelerated the switch to digital platforms,” Cohen added. “During the first lockdown, all the shops were closed, so from March and after the peak season of buying, shops were fully loaded on product, having refilled them following the festive sales season.”
The company has subsequently sprung up in the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden, and is considering expansion into Spain and Italy, with Cohen estimating that the addressable market could be worth around $900 billion currently.
Ankorstore says it work with around 200,000 retailers and some 15,000 brands, but isn’t the only player in the space. US rival Faire is valued at $12.4 billion and expanded into Europe late last year in a bid to capture more of the continent’s spend.
“As a US company, they want to take the world and they don’t want to accept defeat in Europe, but they are starting from scratch here,” Cohen said. “We have different strategies, they are expanding globally but we are just focused on Europe. This a massive, massive market, so we are not worried about Faire. There is room for two players.”
To that end, Ankorstore has focused on building decentralized teams operating in the native tongue in each geography.
“General managers own the P&L, so they are driving countries as if it was their own business, and to scale fast you have to empower them,” Cohen added. The company now has around 400 employees working in 40 or so languages.
Ankorstore wants to be a driving force behind growth in independent retailers in Europe.
“People will have the choice to become a driver for Uber or open their own independent shop, because we will make it so easy for them, the only question will be finding a good location for their store,” Cohen said.
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