Charts: Top Publicly Traded Ecommerce Companies, Q3 2023

The definition of an “ecommerce” company varies depending on the source. Yahoo Finance’s watchlist of publicly traded ecommerce stocks includes retailers, marketplaces, and platforms. Notably, it features Etsy while excluding Shopify. Other data providers make similar subjective classifications.

My curated compilation of leading publicly traded ecommerce companies for Q3 2023 combines diverse sources. The list continues to be dominated by U.S. and Chinese companies.

As for Q3 revenue, Walmart secured the top spot, generating $161 billion. Amazon posted $143 billion, followed by China-based marketplaces JD.com with $34 billion and Alibaba at $31 billion.

Amazon reported the top Q3 net income with $9.88 billion, surpassing Alibaba at $3.65 billion.

Amazon maintains its lead in market capitalization (stock price times the number of outstanding shares) at $1.52 trillion in December 2023.

SimilarWeb estimates global website traffic. In October 2023, Amazon had the most traffic for an ecommerce company with a huge 2.4 billion visits, followed by eBay at 673 million.

Charts: Venture Capital Trends Q3 2023

Global venture capital funding in the third quarter of 2023 reached $72.9 billion, a slight increase from the previous quarter but a 15% decrease from Q3 2022. That’s according to Crunchbase.

Dealroom, a Netherlands-based provider of startup and tech data, also reported a Q3 VC funding increase. According to Dealroom (PDF), global venture investments reached over $81 billion in Q3 2023, a 5% increase from the previous quarter.

The biotechnolbogy industry received the most VC funding thus far in 2023 with $19.6 billion, followed by payments and clean energy, both with $12.3 billion.

Per Dealroom, global venture capital funding in manufacturing has increased by 19% in 2023, as of Sept. 30, compared to the previous year.

Since 2019, U.S.-based companies have received the most VC funding, followed by Europe and China.

Charts: Ecommerce VC Deals 2022, 2023

In 2022, the total value of global ecommerce venture capital deals was $30.1 billion, a 34.1% decline from 2021. Similarly, the number of deals dropped by 19% to 846 transactions. That’s according to the Q2 2023 “E-commerce Report” (PDF) from PitchBook, the financial data and research firm.

The exit value of ecommerce VC investments totaled $5.3 billion in 2022, representing an 82.4% fall from 2021. The 59 deals in 2022 were a 9.2% decrease from the previous year.

“Exit” refers to investors selling their stakes, typically via a sale of the company or an initial public stock offering.

Capstone Partners is an investment banking firm in Boston that provides merger and acquisition advisory services. According to the firm’s “E-Commerce M&A Coverage Report July 2023” (PDF), 2023 funding to Amazon aggregators was stagnant as of May 31, although total funding since inception for many aggregators remains substantial.

Thrasio tops the list at $3.4 billion in total funding raised, followed by Berlin-based SellerX at $1.4 billion and Berlin Brands Group at $1.3 billion.