Parnexus

What is Parnexus and who is Josh?

Parnexus is the antithesis of a normal marketplace. It has nothing advertised for sale. 

It’s impossible to list anything for sale on the platform because that would no longer be off-market, and Parnexus specialises exclusively in the off-market. 

Instead, every listing is a search listing exclusively for off-market hard assets. Think fine wine, jets, and collectible cars. Cleverly, Josh has figured out a way to solve a huge problem with off-market assets for both buyers and sellers. Here’s how Parnexus works. A buyer will declare the asset that they seek, a specific search listing is created, and an owner or direct representative can securely approach them to set up a deal privately through the platform. 

Firstly, why was Josh the guy to start Parnexus? Josh was working in fine wine investing and, on the side, was running an information business about passion assets. He realised that there was no source of high-quality, concise third-party information online for passion asset investing. In the process of creating this platform, people started to ask Josh whether he could help to source or sell particular assets. Assuming that he had a network that they could tap into. This was his baptism into the world of off-market asset broking. 

The two years that followed led to Josh working on many multiple off-market asset deals, which helped him to have a lot of conviction around the idea that is parnexus. 

Parnexus would set out to solve a very common set of problems that he, as a broker, was coming face to face with on a daily basis. For example, long and opaque chains of communication, high fees, high margins, and zero barriers to entry. This ~£160+ billion problem needed solving for virtually everyone in the equation. Here’s the rundown of the business so far. 

The Numbers

Having spent years in the hard asset world, Josh knew people would want the solution he was going to provide before even speaking to them. This solved the inherent marketplace chicken and egg problem quite nicely. Josh knew he didn’t need the volume on either side to get people on the platform at first. 

He built the MVP of the website himself in October 2022 and populated the platform with demonstration listings, one for each asset class. After that, it was pure one-on-one combat with the right individuals in his network. Having talked through the idea with over 40 potential users, he got them all ready to essentially create their own searches. Then on one particular day, he simply took off all of the demos, leveraging those real searches to go out and find more members. 

Within 3 months of going live, Parnexus was hitting £100 million in search value. This increased to over £600 million soon after. Now, almost 2 years later, with 280–90 users in 21 countries, they reach well into the billions of asset search value. Their core verticals are real estate, collectible and classic cars, yachting, and jets. 

In terms of activity on the platform, Parnexus has seen that 86.5% of created searches had been engaged with by another member. Within 48 hours of that first engagement on the search, 6 messages are exchanged back and forth on average. The most the platform has seen in 48 hours was 27 messages back and forth between the buying side and the selling side. 

The fee structure of Parnexus has evolved slightly over time. In early 2023, they tried to take a fee from both sides. This didn’t work because they realised it could compromise the all-important trust and transparency factor—two critical elements to the business. 

Parnexus now just takes a fee from the buyer side on a successful transaction, which is a lot more sustainable. If you’re the buyer yourself and you created the search on the platform, there’s a 1% transaction fee. If you’re a representative of the buyer, then it's 20% of your commission. In an effort to keep friction low, especially being bootstrapped, they did not introduce a membership fee from day one, but there are plans to in the future. Josh was unable to disclose revenue at this time. 

The business is built through cold, hard research, outreach, and networking, alongside the nurturing of existing members and relationships; hence, no money has been spent on advertising so far. It’s also very common for a member to introduce other potential members. Word-of-mouth distribution by the Parnexus team and their commercial allies is currently their only growth lever, but it’s clearly working. 

In order for Parnexus to grow, they’re focussing on making multiple business development hires. They need to scale their operation of brokering equals as this is the lifeblood of the platform. New members equals new searches and new deals. Scaling simply requires a higher headcount. Josh wants to build out an elite business development team who understand the vision and can communicate this perfectly.  

Lessons so far from building Parnexus

Josh had a lot to say here, so here’s a list:

• Existing relationships and networks are exhaustive.

• You can accomplish a HELL of a lot with very little

• Find mentors who’ve done it already.

• Create a network of founders and entrepreneurs in the same situation.

• Build/Frankenstein an MVP in a week and go and show people

• Iterate fast. Don’t try to start perfect. 

• If you can’t read minds, learn how to. Corny, but it helps. 

• If you can’t see into the future, learn how to. Same as above.

• The time and work required are always more than you expect, and it’s monumental if you want your thing to succeed. 

• Find a developer who communicates clearly, concisely, and honestly because developer issues can’t be avoided. 

• You can’t control everything, so don’t try to.

Next steps for Parnexus 

As mentioned, Josh will be making his first business development hire within the next four weeks. BD is their largest focus right now, as the business is looking to scale. 

Josh has just implemented another interesting revenue stream too. Debt advisory firms love Parnexus because the platform creates automatic deal flow. It will be interesting to see how this evolves, especially with its scalability. Josh forecasts huge recurring revenue streams around insurance and debt advisory/lending. The latter launched in July 2024 and he says it’s going very well.

Funding

Parnexus is raising £1 million in exchange for 20% of the company. 

Josh and the team are actively reaching out to VCs, angel investors, and private individuals. A big area of their focus is on private individuals who have been exposed to the problems that the platform solves.

If you’re reading this and want to get involved with Parnexus, reach out to me or Josh. This is a fascinating business that has very high customer LTV and a lot of future runway. 

Links:

• Josh’s LinkedIn

• Take a look Parnexus here

- Luke

Let’s connect on LinkedIn. I write about the numbers of UK based businesses who are looking for funding.

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