2025 Platform Leaders Academic Prize

Each year, Platform Leaders presents an award to an academic paper that demonstrates exceptional relevance and practical application to the business world.

The 2025 Platform Leaders Academic Prize is awarded to Dr Manav Raj (The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania), for his insightful paper "More is (sometimes) merrier: Heterogeneity in demand spillovers and competition on a digital platform".

The paper, based on an analysis of Spotify data, highlights the counter intuitive insight that launching new content at the same time as stars can be a great strategy. It also reminds platforms that they can design discovery mechanisms that maximise value for the entire ecosystem.

In this video, Dr Manav Raj gives a short presentation of his paper after being awarded the 2025 Platform Leaders Academic Prize.

The practitioners’ jury for 2025 was made up of: Limvirak Chea, Founder and CEO Fixter, Sandrine Zhang Ferron, Founder and CEO Vinterior, Laure Claire Reillier, co-author platform strategy and co founder & COO Launchworks & Co, Sameer Singh, Partner at Speedinvest VC, and Benoit Reillier, co-author platform strategy and co founder & CEO Launchworks & Co.

The jury thanks platformpapers.com for helping with the initial selection.