Hi Shopifreaks,
Before we begin, I’d like to welcome Seguno to the Shopifreaks family as our newest official News Partner! 🎉
Seguno offers an email marketing suite, a bulk discount code generator, and a seamless Canva integration made specifically for Shopify merchants — and unlike most marketing apps, everything runs inside Shopify, not alongside it.
No extra databases to sync. No external workflow builders. And most importantly, no “enterprise” prices.
Simple yet powerful tools you manage directly inside Shopify, instead of switching tabs all day. I wish I knew about this earlier!
Here’s what Seguno brings to the table:
Seguno Email Marketing – Send campaigns and create automations directly from Shopify with built-in lifecycle flows, pop-ups, product reviews, and unique discount codes. It’s easier to use than Klaviyo, costs 40–60% less, and every account gets real human support and deliverability help.
Seguno's email app shares the same database as your Shopify store, which means no syncing, just seamlessly adding products, prices, and reviews into emails, as well as the ability to power your automations with Shopify segments.
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Tracking performance of campaigns that use coupon codes is very limited out of the box with Shopify, and it's a cumbersome process to pull and analyze the data that matters most. Seguno's Bulk Discount Code Bot brings a new, granular level of control to your campaigns and analytics.
Shopify Connect for Canva – Design graphics in Canva using product images from your store, then drop them straight into your emails or theme customizer. This means no having to export and upload hundreds of images from one platform to another.
With Seguno's Shopify Connect for Canva, you can add product media to any design file in Canva, and the flattened image is available to pull into your Shopify store within your theme, pages, or products, avoiding the whole “product-final-final-4.jpg” headache that all merchants are familiar with. This is a must-have app for any Canva user — and it's free!
A few things that stand out about Seguno:
- Real support from real people. Read Seguno's five-star reviews to see what merchants think about their top-notch support.
- Seguno apps are built exclusively for Shopify. Your data stays in one place.
- All tools are accessible directly within your Shopify admin. No switching tabs.
- Core automations are pre-built and quick to turn on, with the ability to layer on advanced logic with Shopify Flow when you’re ready.
- Every new account is reviewed by an email deliverability expert. You'll be set up for success from day one.
- Free onboarding and white-glove setup on higher tiers. Seguno will move over your lists, segments, and automations.
- Only “accepts marketing” subscribers count toward pricing. No having to overpay for a duplicate database on a 3rd party platform that charges for every profile.
- Seguno was a winner of the 2024 Shopify Build Award for Best App, which is a pretty big deal given that Shopify's App Store contains over 10,000 apps!
Want to try it for yourself?
You can start free with any of Seguno's apps:
- Email Marketing → Free up to 250 subscribers, 10-day free trial for higher plans
- Bulk Discount Code Bot → Free up to 3 discount sets, 10-day free trial for higher plans.
- Canva Connect → Free for everyone, unlimited use
If you want a simpler, more affordable marketing stack built for Shopify, I highly recommend giving Seguno a look.
And now onto your regularly scheduled programming.
In this week's edition I cover:
- Shopify confirms 4% fee on ChatGPT purchases
- The TikTok U.S. deal is officially official
- TikTok pushes merchants to its in-house logistics
- Shopify restructures its partnerships division
- Wix launches a hybrid AI website builder
- eBay bans unapproved agentic shopping bots
- Affirm applies for a banking license
- TikTok goes after $10M+ brands
- OpenAI asks for $1M ad commitments
- Shopify won its $40M “patent troll” case
- Threads ads are rolling out globally
- X open sources its algorithm
- Dr. Pepper baby, it's good and nice.
All this and more in this week's 262nd Edition of Shopifreaks. Thanks for subscribing and sharing!
Stat of the Week
47% of U.S. credit cardholders carry a balance entering 2026, with 1 in 5 debtors unsure of their ability to ever pay it off, according to Bankrate’s 2026 Credit Card Debt Survey. 61% of cardholders with credit card balances have been in debt for at least a year, up from 53% in late 2024.
1. Shopify confirms a 4% fee on sales made through ChatGPT
Shopify confirmed that merchants will pay OpenAI a 4% fee on sales made through ChatGPT's Instant Checkout feature, on top of the typical transaction fees Shopify charges for payment processing. This means that AI sales will cost merchants a total of around 7% depending on which Shopify plan they're on, or more if the merchant uses a 3rd party payment processor, to which Shopify tacks on an additional 2% fee for not using Shopify Payments.
Beginning today, Jan 26th, Shopify will begin making its merchants' products available for purchase through AI checkouts including those from ChatGPT, Google's AI Mode, Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot, as previously announced, with Perplexity on the future roadmap. However for the moment, OpenAI will be the only one taking a cut of those transactions.
It'll be interesting to see how this decision to charge a fee impacts ChatGPT's growth in the space.
Shopify made it clear a few weeks ago that merchants will have the ability to pick and choose which AI channels to include their products in. It's not an all or nothing scenario, which means merchants could choose to gravitate towards the AI platforms that don't take a cut of their sales to test the AI waters, ultimately reducing the number of products available through ChatGPT.
Is OpenAI going about this the wrong way?
Usually it's market share first and then monetize — but OpenAI is attempting monetization from day one. While they might command a leading market share of consumers who use their chatbot for answers, with an estimated more than one billion monthly active users, they've yet to build a significant roster of merchants feeding their products directly into their platform, which is a necessary step for commerce domination, as scraping websites isn't a reliable enough long term solution. They need the feed.
If OpenAI hinders its product selection due to merchants bypassing the platform to avoid the 4% fee in favor of other AI platforms that don't charge, this could ultimately push consumers to chatbots with a bigger product selection. “Why is X brand not surfacing? Let me try Gemini.”
Then again, if less merchants participate, it could mean more sales for the ones that do, which could encourage more to participate, despite the 4% fee, resulting in a FOMO loop that ultimately proves the 4% fee to be inconsequential to OpenAI's commerce growth. After all, merchants are accustomed to paying a lot more than 4% for discovery on other platforms.
It's also important to note that the opt-in from Shopify is only for including products in ChatGPT's Instant Checkout feature, meaning it doesn't prevent the merchant's products from surfacing in ChatGPT's normal answer results, with links to the products on their website. To opt-out of that, merchants must contact OpenAI directly, but there is little reason to do so, as the risk is lower (since customers are checking out on the merchant's own website).
The other TBD question is — do merchants even want these AI-generated sales?
It's very possible that the return rate of these purchases is significantly higher due to consumers relying too hard on ChatGPT to do the heavy lifting in regards to product research and due diligence.
Could AI-generated sales lead to a higher rate of returns? More negative reviews? Less customer satisfaction? Or will the volume of sales outweigh the potential consequences? As a merchant, I would keep an eye on these metrics.
There's a cost to AI checkout above and beyond the 4% that has yet to be determined.
What are your thoughts? Hit reply and let me now or join the conversation on LinkedIn.
2. The TikTok deal is done, again
ByteDance confirmed on Thursday that it struck a deal to divest its TikTok U.S. operations to a majority-American owned group of investors. Didn't I report this already in December? Yeah, but now it's officially official I guess.
TikTok CEO Shou Chew said in an internal memo that the move was “great news” and that the changes will enable “our U.S. users to continue to discover, create and thrive as part of TikTok's vibrant global community and experience.”
President Trump celebrated the announcement in a post on Truth Social, calling it a “dramatic, final, and beautiful conclusion,” and adding, “I only hope that long into the future I will be remembered by those who use and love TikTok.” Like around election time?
Under the deal, ByteDance will remain the owners of TikTok's recommendation algorithm, which it will license to Oracle, who will oversee the new TikTok's user data in the U.S.
Who will lead the new TikTok U.S.?
The company appointed Adam Presser as its CEO, a double Harvard graduate who previously served as Chew's chief of staff between April 2022 and July 2023 before working his way up to head of operations and finally to TikTok's head of operations and trust & safety. (I thought you had to be a Harvard dropout in order to lead a social media company?) While Chew will sit on the U.S. joint venture’s board and focus on big picture stuff (like Michael Scott), Presser is now in charge of handling day-to-day operations of the U.S. business (like Jim Halpert).
Talk about being thrown into the spotlight! This previously unknown TikTok executive will now be on a global stage alongside Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and Evan Spiegel to lead the world's most influential social media platform. That's a lot of pressure.
TikTok U.S. also named non-comedian Will Farrell as its Chief Security Officer, where he will oversee the company's data privacy and cybersecurity program. Farrell previously held roles at TikTok and Booz Allen Hamilton.
What's changing at TikTok?
As a starting point, TikTok U.S, made changes to its privacy policy that include expanding the type of location data the company can collect from its 200M American users from “approximate” to “precise.” Well, that was quick!
It's also expected that TikTok U.S. will make changes to the algorithm's recommendation engine, including how it surfaces content from other international markets. Changes like this are currently TBD.
Meanwhile in Canada…
Canada's federal court overturned a government order to close TikTok's operations in the country over national security concerns. Judge Russel Zinn set aside the mandate and directed Industry Minister Melanie Joly to conduct a new review of the case, though he did not provide specific reasons why, citing legal confidentiality provisions. Prime Minister Mark Carney has been seeking closer ties to China to help offset the damage done to the Canadian economy by U.S. tariffs, and this may be one card he plans to carry up his sleeve to improve relations.
3. TikTok Shop pushes all merchants to its in-house logistics services
In an e-mail to sellers, TikTok U.S. announced it will soon require all U.S. merchants to fulfill orders through the platform's in-house logistics service, Fulfilled by TikTok, use Upgraded TikTok Shipping, where it controls the labels and carrier selection, or use its new Collections by TikTok, which is a door-to-door pickup service available in select U.S. cities.
Sellers will still be able to use specific approved fulfillment software, such as Aftership or ShipHero, as long as those systems fully integrate with TikTok's logistics API.
Historically, merchants have been able to sell on TikTok, while still fulfilling the items themselves, or by using their own shipping account and negotiated rates with carriers. Now, starting Feb 9th for new sellers and Feb 25th for existing ones, TikTok is pushing sellers to use its own fulfillment service or buy labels through its platform, at its set pricing.
Adweek wrote:
“This move pushes the platform into a more centralized, Amazon-style distribution network, where TikTok dictates the logistics operation.”
The big difference though is that Amazon actually has its own delivery network and can control the quality and speed of fulfillment from its warehouses to its customers' doors. Whereas TikTok is fully reliant on 3rd party carriers like USPS, FedEx, and UPS once the item leaves their facility.
There are some upsides to the change for sellers:
- TikTok offers discount rates up to 20% on shipping labels, which could be a savings for smaller sellers. Though that discounted rate was not hard to find elsewhere.
- Sellers will no longer be subject to penalties on On-Time Delivery Rate, Negative Review Rate, and Valid Tracking Rate, given that TikTok is taking ownership of the last mile.
- TikTok also says the changes will offer a faster claims process for lost/damaged packages.
Some brands are obviously inconvenienced by the changes, particularly in regards to fulfillment process and costs, but in the end, they'll likely reflect the difference in their product pricing, and consumers will inevitably pay the toll.
4. Shopify laid off a significant number of staff from its partnerships division
Shopify laid off a “fairly significant” number of staff across its partnerships division, according to The Logic sources, which confirmed that the layoffs included an entire agency team.
Shopify told those impacted by the layoffs that their roles were being eliminated due to a “restructuring” and that the firm was “starting a new chapter” for partners.
Shopify VP of Partnerships, Atlee Clark, wrote on X:
“In short: we’re bringing product, partnerships, and community-building closer together around one aim: making Shopify’s platform and partner program the best way to build a business, so merchants can build theirs, no matter their size, location, or ambition.”
She later added:
“So here’s what we’re focused on now: building low-friction systems and investing in high-trust relationships. It also means linking arms with our partners on what’s next, especially as agentic commerce takes shape, and helping merchants confidently size and capture the AI opportunity.”
President Harley Finkelstein later confirmed the changes and added that they would help the company's partner ecosystem “hit a new level.” Neither Finkelstein or Atlee addressed the layoffs in either post.
To be honest, I don't know what the fuck any of that means in regards to the future of partnerships at Shopify. It sounds like corporate jargon for “we're going to be adding AI as an intermediary between partners getting support, and I'll be sending more e-mail updates from a noreply address.”
Frankly, the Shopify Partner program hasn't historically had the best reputation among partners (the experience has been hit or miss for partners), so perhaps it was due for an overhaul. Maybe a focus on efficiency will prove to be a net positive for the company and for partners.
Brent Peterson offered insights about the changes on LinkedIn:
“Self-service is the expectation. The partners who thrive will be the ones who don't need hand-holding. Documentation, automation, and scalable support models win. The $1 billion payout isn't going away. Shopify still needs partners. They're just restructuring HOW they work with them. Less relationship management, more programmatic.”
5. Wix introduces a hybrid AI & drag-and-drop website builder
Wix introduced Harmony, a hybrid website builder that combines AI-driven “vibe coding” with traditional drag-and-drop editing. Harmony is powered by an AI agent named Aria, which turns your natural language prompts into actions, from simple tasks like updating colors to complex ones like redesigning an entire page or adding commerce capabilities.
The company wrote:
“Wix Harmony uniquely combines vibe coding with Wix’s powerful visual editing capabilities, delivering the speed of AI generation together with pixel‑perfect design control and the reliability of Wix’s mature, production‑ready platform… Unlike many vibe‑based tools, Aria is built on Wix’s unique underlying architecture, ensuring that changes in one area do not break the code, add bugs, or change the functionality in a different part of the site. Every action is applied across the experience, backed by the same production‑grade quality and reliability that support millions of businesses on Wix.”
Wix notes that many existing vibe coding tools are used to “generate quick demos or lightweight MVPs, not full-scale, production-ready websites,” whereas Harmony can take you all the way to a production-ready website.
Also unlike other solutions, users don't have to exclusively rely on natural language prompts, and can take the reigns anytime to make edits with Wix's drag-and-drop visual builder.
During the last couple years when every company and their brother started announcing their “AI website builder” products, it became immediately obvious that a hybrid solution would ultimately be the answer, as the AI builders could only get you so far.
Wix is in a great position to employ a solution like this, given that their entire platform exists in a closed ecosystem, unlike WordPress where a single line of AI-generated code can completely break a website. For your average business owner, this is the type of closed-system they need to be successful with AI.
I look forward to trying Harmony. Although the website in their example video looked like absolute trash. LOL.
Harmony will begin rolling out in English in the coming weeks and will gradually become available to all Wix users.
6. eBay bans agentic shopping bots from its platform
eBay updated its user agreement to require that customers not use “buy-for-me agents, LLM-driven bots, or any end-to-end flow that attempts to place orders without human review” on its site, unless the company specifically grants approval. The previous version of the agreement contained a general prohibition on the use of “any robot, spider, scraper, data mining tools, data gathering and extraction tools,” but did not mention AI agents or LLMs by name.
The new agreement specifically blocks agentic shopping agents, including those from Google, Amazon, and Perplexity. However eBay does allow for bots with prior permission such as OpenAI.
The updates follow eBay's December changes to its robots.txt file, which added a new “Robot & Agent Policy” to the file. However, as Ars Technica points out:
“…restrictions in robots.txt files are basically honor-system suggestions. By adding the language to its User Agreement, eBay can now more easily take legal action against users or companies who violate the policy.”
Ars also notes that although eBay is making a concerted effort to block outside agents, its new User Agreement policy does not prevent the company from developing its own AI shopping tools. CEO Jamie Iannone said on an October earnings call that the company is “testing a variety of agentic experiences in search and shopping.”
The agreement's use of the phrase “without prior express permission of eBay” also lends to the idea that eBay has more agentic partnerships in the works, but like any major platform in 2026, it wants to be in the driver's seat.
7. Affirm applies for a banking charter
In December I reported that PayPal applied for approval with the FDIC to establish PayPal Bank, as did Klarna, Ripple, Circle, and several other fintechs. Now you can add Affirm to that list.
On Friday, Affirm submitted applications to the FDIC and the Nevada Financial Institutions Division to create Affirm Bank.
CEO Max Levchin said in a statement:
“A banking subsidiary would strengthen and diversify Affirm's platform, and help us bring honest financial products to more people. This is about expanding what we can do for consumers and merchants, and building for the long term.”
It's also about not wanting to get left behind. If BNPL lenders become banks, they can take customer deposits and use that cheaper, insured funding alongside other debt, which can lower costs on interest-producing loans and help expand lending capacity. That's a big advantage that Affirm doesn't want its competitors to have without them.
Affirm currently works with six banks to issue cards, lend to consumers, and offer a savings account, including Cross River Bank, Celtic Bank, Lead Bank, Evolve Bank & Trust, Sutton Bank and Stride Bank, and the company told American Banker that it doesn't plan to rid itself of partnerships completely. Rather, the proposed bank subsidiary would complement its other existing sponsor-bank partners.
Does the U.S. need more banks?
There are around 4,379 FDIC-insured banks and savings institutions in the U.S. today, down sharply from more than 14,000 in the mid-1980s after decades of consolidation. The industry has long been dominated by the same large incumbents, with only a handful of new banks chartered each year until a recent small uptick began in the early 2020s.
It's estimated that the top four U.S. banks, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Citi, hold roughly 45% of all U.S. bank deposits, and the top 10 banks hold a 65% share.
In my opinion, the space is ripe for competition and innovation, which can only come from dishing out more banking charters. The banking industry is overdue for a competitive correction.
8. TikTok launches Project Horizon to attract new brands
Ready for one more TikTok story to round out your week?
TikTok is planning a new program called Project Horizon that aims to attract established brands to sell on TikTok Shop. The program incentivizes 100 e-commerce agencies to each recruit dozens of brands that already have at least $10M in annual sales on other platforms like Amazon and Shopify, according to The Information sources.
Each participating agency will be rewarded by TikTok with a cut of sales if it recruits at least 30 brands, and if the recruited brands' sales on the platform collectively reach $50M by the end of 2026.
LOL, that'll be a “no” from me TikTok. (Not that my agency was even invited to participate.)
Why are the stakes so high? Hypothetically, an agency could recruit 40 brands, which only collectively reach $45M by year's end, and the agency gets nothing? That feels like a lot of upside for TikTok and very little incentive for the agencies who aren't 100% sure they can hit that threshold in such a short period of time. (One year is not a long time when it comes to developing a new sales channel for an established brand, let alone 30 of them.)
Every $10M brand counts, and if I were TikTok, I would've structured that referral program to reward the agencies for all referred brands that exceed a certain sales threshold.
Then again, what did anyone expect? In my experience, the referral programs I've been offered by major e-commerce marketplaces and ad networks (no names mentioned) have historically been horrendously one-sided in the platform's favor, to the point that I wouldn't even participate in them.
Agencies are particularly a tough sell for these type of referral programs. Our priorities lie with providing clients with the best guidance and services possible, and a great agency can't be swung by referral commissions. I've personally never joined a referral program exclusively for the commission, and I know that to be true of other agency owners too. I've only joined referral programs of services I already actively recommended to my clients because they were the best solution, as to add a little icing on the cake to my recommendation, not as a primary revenue driver.
I guess at the end of the day though, brands are going to continue to join TikTok Shop regardless of whether or not an agency pushes them to do so.
Lastly in other TikTok Shop news this week… TikTok introduced the “Off-Site Performance Analysis” tool to measure sales occurring on external websites after users view in-app content. The feature utilizes pixel tracking to link organic posts, live videos, and ads to purchases made on brand sites up to 30 days later. This move aims to quantify indirect revenue and address advertiser concerns regarding the platform's “walled garden” attribution ecosystem.
9. Other e-commerce news of interest
OpenAI has started offering its new chatbot ads to dozens of advertisers, initially charging per view as opposed to per click like Google and Amazon, according to The Information sources. OpenAI is asking investors for less than $1M in spending commitments over a several week trial period, with ads launching in early February. The company does not yet offer an option for advertisers to buy and manage ads themselves, but is working on getting a self-service platform up and running. It's not clear which brands OpenAI has been targeting for its ad launch, but it's likely that they are pulling from their existing coffer of partnerships which includes Zillow, Target, DoorDash, and Expedia, among others.
Last month, Shopify successfully overturned a $40M jury verdict previously awarded to Express Mobile, which Shopify called “one of America's most prolific patent trolls,” leaving the company with no payout. Express Mobile originally sued Shopify in 2019 for patent infringement regarding web-design and mobile technology, claiming Shopify's theme editor and website building tools violated its patents for browser-based content generation tools. In 2022, a Delaware jury found in favor of Express Mobile and awarded them $40M in damages, but Shopify appealed the decision, and won this latest round. Shopify published a blog post a few days ago entitled, “We don't feed patent trolls. We fight them.” boasting about its victory through Always Sunny in Philadelphia rhetoric about not “paying the troll toll.” Shopify says that this year “you can expect us to pay exactly zero dollars to patent trolls” and that it'll keep fighting the good fight for both itself and for the smaller companies that can't afford to do so.
Meta is rolling out ads on Threads to all users globally starting this week as the platform reaches 400M monthly active users, building on a pilot program that began in the U.S. and Japan in January 2025. Meta expanded advertising on Threads to more than 30 countries in April, including Australia, Hong Kong, and Indonesia, and is now moving to a full global rollout. The update introduces new ad formats, including carousels and Advantage+ placements, alongside third-party brand safety verification tools. Advertisers can now also manage Threads accounts directly within Meta's Business Settings to streamline campaign execution across the family of apps.
Klarna will soon let shoppers convert completed debit card purchases into installment loans in partnership with OnePay, the Walmart-backed fintech. Consumers who use the new “Swipe to Finance” feature within OnePay's smartphone app, which will be available in a few months, will be able to get their money back on a recent transaction and then repay it over time as an installment loan. The announcement did not say if the installment loans will be pay-in-four or longer-term, if there will be a time limit on converting a purchase to a loan, or if the loans would be interest-free — but I can only imagine there will be some sort of consumer fee associated with them, since Klarna can't exactly go back and charge the merchant a higher transaction fee. Or can they on “eligible” purchases? At what point are Klarna and other BNPL companies simply lending cash to be paid back in four installments?
commercetools launched AgenticLift, a standalone agentic offering that gives enterprise retailers a way to connect their custom built or legacy systems to AI-powered discovery, carting, and checkout flows through its AI Hub, without having to replatform. AgenticLift operates as a layer on top of a company's existing commerce stack, giving AI agents real-time access to product data and transaction logic, while allowing merchants to retain control over business rules, pricing logic, compliance requirements, and data access. Unlike Shopify's upcoming Agentic Plan, which makes non-Shopify store products discoverable and purchasable via Shopify's catalog and checkout layer, commercetools' AgentifLift lets AI agents transact directly against the merchant's own existing commerce stack, with commercetools acting as a connective layer, not the transaction endpoint.
U.S. tech lobby groups are pushing for Washington to let AI companies train their models on copyrighted material without permission or payment. Industry associations representing Big Tech's largest AI firms called for new exemptions to IP laws during the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative's consultation ahead of a possible review of the trade deal with Canada and Mexico, saying that the U.S. should negotiate a new AI annex that includes a requirement that national laws “support the ability of AI developers to train models without incurring copyright liability.” Lobbyists have previously argued that generative AI models don't store the data they're trained on, and that requiring developers to license content would slow innovation. So does that mean I can illegally stream music too, as long as I don't store the songs after I listen to them? Honestly, the audacity of these companies. Nobody gives a shit if you have to innovate your AI models slower over having to pay for the content you steal.
TikTok quietly launched PineDrama, a new standalone micro-drama app in the U.S. and Brazil that features serialized, one-minute vertical shows that are free to watch with no ads or paywalls. The move expands TikTok’s experiments beyond its in-app “Minis” section and mirrors parent company ByteDance’s success with micro-drama formats on Douyin and other Asian apps. It's expected that TikTok will add subscriptions or advertisements to the app at some point as it experiments with monetizing the fast-growing micro-drama category that generated an estimated $1.3B in U.S. revenue last year. Question: Is Oracle going to want a piece of PineDrama at some point in the future if it begins to make a lot of money? Bigger Question: How do spin-off apps like PineDrama play into the TikTok ban or divest environment? Is only TikTok a danger to national security, but not any other of ByteDance's U.S.-focused apps?
TikTok also rolled out a new Off-Site Performance Analysis tool that uses its pixel to link interactions across TikTok (organic posts, Shop listings, Live, ads) to purchases off TikTok, broadening measurement beyond its old basic pixel attribution. The standard TikTok pixel for conversion tracking has existed for years, but this expanded tool is just now being offered to advertisers, giving them data on indirect sales beyond the platform. It moves TikTok closer to Meta’s off-site conversion reporting and gives Shopify merchants clearer visibility into true ROI from TikTok activity.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said during an interview with CNBC's Becky Quick at the World Economic Forum in Davos that President Trump's tariffs have started to “creep” into the price of some items on its marketplace, as sellers begin building them into the cost of their products. Jassy noted that many of its third-party merchants had pre-purchased inventory last year to get ahead of the tariffs and keep prices low for customers, but most of that supply has run out. “At a certain point, because retail is, as you know, a mid-single digit operating margin business, if people's costs go up by 10%, there aren't a lot of places to absorb it. You don't have endless options.” Jassy said that while consumers remain “pretty resilient,” the tariffs have impacted their purchasing habits, with many customers trading down to lower priced items and bargain hunting, while others are holding off buying higher-priced discretionary products.
Last week I reported that OpenAI will begin testing ads in ChatGPT in a few weeks, and that it promised not to serve ads to users it predicts are under 18 years old. The company has since published information about its age prediction model, which it says “looks at a combination of behavioral and account-level signals, including how long an account has existed, typical times of day when someone is active, usage patterns over time, and a user’s stated age” in order to apply additional protections designed to reduce exposure to sensitive content. The move is in preparation for upcoming rules in the EU, which require that platforms take proactive steps to assess users’ age and apply heightened protections for minors, including restrictions on targeted advertising and exposure to sensitive or commercial content.
TikTok updated its Smart+ advertising suite with new automation features aimed at simplifying campaign management and creative optimization. The update adds an “Auto-select” tool that identifies top-performing creatives, including pre-approved creator content, and lets advertisers preview all creative combinations directly in Ads Manager. Smart+ also now integrates TikTok Symphony, bringing generative AI tools for video creation, enhancement, and multilingual translation into the automated workflow.
JPMorgan Chase is winding down its relationship with Checkbook, a payments startup that promised to help banks eliminate paper checks, to avoid regulatory risks associated with the fintech's customer base, which include Venezuelan crypto startups. JPMorgan had invested in the company in 2021, but has now removed Checkbook from its payment network and deleted references to the company from a webpage that lists its strategic investments, following the discovery of potential ledger reconciliation issues. JPMorgan’s falling-out with Checkbook follows a series of messy fintech bets, including Frank, the fraudulent startup it bought for $175M, and Viva Wallet, where it invested over $800M.
YouTube CEO Neal Mohan announced that creators will soon be able to make Shorts using their own likeness, including their face and voice, as part of a broader push to expand AI-powered creation tools while keeping creators in control, though he didn't expand on exactly what that would look like in practice. YouTube is also launching new tools to help creators manage the use of their likeness in AI-generated content and prevent others from using it. I think creators are about to discover just how not unique their faces and voices are in the world. I await the first story about a small creator getting their content taken down because they look and sound too much like a bigger creator, with quotes like, “That's literally just how my face looks.”
Walmart Marketplace launched a new Premium Musical Instrument Shop, a curated storefront featuring professional-grade gear from brands including Fender, Roland, Boss, and Zildjian. The move marks Walmart’s “first phase” of its broader push into higher-end musical instruments and accessories, offering both new and used guitars, amps, pedals, and drum gear. Tough break for Guitar Center, which has struggled during the past decade with bankruptcy and store closures. Walmart's about to eat its lunch.
Apple is developing a wearable AI pin featuring dual cameras, microphones, and a speaker packaged in an aluminum and glass shell similar to an AirTag, designed to compete with emerging hardware from OpenAI and Meta. The company targets a potential 2027 release with an initial manufacturing run of 20M units, according to The Information sources. Given that Google Gemini is going to be powering Apple's Siri and Intelligence features, does that mean that Apple is effectively becoming a hardware division of Google? Meanwhile, Humane founders are spinning in their graves at all the AI pins about to hit the market. They were about 3 years too early and $400 too expensive.
Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis told Axios he was “a little surprised” that OpenAI moved so fast at introducing ads in ChatGPT, noting that Google's Gemini has “no plans” to incorporate ads because rushing ads into AI assistants could undermine user trust. Easy stance to take when you've got a search engine with 90% global market share bringing in almost $300B in ad revenue per year to subsidize your AI efforts! Hassabis said, “…if you think of the chatbot as an assistant that's meant to be helpful — ideally the kind of technology that works for you as an individual — then there's a question about how ads fit into that model. No one's really got a full answer to that yet.” Well, OpenAI thinks they do. I guess we'll see.
Naver, the parent company of Poshmark, is preparing to launch ThingsBook, a social curation platform built around curated collections instead of follower-driven feeds, designed for the North American market. The company described the app as a “personal museum” where users collect, organize, and share their favorite products and experiences. While Naver has not announced a formal integration, ThingsBook could evolve into a discovery layer that deep-links into Poshmark listings, supplies off-platform taste signals for search and “For You” ranking, and enables creator-led affiliate or curation programs that drive resale traffic. ThingsBook is expected to debut today, January 26th.
Albertsons is planning to roll out in-store digital advertising screens to 800 locations in 2026 after a successful pilot across 80 stores showed measurable sales lift for brands, with more than 50 advertisers already participating. The grocery chain says its decision to scale the initiative is driven by a new in-house measurement framework that compares sales in stores with and without screen campaigns, which it claims can isolate incremental lift rather than surface-level attribution. For example, its campaign with Mondelēz to promote Sargento Cheese Bakes crackers resulted in a 14% increase in sales.
OpenAI added more than $1B in annual recurring revenue in the past month from its API business, according to a post on X by CEO Sam Altman, who still uses X for some reason despite his ongoing legal battles with Elon Musk. Altman added, “People think of us mostly as ChatGPT, but the API team is doing amazing work!” Developers were quick to point out in the replies that much of that $1B in API revenue was built on GPT-4o, and criticized Altman for celebrating developer-driven growth while planning to shut down or restrict access to the very model their products depend on next month. One user replied, “Growth is temporary, Sam, but breaking user trust is permanent.”
In corporate shakeups this week… Google DeepMind acqui-hired Hume AI CEO Alan Cowen and a team of engineers through a new technology licensing agreement aimed at integrating emotional intelligence and voice capabilities into its AI models. Pinterest hired former DoorDash and Spotify executive Lee Brown for its newly formed role of chief business officer to oversee all customer-facing operations like sales, advertising, and content, as well as longtime Amazon marketing executive Claudine Cheever as its new chief marketing offer. Last but not least, Walmart overhauled leadership across its U.S., international, and Sam’s Club businesses, promoting David Guggina to CEO of Walmart U.S., naming Sam’s Club chief Chris Nicholas to lead Walmart International, elevating Latriece Watkins to CEO of Sam’s Club U.S., and expanding Seth Dallaire’s role to oversee global growth platforms including Walmart Connect, Walmart+, Marketplace, and data ventures.
eBay updated its Partner Network terms to explicitly ban affiliates from using eBay data to train or feed AI models without prior written approval, while adding stricter confidentiality obligations and more detailed disclosure rules for influencer and video content. The changes, which take effect today, also clarify how affiliate disclosures must appear in videos and descriptions and expand the list of platforms where creators must follow platform-specific disclosure rules. The update follows eBay’s broader crackdown on AI agents and scrapers and comes as the company pushes deeper into influencer-led commerce and monetized storefronts.
X open-sourced the machine learning model that powers its “For You” feed, publishing the full code used to rank both organic and advertising posts to GitHub. The Grok-based transformer predicts user likes and replies, pulling content from followed accounts and algorithmic recommendations without relying on hand-engineered features. The company plans to update the public code every 4 weeks so that people can see what's changed. Elon Musk posted on X, “We know the algorithm is dumb and needs massive improvements, but at least you can see us struggle to make it better in real-time and with transparency. No other social media companies do this.” Your move, Meta!
Amazon is expected to lay off thousands of corporate employees this week in its second major round of layoffs since October, bringing the total to about 30,000 jobs. The company first attributed the October job cuts to changes brought on by AI, but CEO Andy Jassy later said the layoffs were instead tied to cultural fit, not cost savings or AI. “It's not about the money. We just don't like you.” Employees took to the company's internal Slack channel to post memes about the layoffs, including jokes about the company's “two pizza rule,” originally designed to keep meetings lean and productive.
Samsung accidentally leaked an announcement unveiling an updated version of its Bixby voice assistant powered by Perplexity. The collaboration will allow users to have more natural interactions with Bixby, including asking it to complete a few on-device tasks and fetch answers from the web. It's surprising that Samsung didn't partner with Google to power Bixby with Gemini, given the longstanding relationship the two companies have, and the fact that Apple recently chose Gemini. Perplexity seems like an odd choice. If not Google, I would have opted for Anthropic.
Under Armour is investigating claims that a cybercriminal posted 72M customer records to a hacker forum that included names, e-mail addresses, gender, birth dates, locations, and purchase histories. The company says that there is no evidence that payment systems or customer passwords were affected and disputed claims that “sensitive” data for tens of millions of users was compromised, but did not specify how many customers were impacted or whether it plans to notify affected individuals. FYI, it should notify customers whose info was stolen. These kinds of large scale breaches can often lead to highly targeted phishing attacks that can ultimately result in bank, Apple ID, or Google account takeovers. At least give customers a heads up to be on higher alert for these types of scams.
The DOJ named three members to a technical committee that will oversee enforcement of remedies tied to Google’s illegal search monopoly, including limits on exclusive distribution deals and mandated data sharing with rivals. Appointees include former Microsoft GM Tammy Savage, former AOL and Alta Vista executive Gerry Campbell, and economics professor John Abowd. The committee will advise on how the remedy is implemented, including how frequently Google must share data and how competitors can use syndicated search results.
The FTC filed a notice to appeal a district court ruling that favored Meta in an ongoing antitrust lawsuit, which Meta won in November. The agency continues to allege that Meta illegally maintained a monopoly in personal social networking services by acquiring competitors Instagram and WhatsApp in 2012 and 2024, and says it plans to “continue fighting its historic case against Meta to ensure that competition can thrive across the country to the benefit of all Americans and U.S. businesses.” Judge Boasberg previously sided with Meta, finding that the rise of competitors like TikTok and YouTube weakened the government’s claim that Meta held dominant market power. What’s interesting about this case is that the FTC isn’t really arguing Meta is a monopoly today, but that it used acquisitions like Instagram and WhatsApp to eliminate future competition years ago, which could very well be proven true. The outcome of today's social media landscape doesn't necessarily change the legality of the company's actions more than a decade ago.
A federal judge dismissed most claims in a class-action lawsuit accusing Shopify of secretly collecting and sharing customer data, ruling that the plaintiff, California resident Brandon Briskin, failed to plausibly show the alleged practices were occurring at the time of his purchase or that Shopify acted with the required intent. However, the court left the door open for the claims to be refiled, clarified that payment and purchase data can qualify as the “contents” of a communication under California law, and rejected Shopify’s argument that its data collection was merely routine commercial behavior. The plaintiff has 28 days to amend the complaint, with the case now hinging on whether he can allege concrete facts tying Shopify’s data practices in 2019 to what was later disclosed in 2021 and show that Shopify intended to access consumer data without consent. I'll keep you posted on round 2!
Solos Technology, a Hong Kong-based maker of smart glasses, is suing Meta and EssilorLuxottica for allegedly infringing on its patents related to smart eyewear technology, seeking billions of dollars in damages and an injunction that could disrupt the companies' sale of smart glasses. The complaint claims the defendants were aware of Solos’ patented technology through meetings and interactions dating back to 2015, and that Meta’s 2021 smart-glasses partnership with EssilorLuxottica drew on that prior knowledge. The lawsuit primarily targets the Ray-Ban Meta Wayfare Gen 1, claiming that subsequent releases are derivative of the original platform and infringe in Solos' patents. Bloomberg notes that Solos' own attempts at tapping into the consumer smart glasses market haven't been as successful as Meta's and that its products generally have unfavorable customer reviews, but that's not to say it doesn't rightfully hold patents on its crappy tech.
Meta asked the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to step into a lawsuit over fraudulent ads on Facebook, arguing the case raises a core question about whether platforms can be contractually liable for moderating third-party content. The dispute stems from a 2021 class action in which a user said he lost $49 to a fake ad, with a district court ruling last year that Meta could face claims for allegedly failing to follow through on promises in its terms of service and community standards. Meta says a fast appeal is needed because courts are split on whether those statements create enforceable obligations, warning that letting the case proceed could expose not just Meta but many online platforms to broad liability over content moderation decisions. So what? That's not excuse for the case not to be heard.
Meta is being sued for allegedly making false claims about the privacy and security offered to WhatsApp users. The lawsuit was filed by an international group of plaintiffs in U.S. district court in San Francisco and alleges that Meta and WhatsApp “store, analyse, and can access virtually all of WhatsApp users' purportedly ‘private' communications. It further accuses the company of storing the substance of users' chat logs, which can be accessed by employees, citing anonymous whistleblowers as having helped bring this information to light. Meta called the lawsuit “a frivolous work of fiction” and defends that WhatsApp “has been end-to-end encrypted using the Signal protocol for a decade.” What's interesting is that three of the law firms involved — Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, Keller Postman, and Barnett Legal — are reputable firms known for taking high stake cases involving privacy, antitrust, and consumer protection. I'd love to see what evidence they were presented with that convinced them to take the case in the first place.
Amazon confirmed an outbreak of tuberculosis at one of its fulfillment centers in the UK, which employs around 3,000 people. Based on a report by the World Health Organization, tuberculosis claimed the lives of more than 1.6M people in 2021, making it the second leading infectious disease after COVID-19. Amazon noted that the 10 cases it identified in Sep 2025 were non-contagious and that the overall risk is low if tuberculosis is treated. Wait, if it's non-contagious, how did they get it? The real answer to that question is that tuberculosis can be carried for years without symptoms and without being contagious, only developing symptoms if a person's immune system weakens. Perhaps a different question is — why are all these Amazon workers' immune systems weakening to the point that their latent tuberculosis comes out of hiding? Maybe we should check on those working conditions.
Apple petitioned the Delhi High Court to prevent the Competition Commission of India from accessing its global financial records as part of an investigation into its app store policies. The commission is accusing the company of abusing its dominant position in the market by forcing developers to use its in-app payment system and charging high commissions. Apple said it could face fines of up to $38B if regulators apply penalties based on its global turnover, and has asked the court to pause the investigation while it challenges India’s 2024 antitrust penalty rules, with a hearing scheduled for January 27. To put that number into perspective, it's estimated that Apple's annual sales in India reached $9B last year, driven largely by iPhone and MacBook demand, so that fine would be 4x its annual revenue in the country.
Meanwhile in the UK… James Daley, the founder of the advocacy group Fairer Finance, launched a £1.5B class action lawsuit against Apple over its mobile phone wallet, claiming the company blocked competition and charged hidden fees that ultimately harmed 50M consumers in the country. Daley claims that Apple's actions amounted to anti-competitive behavior and allowed the company to charge hidden fees, ultimately pushing up costs for banks that passed charges on to all consumers, regardless of whether they owned an iPhone. He should sue BNPL companies next for the same reason. Who does everyone think is paying for those 7% transaction fees to finance their 0% interest installment loans?
Meta asked its independent oversight board to review its approach to permanently banning public figures like politicians, in order to determine the best way to handle situations when they violate its platform's rules. The biggest example of Meta banning a political figure was when it kicked Donald Trump off Facebook and Instagram in 2021 following the Jan 6th attack on the Capitol Building, a decision that was later approved by its oversight board, who likely didn't think at the time that Trump would be back in the White House again. Now, to help the company avoid appearing biased, it's looking to set clear parameters around what happens when a public figure does break its rules in the future.
Wix is returning from a seven year Super Bowl hiatus to air a national commercial promoting its new Wix Harmony platform. The company confirmed the spot to ADWEEK, but did not share any details about the commercial. Wix's last Super Bowl commercial was an 80-second film called “Disruptive World” that aired in 2019, starring Gal Gadon and Jason Statham, featuring a gourmet chef's restaurant getting destroyed during an action fight sequence, who then opens a food truck instead. It was pretty good.
🏆 This week's most ridiculous story… “Dr. Pepper, baby, it's good and nice. Doo. Doo. Doo.” The 26-year-old TikTok creator, Romeo, who wrote the now famous Dr. Pepper jingle had their song licensed by the company and turned into a national commercial that aired during the College Football Playoff National Championship last Monday. Dr. Pepper did a pretty good rendition of it too! Romeo has since been contracted to do jingles for Panera Bread, Garnier, Denny's, and several other companies, including the Miami Heat. TikTok has since exploded with free promotions for thousands of companies as every creator and their brother write jingles to recreate the likely once-in-a-platform event. I'm glad it worked out for Romeo though! Doo. Doo. Doo.
10. Seed rounds, IPOs, & acquisitions
PayPal agreed to acquire Cymbio, commerce integration platform that uses AI agents to help brands syndicate products, inventory, and orders across marketplaces and retail channels, for an undisclosed amount. Cymbio’s technology will power PayPal’s Store Sync service, making merchant product catalogs discoverable inside AI shopping surfaces like Microsoft Copilot and Perplexity while keeping merchants as the merchant of record. PayPal plans to extend the service to additional AI platforms, including ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, after the deal closes in the first half of 2026.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has been meeting with investors in the Middle East in attempt to secure their participation in an upcoming $50B round at a valuation between $750B and $830B, according to Bloomberg sources. The company has also recently held talks with Amazon to raise at least $10B, as it looks to fund massive spending on chips, data centers, and AI talent. OpenAI was most recently valued at $500B in the fall of 2025 in a funding round that allowed some employees to sell shares.
Capital One agreed to acquire Brex, a San Francisco-based corporate card and spend management platform for startups and SMBs, for $5.15B in a mix of stock and cash. Brex will continue operating under its brand, with founder and CEO Pedro Franceschi staying on to lead the business inside Capital One. The company plans to use Brex’s software and AI-driven spend controls to expand its business payments and expense automation offerings, combining Brex’s platform with its underwriting, scale, and commercial banking reach.
Alibaba is preparing to list T-Head, its in-house chipmaking arm, for an IPO, according to Bloomberg sources. The company's first step is to restructure the unit as a business partly owned by employees, before looking to take it public. Alibaba uses T-Head to design chips for data centers, AI workloads, and IoT devices, and a listing would give the unit more independence as the company ramps up investment in AI.
Fiverr, a freelance hiring platform, acquired Yaballe, a dropshipping platform that connects sellers with suppliers and handles product sourcing and order fulfillment, for an undisclosed amount. Yaballe will be folded into Fiverr’s e-commerce stack alongside AutoDS, which Fiverr acquired last year, creating a broader automation platform covering listing, pricing, inventory, and fulfillment. Fiverr is positioning the combined tools to serve higher-volume sellers who need more reliable, scalable infrastructure as dropshipping consolidates around fewer platforms. These acquisitions are smart moves by Fiverr as AI takes a chunk out of the freelance labor market.
Zipline, a San Francisco-based drone delivery company focused on delivering medical supplies and consumer goods, raised $600M in a round led by Fidelity Management and other new and returning investors at a $7.6B valuation. The company plans to use the funding to launch operations in Houston and Phoenix and expand into at least four U.S. states in 2026. It says U.S. deliveries are growing about 15% week over week for the last seven months, and that it recently surpassed 2M total deliveries.
D&H Distributing, a North American technology distributor supplying hardware, software, and cloud services to retailers, acquired Fulfillment.com, a logistics company that provides order fulfillment, warehousing, and distribution services for e-commerce brands, for an undisclosed amount. D&H plans to fold Fulfillment.com into its in-house Scale supply chain business to expand third-party logistics and e-commerce fulfillment capabilities, particularly for high-volume B2C and omnichannel sellers. The acquisition adds a global network of fulfillment centers and strengthens Scale’s ability to support fast domestic delivery and international shipping without changing D&H’s core distribution or channel programs.
Another, a retail technology startup that helps brands manage unsold or excess products, raised $2.5M in a seed round led by Anthemis FIL and Westbound. The company plans to use the funding to expand its network of retail partners and build additional tools that help brands sell excess inventory without relying on public discount marketplaces. Another positions its platform as a way for merchants to protect brand value while clearing surplus stock more efficiently.
Triple Whale, an e-commerce analytics platform that helps brands track attribution, performance, and profitability across paid media and sales channels, acquired Anteater, an AI visibility platform that measures how AI platforms surface brands, products, and sources in AI-generated answers, for an undisclosed amount. Anteater tracks brand mentions, citations, and comparative visibility across tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, addressing how discovery shifts when AI gives direct answers instead of links. Triple Whale plans to integrate these signals into its Moby AI product so brands can tie LLM visibility to revenue and understand how AI-driven discovery influences sales outcomes.
Sparkli, a Zurich-based AI-native learning platform for children that uses multimodal AI to personalize educational content across voice, visuals, and interactive experiences, raised $5M in a pre-seed round. The company will use the funding to scale its generative learning platform, run pilots with large private school networks, and prepare for a private beta in early 2026 followed by a consumer launch in June. Sparkli is targeting families and schools looking to replace passive screen time with interactive, AI-driven learning experiences designed for children ages 5–12.
World Labs, a spatial AI startup building models that understand and interact with the physical world in 3D environments, is in talks to raise $500M at a $5B valuation, according to Bloomberg sources. The startup was founded by Fei-Fei Li, a Stanford professor and ImageNet creator who previously served as Chief Scientist of AI and Machine Learning at Google Cloud. World Labs will use the funds to scale development of its “large world models,” expand its team, and build out products like Marble, which can create 3D worlds from image or text prompts.
LiveKit, a real-time audio, video, and voice AI infrastructure platform used to build low-latency calling, streaming, and agent-driven experiences, raised $100M in a Series B round led by Index Ventures at a $1B valuation. LiveKit’s infrastructure runs voice, video, and physical AI models for customers including OpenAI, Tesla, Spotify, Salesforce, and xAI, and is used to power applications like ChatGPT voice mode and AI agents. The company plans to use the funding to expand product engineering, sales, and marketing, and expects to roughly double its headcount over the next year.
Google invested an undisclosed amount in Sakana AI, a Tokyo-based developer of AI models and applications, at a $2.5B valuation, the same valuation the company received in its Series B round last fall. The investment coincides with a strategic partnership that gives Sakana access to Google’s AI models, including Gemini and Gemma, to accelerate its work on automated scientific discovery and agentic AI. The partnership also gives Google a deeper foothold in Japan’s AI market, as Sakana uses Google’s infrastructure to deploy more reliable AI systems in regulated and mission-critical industries like finance and government.
Tiger Global and Microsoft plan to sell their entire stakes in PhonePe, the Walmart-backed Indian payments startup, in the company's upcoming IPO, according to its updated prospectus. The two companies are offering up their full stakes in the company, while Walmart is choosing to retain its majority stake and only selling up to 45.9M shares, or about 9% of the company. PhonePe was valued at $12B in a January 2023 funding round and is targeting a $15B valuation in the IPO, which could raise up to $1.5B.
Base AI, a B2B AI platform focused on sales, account intelligence, and customer expansion, acquired EverAfter, a B2B customer success platform that helps SaaS companies manage onboarding, renewals, and expansion, for an undisclosed amount. Base plans to combine its lifecycle marketing and AI activation capabilities with EverAfter’s digital customer success tooling to create what it calls the first “Engagement OS” for customer-led growth. The combined platform is designed to unify onboarding, adoption, expansion, advocacy, and retention in a single system, using AI agents to improve personalization, attribution, and net revenue retention while replacing fragmented post-sale tools.
Applied Compute, an AI infrastructure startup founded by former OpenAI researchers, focused on building systems and software optimized for running and scaling advanced AI models, is in talks to raise up to $70M in a round led by Kleiner Perkins at a $1.3B valuation, more than doubling its $500M valuation from its last round three months ago according to The Information sources. The company, which builds custom AI models and agents for businesses like DoorDash, Cognition, and Mercor, said it was generating $12.8M in annualized revenue as of November and plans to use the funds to scale its research-driven approach to model customization.
Airwallex, an Australian payments and financial infrastructure platform that helps businesses manage cross-border payments, acquired Paynuri, a South Korean payments platform that provides local payment processing and settlement for online merchants and cross-border commerce, for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition gives Airwallex local payments licenses and a foreign-exchange registration, allowing it to operate directly in South Korea without relying on third-party intermediaries. Airwallex plans to launch global business accounts and payments acquiring in Korea in 2026, expand spend-management products later that year, and build a local team as it extends its Asia-Pacific licensed footprint. Unrelated, but check out this journalist's accusations against Airwallex.
Humans&, an AI research startup founded by former researchers from xAI, Anthropic, and Google that aims to build AI systems that empower rather than replace human workers, raised $480M in seed funding from Nvidia, Jeff Bezos, and SV Angel at a $4.48B valuation. The company is building AI systems designed to work alongside human teams rather than operate autonomously, focusing on collaboration, context, and long-term memory instead of task replacement.
GoCab, a London-based mobility fintech startup operating a drive-to-own financing model for gig workers, raised $45M in a seed round led by E3 Capital and Janngo VC made up of $15M in equity and $30M in debt. The company partners with ride-hailing and delivery platforms to provide vehicle financing and add-on services like BNPL for phones and motorbike loans, and reports more than $17M in ARR within 18 months. GoCab plans to use the capital to expand into new markets, scale toward 10,000 vehicles, and pursue an additional $60M Shariah-compliant debt facility as it targets $100M in ARR.
Cosmos, a visual discovery platform used by designers, marketers, and creative teams to research trends, organize inspiration, and build shared visual libraries for branding, product development, and campaigns, raised $15M in a Series A round led by Shine Capital. The company plans to use the funding to expand operations and grow adoption among creative teams, with customers already including Nike, Apple, and Amazon. Cosmos positions itself as a business-grade alternative to Pinterest by centralizing visual research, moodboarding, and collaboration in one platform, while exploring monetization through premium subscriptions and potential e-commerce tools.
Wonder, the parent company of Grubhub, Blue Apron, Wonder Restaurants, and Relish, acquired Claim, a restaurant rewards app that offers automatic cash-back incentives to drive traffic and retain customers, for an undisclosed amount. Through the acquisition, Grubhub plans to expand access to Claim's guest marketing and retention capabilities across its merchant network, while offering Grubhub diners additional wayes to save. Claim will continue operating its app and website while rolling out to Grubhub merchants and diners in New York City first, with a nationwide expansion planned later this year.
Mia Labs, the maker of an AI-powered conversational platform designed to help automotive dealerships convert inbound questions into appointments, raised $20M in a Series A round led by Permanent Capital Ventures, bringing its total amount raised to $29M. The company will use the funding to accelerate product development, expand its team, and scale deployments across U.S. dealerships, positioning its platform as a replacement for call centers, IVR systems, and standalone chat tools. Mia Labs works with more than 350 franchise dealerships, and claims to have driven over $45M in revenue from AI-booked appointments after automating more than 1M customer conversations.
Assurant, a global insurance and risk management company focused on device protection, extended warranties, renters insurance, and lifestyle protection services, acquired RL Circular Operations, a reverse logistics and post-purchase services provider that manages returns, asset recovery, and device lifecycle workflows for retailers, for an undisclosed amount. Assurant plans to integrate RL Circular Operations into its Connected Living platform to reduce reliance on third-party logistics providers, support sustainability-focused retail programs, and deliver end-to-end device lifecycle management using AI-driven workflows across the region.
Authentic Brands Group, the fashion conglomerate that manages 50+ global brands including Reebok, Forever 21, and Brooks Brothers, acquired a 51% controlling interest in GUESS, an American fashion company known for its denim apparel, at $16.75 per share in, valuing the company at approximately $1.4B. Authentic will control a majority stake in GUESS's intellectual property, while the Marciano family, who founded the brand, and CEO Carlos Alberini retain the remaining 49% of IP and 100% ownership of the operating company, which will continue to run the day-to-day operations. The transactions takes GUESS private and makes it Authentic's second-largest brand after Reebok, lifting its portfolio-wide annual sales to roughly $38B.
Statusphere, a micro-influencer marketing platform that helps brands generate user-generated content and product reviews at scale, raised $18M in a Series A round led by Volition Capital, bringing its total amount raised to $27M. The company plans to use the funds to expand its platform, with a focus on social SEO, generative engine optimization, and reporting tools designed to improve product discovery across AI-driven and agentic search. Statusphere says it has powered more than 50,000 creator collaborations in the past year, generating over 500M engagements.
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PS: Do you know what's weird about mirrors? If you look at them really, really closely, they look like eyeballs.