#216 – BigCommerce’s App Ambitions, Agentic AI, & Meta’s love / hate relationship with China

by Shopifreaks | Mar 10, 2025 | Recent Newsletters

Hi Shopifreaks

Is it just me or does e-commerce news feel more combative lately? I feel like I use the words “war” and “retaliation” a lot more than I used to in these editions…

This week I've got another jam-packed edition for you featuring app store ambitions, agentic AI wars, whistleblowers, and of course… more tariffs news.

Let's dive right into this week's edition where I cover:

BigCommerce's app store ambitions
The agentic AI war heating up
Meta's relationship with China
Walmart's same-day delivery milestone
Wix's new native POD
TikTok goes after local services
Shopify Payments needs your help
Trump vs China, Mexico, & Canada
Uber & Lyft get a new competitor
Target's on-again off-again love for Black History Month
TikTok marketing spend is falling

All this and more in this week's 216th Edition of Shopifreaks. Thanks for subscribing and sharing!

Stat of the Week

Walmart delivered 5 billion items on the same day they were ordered last year, double the number delivered in 2023. It can now deliver most of its 120,000 products the same day to 93% of US households. Amazon, in comparison, declines to disclose the number of US households that it can offer same-day delivery to.

1. BigCommerce aims to improve its app ecosystem

BigCommerce announced a three-pronged product launch aimed at strengthening its app-building experience for developers. The launch includes:

Redesigned app development portal – providing easier app building and management via a more intuitive workflow.
Unified Billing – a new feature that allows app developers to leverage BigCommerce's billing infrastructure, making it easier to build, launch, and charge for premium apps.
App Hosting – via a new partnership with Gadget.dev that offers a built-in connection to BigCommerce APIs.

Troy Cox, chief product officer at BigCommerce, said:

“By empowering app developers with a more seamless development experience, we believe this release will have a significant impact on the overall breadth, adoption and app experience in our marketplace. It further strengthens our commerce platform where businesses can easily plug in and swap out exactly the capabilities they need, empowering both our partners and customers to scale faster and create more compelling customer experiences.”

Is BigCommerce aiming to be more like Shopify? Yes and No…

While it seems that BigCommerce is aiming to improve the app development experience and grow its app marketplace, which overall benefits its ecosystem (as we've seen with Shopify), it doesn't seem like it is straying from the historic openness that it's provided merchants and app developers in regards to billing and integrations.

Unlike Shopify, which maintains strict control over app billing, BigCommerce allows app developers to bill merchants through their own existing payment solutions. Although they're now offering a unified billing feature, BigCommerce is not requiring that developers use it. I'd imagine that the unified billing feature is designed more for new app developers to streamline the development process and expedite launch by not having to build their own billing system. Whereas with Shopify, platforms that already have their own billing systems in place had to rebuild them to work with Shopify.

Effectively, BigCommerce's App Marketplace is a glorified directory of apps where merchants can browse, discover, and click through to install. From there, merchants often leave the BigCommerce environment to setup accounts, manage subscriptions, and pay the app providers directly. There's never been mandatory centralized billing, sign up, or installation requirements. BigCommerce provided the visibility for apps but left control to the developers.

Whereas Shopify offers a more integrated ecosystem and marketplace experience with centralized billing and installations that happen within the Shopify store backend. Of course, part of this experience was designed to maintain control over billing, of which Shopify takes a 20% revenue share on all app sales after the first $1M in annual app revenue per developer. It's a hefty commission, but it's been worth it for developers to reach Shopify's massive merchant base — comparable to Google Play or Apple App Store for consumer app developers.

BigCommerce, on the other hand, doesn't take a cut of app revenue and doesn't charge a listing fee to appear on their marketplace, however, they do offer sponsorships and preferred placements in the directory for a fee.

Which model is better? Well, that depends on who you're asking. I know more than a few app developers who have been at odds with Shopify's app billing policies, making development more complicated and sometimes limiting features for merchants. You could also argue that Shopify's hefty 20% fee drives up the cost of apps for merchants. However the unified billing and one-click installation / uninstallation certainly makes it easy for merchants.

In general, BigCommerce concentrating efforts into expanding its app marketplace and streamlining app development will be an overall net benefit to merchants, developers, and the BigCommerce ecosystem, despite how it may differ or compare to Shopify.

2. Everyone wants in on the Agentic AI craze

Agentic AI refers to artificial intelligence systems that exhibit agency — meaning they can autonomously perceive their environment, make decisions, and take actions to achieve specific goals without requiring constant human instruction. For example, agentic AI can do things like provide customer support, shop for you, write code, debug programs, detect security threats, analyze data, and even drive cars or operate machinery. In the past, you've seen be report on Perplexity and OpenAI launching AI powered shopping agents, which are both examples of agentic AI tools.

To make sure they're not left behind on agentic AI developments, Amazon formed a new group focused on the technology, with the mission of helping customers automate more of their lives, according to an e-mail viewed by Reuters. The new agentic AI group will be led by AWS executive Swami Sivasubramanian, who previously served as VP of AI and data.

AWS CEO Matt Garman wrote:

“Agentic AI has the potential to be the next multi-billion business for AWS. We have the opportunity to help our customers innovate even faster and unlock more possibilities, and I firmly believe that AI agents are core to this next wave of innovation.”

Some of these possibilities, Amazon briefly gave a sneak peak into last week when discussing future plans for Alexa+. Business Insider also reports that Amazon is working on a new reasoning AI model that aims to offer hybrid reasoning, a mix of quick answers, and more complex thinking — which will inevitably play a role in any of its agentic AI ambitions.

Meta also views agentic AI as the future:

In an interview with CNBC, Meta's head of business AI, Clara Shih, that she expects agentic AI to transform every job and every business with new levels of reasoning and action capabilities.

“We’re quickly coming to a place where every business, from the very large to the very small, they’re going to have a business agent representing it and acting on its behalf, in its voice — the way that businesses today have websites and email addresses. If you’re a small business — you own a coffee shop, you own a jewelry shop online, you’re distributing through Instagram — you don’t have the resources to hire a big AI team, and so now our dream is that they won’t have to.”

For consumers, Shih says that AI assistant will do all kinds of things like researching products, planning trips, and even planning social outings with friends.

Shih says every person must prepare now for the changes that will be coming:

“There isn’t a single job that hasn’t been completely transformed by the internet and by mobile and by social media. I think we’re at the same juncture now with AI, where it’s clear that there are certain professions where AI will significantly change the job. But my prediction is that over time, AI will change every job function across every industry.”

Last but not least, Salesforce doesn't want to be forgotten in the agentic AI race:

Salesforce launched AgentExchange, a marketplace that allows enterprise customers to expand the capabilities of Agentforce AI agents using pre-built “workers” that use business rules and automation to perform tasks independently.

AgentExchange will house skills and capabilities for AI agents and act as a marketplace for what the company calls “digital labor.”

3. Meta's love / hate relationship with China

Meta was willing to go to extreme lengths to censor content and shut down political dissent in a failed attempt to win the approval of the Chinese Communist Party and bring Facebook to millions of users in the country, according to a whistleblower complaint from Sarah Wynn-Williams, a former global policy director at the company.

Wynn-Williams says that back in 2015, the company developed a censorship system for China and planned to install a “chief editor” who would decide what content to remove, as well as shut down the entire site during times of “social unrest,” according to a copy of the 78-page complaint read by The Washington Post.

Other things she claims Meta did include:

Building a censorship system specially designed for China to review content, including the ability to automatically detect restricted terms and popular content on the platform.
Agreeing to hire at least 300 content moderators to support the system.
Covertly launching a handful of social apps under the name of a China-based company created by one of its employees.
Briefing China on the company's latest technological developments for years and lying about it.
Agreeing to crack down on the account of a high-profile Chinese dissident living in the US due to pressure from high-ranking Chinese officials.
Writing an e-mail in 2014 that said, “If we want to have more of our services available in China in 3 years, I think we need to start intensively working on this now.”
Assembling a “China team” in 2014 to develop a version of its services that could be legally offered in China under a project code-named “Project Aldrin” after the astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who landed the first manned spacecraft on the moon. (They do know that China has social media already, right?)
Drafting a letter to send Lu Wei, China's internet czar, saying the company had already worked with the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco to “take down terrorist sites that are potentially dangerous for China” and offering “to work more closely with all your embassies or Consulates around the world.”
Granting the Chinese government access to Chinese users' data “including Kongkongese users' data” in exchange for the ability to establish operations in the country.
Drafting a proposal that would make Hony Capital, a Chinese private-equity firm, responsible for reviewing and deciding whether content posted by China-based users, including foreigners traveling to the country, was “consistent with applicable law.”

However by 2019, Meta abandoned its China ambitions around the time that the Trump administration began waging a trade battle with the country. Now Meta has turned a 180 on its relationship with China, and hopes instead that the US bans TikTok and other Chinese apps to boost its own market share domestically.

It's important to note that Wynn-Williams was fired from her job at Meta in 2017 and is scheduled to release a memoir documenting her time at the company, titled “Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism” — so her complaint has an agenda.

4. Wix launches a native print-on-demand experience with Printful

Wix released a native integration with Printful, a Latvia-based print-on-demand company with fulfillment centers throughout the US and Europe.

The partnership integrates Printful's print-on-demand and drop shipping fulfillment services directly into Wix's backend, allowing merchants to create their own branded product collections without leaving Wix.

Jill Sherman, Head of Suppliers Hub at Wix, said:

“This integration gives our users a new opportunity to create high-quality products and merchandise customized to their brand, whether they are a yoga studio owner, a chef, or a dog trainer. Together, we’re providing our users a unique and seamless solution that embraces creativity and brand identity while eliminating fulfillment hassles and overhead costs. This empowers users to focus on the growth of their business and maximize their brand footprint all from the Wix platform.”

Didn't Printful already have an integration with Wix?

Yes, Wix merchants have been able to connect their stores to Printful's platform for quite some time. However previously, merchants had to manually integrate Printful with Wix by setting up API connections or using Printful's app. Now, Printful is available as a preferred partner and native integration.

Wix has been moving toward expanding its ecosystem with more native integrations, particularly over the last couple of years. Their strategy seems focused on turning Wix from a simple website builder into a full-fledged e-commerce and business platform, competing more directly with Shopify, BigCommerce, and Squarespace through direct partnerships and integrations with third party service providers for its Restaurant, Bookings, Fit, and Hotels solutions (to name a few).

5. TikTok to add more local services to its e-commerce offering

TikTok is aiming to expand its local commerce business in the US, following the path that its Chinese counterpart Douyin took in the past.

The company is in the process of hiring nearly two dozen people across Seattle, Los Angeles, and New York to lead the charge in pairing local merchants and vendors with TikTok creators and users.

One job listing says that the company's immediate focus will be on top level service partners in travel, while another job posting noted that TikTok is seeking to onboard lifestyle, food, and travel creators to help drive local services adoption and monetization opportunities.

TikTok has routinely cited its positive impact on local businesses as part of its defense for remaining available in the US, claiming last year that more than 7M US businesses depend on the app for growth. It also claimed that the use of its advertising and marketing services by local businesses generated $5.3B in taxes paid to the US government in 2023.

TikTok Shop officially launched in the US in September 2023 and since then it's added shopping to its livestream product, with projections that TikTok Live will generate $77B in sales revenue globally by 2027.

Of course, TikTok's plans all depend on reaching a deal with the Trump administration, which involves divesting half of the business to an American company.

Last week, President Trump indicated that he would extend the deadline for TikTok to find a US buyer if a deal is not reached by the April 5th deadline, which is less than a month away. Trump told reporters, “If I need an extension, I will probably get it extended. We have a lot of interest in TikTok. China is going to play a role, so hopefully China will approve the deal.” Trump said on Sunday that his administration was in touch with four different groups about the sale of TikTok, but ByteDance has yet to comment on any of the rumors.

6. Shopify asks, “How can we do better at Shopify Payments?”

Adit Daga from Shopify Payments hosted an unofficial AMA on Reddit over the weekend, asking the r/shopify community how his team can do better with the product. He wrote:

“We spend a lot of time focused on checkout conversion and on helping you/your teams spend less time and money thinking about payments. What’s your advice for us/where we can do better that really hurts today?”

Answers from the community included:

“Fraud detection is weak. I’ve had customers place orders in multiple stores with 5+ credit cards… no ‘high risk' flag, no warning. Then BOOM… chargeback. Solution? Smarter risk analysis, real fraud prevention, and actual seller protection.”
“Can't use gift cards and store credits to purchase pre-orders (products with a Selling Plan).”
“Thank you for getting our 1099s to us before March this year. However, please get them to us before February in the future so we don't have to sweat over whether we need to file an extension for our business and personal returns.”
“Allow split payments EASILY (major headache to do it currently, need to create a draft order, discount the item, collect the first portion of payment, then remove discount and collect remaining. )”
“It’s my money, I need it now. PayPal can payout daily, eBay also pays out daily if you qualify. We are running businesses. Getting payouts quickly helps us pay for our expenses, pay ourselves faster etc.” (This opinion was voiced several times throughout the comment section.)
“Chargeback protection on big orders ($1,000+) would be a game changer. Losing that kind of money to a dispute, even when everything was legit, is rough. Shopify should have sellers’ backs on high-ticket orders.”
“Allow pay in installments outside of the USA. Is there a reason in the UK or Europe, on my Shopify Plus store I can't offer Shopify payments version of Klarna or PayPal's Pay in 3?”
“Before there was a Shop app Shopify payments was Shopify payments and that was it. now the term ‘shop' is used interchangeably! Please please give them two different names.”
“Shopify charges the same for credit and debit cards and pockets the difference, even as more consumers are choosing debit cards. Most merchants see this happening and don't appreciate it.”
“Stop the random payout holds. Nothing kills a business faster than frozen cash flow.”

Solid feedback all around! Adit mentioned that he'd be checking back in on the post and responding to comments throughout the week, so there's still time to share your feedback if you've got any to add.

7. What's happening with tariffs now?

Trump's relationship with tariffs is more “will they, won't they?” then Ross and Rachel or Ted and Robin!

Lats week he imposed new 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada, but then exempted many of those goods just two days later. Trump also doubled a blanket tariff on goods from China to 20% (from 10%).

In retaliation, China introduced tariffs on US farm products that came into effect today including on chicken, beef, pork, wheat, and soybeans.

Meanwhile in Canada, Ontario Premier Doug Ford, said he was going forward with a 25% surcharge on energy exports to the US in retaliation, and promised that if Trump further escalates, “I will not hesitate to shut the electricity off completely.”

The announcement of new tariffs and economic instability led to significant declines in US stock markets. The S&P 500 index fell by 1.8%, while the Nasdaq-100 index dropped by 2.6% (so far today).

In an interview with Fox News, Trump didn't rule out the possibility of a recession, saying:

“I hate to predict things like that. There is a period of transition, because what we're doing is very big. We're bringing wealth back to America.”

Did I miss anything? The fact that I can barely keep up with changes in tariffs, as someone who regularly follows this information for my job, is absolutely insane. What are business owners and consumers supposed to do?

Rather than go into yet another rant in this newsletter about how destructive this is to the US economy, you can read my LinkedIn post from a month ago detailing the dangers.

8. Uber and Lyft get some new competition

Bolt, an Estonia-based ride-hailing and food delivery platform that serves customers in Europe and Africa, is entering the North American market to compete against Uber and Lyft.

Earlier this year, the company started offering ride-hailing services in Toronto and scooter rentals in Washington state through its Hopp app, using the same playbook that it uses for its operations elsewhere — taking a smaller cut of riders' fares than competing companies. While Uber and Lyft keep about 30-35% of the rider fare in the US, Bolt generally keeps 15-20%.

However that's not all who's coming after Uber and Lyft…

The two ride-hailing platforms are also experiencing competition on their turf from startups aiming to completely change the business model. For example, Hovr in Toronto, Empower in Washington, and Hum in Arizona and Idaho, let drivers keep 100% of the fares, instead charging drivers a flat rate per month for access to their networks of passengers. (I love that model.)

A few years back, I actually invested in a NYC-based startup called The Drivers Cooperative that was building a driver-owned alternative to Uber and Lyft, but that turned out to be a washout.

Some competition will succeed, others will fail, but I support the initiatives either way. US ride sharing desperately needs some healthy competition to bring the cost down for riders.

9. Other e-commerce news of interest

US brands' usage of TikTok and their marketing spend on the platform have fallen during the first quarter of the year, according to a Digiday+ Research study, which found that 73% of brands are using TikTok, down from 88% in Q3 2024. The survey marked the first time since 2023 that overall marketing spend on the platform has fallen. Given the platform's shaky future in the US, brands are hesitant to allocate too many resources into building a presence on the app.

Target posted about Black History Month on its social media just once this year during January and February, down from 8 posts last year and 11 posts in 2023. On February 2nd, the company highlighted its #BlackHistoryMonth collection, which featured products from Black-owned brands, but the post drew criticism from users who called out Target for supporting the month just nine days after it announced it was rolling back its DEI efforts, so they apparently never talked about it again.

OpenAI is considering switching from a $20/month unlimited model to a pay-for-usage credit system, according to a post on X by Sam Altman. We all saw this coming, right? Or some other type of price hike? No way ChatGPT was going to stay $20 forever. Personally I hate the idea of a credit system because of how often ChatGPT gets it wrong (and how many credits I'd waste on the daily through normal usage). However honestly, given the value I get from ChatGPT, I'd pay more for unlimited usage, and I think they know it. The question simply becomes — how close can OpenAI get to that threshold without exceeding it (causing users to look for alternatives)? Something tells me we're going to find out sooner than later…

Walmart asked some Chinese suppliers for major price reductions in an attempt to shift the burden of Trump's tariffs away from the company and its customers. Some suppliers, including producers of kitchenware and clothing, have been asked to lower their prices by as much as 10% per round of tariffs, according to Bloomberg sources. So far, very few have agreed to the request, with some vendors claiming that any reduction greater than 2% would see them make a loss.

eBay CEO Jamie Iannone told investors that generative AI has allowed the platform to improve recommendations to buyers shopping on the website, citing an example of an oboe purchase resulting in recommendations for accessories like reeds, stands, cases, and books. Iannone said that eBay's “ability to take this amazing longtail of inventory – we have 2.3 billion listings on the platform – and use generative AI to make recommendations more compelling; to make search more compelling, to make the description of those items more compelling; it's pretty fantastic. And it's why I feel excited to be CEO of this company right now with this technology.” Alrighty, glad that something gets you out of bed in the morning.

An AI avatar will be serving as host of the upcoming AI Agents for eCom Summit 2025, which runs virtually from Mar 11-13, marking the first time that AI, not a human, will serve as the official host of a global summit. The virtual event brings together 40+ AI pioneers and industry leaders and serves to demonstrate how AI agents can streamline automation, enhance marketing, and optimize customer engagement in the e-commerce sector. The host will be powered by Argil AI. I'll be attending this first summit and likely speaking at their next event, so I'm curious to see how it goes with the AI host tomorrow.

BigCommerce amended the severance agreement for its CEO, Travis Hess, according to a recent SEC filing, modifying the conditions under which Hess would receive severance payments in the event of his termination. Should Hess experience a qualifying termination, he is now entitled to receive an amount equal to twelve months of his base salary plus twelve months of the company's share of healthcare premiums, paid over three months following the termination. 12 months severance? Wow! How much severance did the almost 400 BigCommerce employees laid off since 2022 receive? Wasn't it like 11 weeks or something?

Amazon is testing a new coupon format, displaying the final price after the coupon instead of showing the percent off or dollar off amount. The testing was spotted by Jon Elder, who shared a screenshot on a LinkedIn post, but so far there has been no official announcement from Amazon on the matter.

President Trump signed an executive order authorizing the creation of a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, capitalized with Bitcoin owned by the federal government that was obtained as part of criminal or civil asset forfeiture proceedings. White House AI and Crypto Czar David Sacks said that the US will not sell the Bitcoin it holds in the reserve, but that it will instead act like a “digital Fort Knox,” while comparing crypto to “digital gold.”

Shopify Payments launched in 5 more countries last week including Croatia, Slovenia, Latvia, Malta, and Estonia. The expansion follows the previous week's launch in Hungary, Lithuania, Mexico, Norway, and Poland. The payment solution now operates in 35 countries and counting.

Albania shut down TikTok for 12 months for allegedly citing violence and bullying among children. The country's education minister said that officials are in contact with TikTok about installing filters like parental control and age verification, as well as including the Albanian language in the app. Authorities conducted 1,300 meetings with 65,000 parents who were in favor of shutting down or limiting TikTok within the country before making the move.

Meta maintains internal block lists of employees who are ineligible for being rehired, according to five former employees, including two managers, who spoke to Business Insider. The lists sometimes even include employees who had positive performance records. Meta uses multiple systems to track rehire ineligibility, including a “non-regrettable attrition” designation and a “do not hire” flag, though it's unclear what causes employees to make it onto the lists or how many folks are on them. One former manager said, “If a manager didn't like you, it wasn't hard to put someone on a list.”

Senator Richard Blumenthal pressed Visa for detailed plans and documents related to its deal to provide payments services to X, as the platform prepares to launch a digital wallet in collaboration with the payments company, pointing to Elon Musks' role in gutting the CFPB among his reasons for the request. Blumenthal wrote, “Given the unique position of X Chairman and Chief Technology Officer Elon Musk as leader of the Department of Government Efficiency and his recent role in gutting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau … Visa stands to take advantage of the deep conflicts of interest and unscrupulous conduct of its new business partner.”

Singapore introduced a new set of guidelines to help the e-commerce sector minimize its packaging waste, including specific ways to cut down on cardboard box usage. Recommendations include expanding the range of box sizes available, switching to lighter alternative packaging, shipping products in their own boxes, using machines to size boxes to exactly fit products, and repurposing old boxes into fillers by shredding them.

Nepal passed the Electronic Commerce Bill, aiming to protect consumers, promote fair business practices, and foster trust in the country's e-commerce sector, nearly two and a half decades since the launch of Nepal's first online store. The bill defines e-commerce, requires all platforms to register with the government, increases transparency between buyers and sellers, and provides refund rights for consumers.

Trent Green, the CEO of Amazon’s primary care clinic, One Medical, is leaving Amazon after a year and a half in the role to become CEO of National Research Corp. Green joined One Medical in 2022 shortly before Amazon's acquisition, which was completed in 2023. The company did not yet name a replacement for him.

Meta, TikTok, and Snap are arguing that YouTube should be included in Australia's new law banning social media for all kids under 16 years old. Australia deemed YouTube as a critical education tool and is allowing its continued use, despite an original assumption that the platform would be included. Australia's law will go into effect towards the end of this year, giving YouTube's competitors time to plead their case.

In other YouTube news… Representative Jim Jordan subpoenaed Alphabet, demanding documents that show whether YouTube removed content at the request of the Biden-Harris administration, acting as “a direct participant in the federal government's censorship regime.” Jordan became chairman of the House Judiciary Committee in 2023 and has since wielded his platform and subpoena powers to investigate Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, and Apple over actions that he believes singled out conservative social media accounts at the direction of the Biden administration’s Department of Justice, carrying out what he claims was an unlawful suppression of free speech.

Best Buy CEO Corie Barry said the company plans to launch its previously announced third-party marketplace in the middle of this year, and that Best Buy sees fiscal 2026 as a pivotal year for its advertising business. Best Buy has about 100M members across its free and paid membership programs, ending last year with almost 8M paid members, up from 7M the year before. In comparison, Amazon has approximately 180M Prime members and Walmart+ boasts around 26M members.

Digg is relaunching as a community-first social platform with AI-driven tools to enhance moderation and user experiences, aiming to foster smaller, engaged communities while avoiding the growth-at-all-costs mindset, and offering a space that blends nostalgia with innovative features. The project is being spearheaded by Kevin Rose (the original founder of Digg), Alexis Ohanian (co-founder of Reddit), Justin Mezzell (design and branding expert), and Ev Williams (co-founder of Twitter and Blogger), among others. Though it’s launching in a limited form, the team plans to build it alongside users, focusing on giving communities the tools they need to thrive.

WhatsApp has become a thriving illegal firearms marketplace in India, despite the country's strict legislation around gun ownership and Meta's policies prohibiting the sale or advertisement of firearms. Between April 2024 and January 2025, Digital Witness Lab found more than 8,000 messages advertising firearms across 234 WhatsApp groups in India, all publicly accessible and some with hundreds of members. One seller told Rest of World that he fields more than 100 inquiries per day on the app.

The FCC's new chair, Brendan Carr, criticized the European Union's content moderation law as incompatible with America's free speech tradition and warned of a risk that it will excessively restrict freedom of expression. Carr said that the DSA's approach was “something that is incompatible with both our free speech tradition in America and the commitments that these technology companies have made to a diversity of opinions.” Over the past two years, Meta has been fined over $2.3B in Europe for breaches of EU antitrust rules and data breaches, and now the company is whining to the Trump administration to save it from the financial hits.

Salesforce is the latest company to drop its diversity hiring targets and remove references to diversity and inclusion as core company values, putting it among several other major companies, including Amazon, Google, Walmart, Meta, Deloitte, Shopify, and KPMG, who have recently scaled back or entirely discontinued their DEI programs. A Salesforce spokesperson told Bloomberg, “While we are not specifying representation goals, we remain committed to our core value of equality” — which pretty much means the company wants to “equally” replace all of its workers with AI.

🏆 This week's most ridiculous story… adidas revealed that it has finally sold its remaining Yeezy inventory more than two years after terminating its partnership with Kanye West over his public antisemitism, and that the company's outlook for 2025 does not include any Yeezy revenues or profits. Hold up, Adidas — “imma let you finish” — but first I've got to ask… you were still selling the shoes for the past two years?!?! Are you kidding me? You couldn't have ripped out the 45 cents worth of Yeezy branding on the sneakers two years ago and repurposed the rest of the shoe into a new model? Read the rest of my rant on LinkedIn.

10. Seed rounds, IPOs, & acquisitions

Swap, a London-based e-commerce platform that brings together logistics, returns, product recycling, taxes, and soon inventory management, raised $40M in a Series B round led by ICONIQ Growth, bringing its total amount raised to $49M. The company will use the funds to accelerate expansion into the US and EU, open new regions including Australia and Canada, and launch Swap Inventory, a new offering that provide merchants with recommendations around pricing, restocking, and replenishment.

Scrunch AI, a New York-based platform that helps companies optimize how they appear on AI search platforms and gain better visibility into how AI web crawlers interact with their data, raised $4M in a seed round led by Mayfield. The company went live in November 2024 and has since signed 25 enterprise clients. It plans to use the funds to continue developing its product.

Verb Technology Company, the development company behind MARKET.live, a livestream social shopping platform, entered into a definitive agreement to acquire LyveCom, an AI-driven video commerce paltform, for an undisclosed amount. The integration of LyveCom's tech into MARKET.live will allow brands and merchants to deliver an omnichannel livestream shopping experience to their customers.

Platter, a San Francisco-based startup that offers a Shopify theme and app designed to help brands quickly launch high-converting online stores with customizable storefronts, raised $1.6M in a pre-seed round led by Animal Capital. The company's new app, Platter+, allows brands to easily add product upsells, cross-sells, and social proof to their checkout and post-purchase pages through one unified solution.

Phot.AI, a platform that provides AI tools for automatic background removal, image enhancement, and creative photo editing, raised $2.7M in a round led by Info Edge Ventures. The company's tools help e-commerce brands meet the requirements of platforms including Amazon, Shopify, and Meta, enables A/B testing of creatives, while speeding up brands' go-to-market visual strategies.

Walgreens entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Sycamore Partners, a New York-based private equity firm, in a deal valued at up to $23.7B. Walgreens has over 12,500 retail locations across the US, Latin America, and Europe and employs over 300k people across the various brands it operates through. The deal includes a “go-shop” period in which Walgreens has 35 days to evaluate and enter into negotiations with other potential buyers. The deal comes after over a decade of missteps from Walgreens including investing $140M in Theranos and $6.2B into VillageMD, acquiring CityMD for $9B, and investing $200M to replace glass refrigerator doors with digital screens.

American Express entered into an agreement to acquire Center, an expense management platform that offers corporate credit cards and real-time expense tracking to help businesses control spending. The acquisition aims to integrate Center's software with American Express' corporate and small business card offering to offer premium card options, rewards, and automated accounting features.

CollX, a mobile app that uses AI to help collectors identify, value, and sell sports cards and trading cards, raised $10M in a Series A round co-led by Brand Foundry Ventures and 114 Ventures, bringing its total amount raised to $15M. The platform, which boasts over 3M users, offers tools to scan your cards and upload your collection, view collections from other users, and trade cards through its marketplace.

Odeko, a New York based operations management platform that helps independent cafes streamline ordering, supply chain management, and inventory, raised $126M in a Series E round led by B Capital and Banc of California. Alongside the funding round, the company announced its acquisition of Butter Insurance, a specialized insurance platform that offers protection plans for electronics and personal items directly at the point of purchase.

Klarna, the Sweden-based fintech that offers payment solutions and BNPL, is seeking to raise at least $1B in a US initial public offering, and is set to file publicly as soon as this week, according to Bloomberg sources. The company aims to price the IPO in early April, targeting a valuation of more than $15B on the NYSE. Klarna confidentially filed for an IPO with the SEC and is working on the listing with around 15 banks, led by Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley.

Mintoak, a PayPal-backed Indian fintech that facilitates merchant payments, acquired Digiledge, a blockchain-based platform that provides secure supply chain financing solutions, for $3.5M. The deal will enable Mintoak's partner banks, which include HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, and SBI, to offer more comprehensive CBDC-related payment solutions to their clients.

Grab, a Singaporean super app offering ride-hailing, food delivery, and financial services, acquired Eastern Grocer, the holding company for the Everrise supermarket business, from Navis Capital Partners, for an undisclosed amount. Headquartered in Malaysia, Everrise operates a network of 19 stores through the country, offering fresh produce, meats, and imported products.