#190 – Uh oh Stripe, Roblox Shopping, & The New Marketplace of Marketplaces

by Shopifreaks | Sep 9, 2024 | Recent Newsletters

Hi Shopifreaks

I've got such a jam-packed edition for you this week, I can't take up valuable character-count with a long intro! So let's dive right in…

In this week's edition I cover:

Walmart's incredible marketplace growth
Shopify's virtual partnership with Roblox
The impact of Walmart teaming up with StockX to sell sneakers
Meta's Age-Gating Battle vs Apple & Google
Panic buttons at Walmart
PayPal cuts into Stripe's share of Shopify payments
Washington goes after Shein & Temu (again)
The JP Morgan Chase Money Glitch
WooCommerce's Black Friday Cyber Monday Trends Report
“Maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s Maybelline” is back!
Salesforce acquired two companies in one week

All this and more in this week's 190th Edition of Shopifreaks. Thanks for subscribing and sharing!

Stat of the Week

Walmart Marketplace grew 50% in one year, reaching 150k active sellers after adding more than 50k sellers in the past 12 months. — According to MarketplacePulse

1. Shopify teams up with Roblox so merchants can sell in the virtual world

Shopify and Roblox are teaming up to pilot Shopify's checkout within Roblox's virtual worlds, marking the first platform commerce partnership for Roblox. Through the integration, brands on Shopify can sell physical items to customers using real currency without ever leaving the Roblox platform.

For example, a Roblox player can interact with a t-shirt display on an in-game mannequin and then purchase the real life version of the shirt along with a digital replica for their character using Shopify checkout. After purchasing, the customer receives an order confirmation e-mail from the Shopify store, which takes over the sale. The customer then receives a virtual version of the item immediately, and the real / physical item is sent in the mail.

An avatar version of Shopify President Harley Finkelstein said in a video, “This will open up a massive audience of 80 million daily active, highly engaged, Roblox users, and potential customers, for creators and brands.”

Shopify wrote in its announcement, “This is another example of how Shopify is shaping the future of immersive commerce and shopping. When entrepreneurs have more spaces to connect with fans, they have more opportunities to succeed. That is what we power at Shopify.”

Shopping on Roblox is currently only available to users in the U.S. aged 13 and up, and all payments are done via fiat currency rather than virtual currency. For now, the integration with Shopify is in a pilot phase, with a broader rollout planned for 2025.

If this sounds familiar, I reported a similar integration between Walmart and Roblox earlier this year in May.

At the time, Roblox VP of Economy Enrico D’Angelo hinted at future commerce plans with other marketplaces and platforms, saying, “We are excited to start testing real-world commerce as a key step towards enabling it in the future for our community of creators and brand. Shopping for virtual items is already an important element of how people engage and express themselves on Roblox daily, so our goal is to gather feedback, test the technology, and learn what resonates with Gen Z customers the most when it comes to shopping for physical items.”

2. Walmart Marketplace: The marketplace of marketplaces

Walmart is partnering with StockX, an online marketplace for buying and selling sneakers, streetwear, and collectibles, to offer shoppers access to pre-verified sneakers from Nike, New Balance, Asics, and other brands. The partnership marks the first time StockX has integrated its inventory with an outside marketplace.

“Hundreds of items” will become available on Walmart's website this week, and Walmart says that the partnership could expand to tens of thousands of products in the near future.

Here's how StockX works:

Sellers list their items for sale — either asking for the highest bid or setting an ask price.
Once purchased, sellers are expected to ship the item within 2 days.
The seller actually ships the item to StockX, not to the buyer directly.
StockX verifies the item before releasing the funds and then ships it to the seller.

The pros of this system are that buyers are receiving verified items which reduces scams, chargebacks, and unhappy customers, ultimately creating a more trustworthy marketplace.

The cons is that it takes longer for the buyer to receive the item (since it's going to StockX first), and ultimately the buyer is paying for shipping twice. Sure, technically, the seller is paying for shipping — but the cost of items on the platform absorb the cost of that double shipping verification process.

Last year StockX started offering a pre-verification service so that it can ship sold items faster, and Walmart will exclusively be selling StockX's inventory of pre-verified items so that customers don't have to wait for a long turnaround to receive their purchases.

So let's get something straight — StockX is itself a marketplace, and it'll now be listing items for sale on a bigger marketplace. Is this the future of online retail?

If so, it feels like a win-win for both Walmart and niche marketplaces — until it's not. Walmart gets to bring in-demand collectible items to their marketplace, providing more reasons for customers to shop online with them (and not with Amazon, LOL). StockX in turn gets to reach Walmart's much larger pool of customers. Win-win?

The win-lose part might come in the future. There are obvious risks with selling on Walmart that include:

Diluting your market share. Customers who previously would've had to shop directly with StockX for coveted sneakers will now associate Walmart as the destination to find what they're looking for.
Giving Walmart your customers. Can Walmart retarget those buyers with sneaker recommendations (from other sellers), potentially taking future sales away from StockX? It's not like StockX is going to have the exclusive on selling collectible sneakers on Walmart.
Weakening your brand. On an earnings call earlier this year, Etsy CEO Josh Silverman said, “When you’re buying a gift for someone, you don’t want to say, ‘Where’d you buy it? Oh, I bought it on Temu’ or ‘I bought it on Walmart.' All due respect to those brands, it’s probably not how you want to present yourself.” Although I found his comment extremely out of touch with the common man, I can't deny that Walmart has a self-created reputation of being the ultimate discount store. Is that a good look for sneaker resellers? The sneaker resale world has historically been a race to the top, not a race to the bottom in regards to price.

For Walmart, partnering with StockX (and most likely other niche marketplaces in the near future) is a brilliant move. Kudos to Walmart.

For StockX and others that follow suit, I'm curious if the decision will prove to be shortsighted. (Think Toys ‘R' Us and Amazon.)

What are your thoughts? Win-win? Or eventual win-lose? Hit reply and let me know or join the convo on my LinkedIn post.

3. Who should be responsible for age-gating?

Last November, Meta's head of global safety proposed that Apple and Google take charge of age-gating and getting parental consent through their app stores. She wrote:

“Parents should approve their teen's app downloads, and we support federal legislation that requires app stores to get parents' approval whenever their teens under 16 download apps. With this solution, when a teen wants to download an app, app stores would be required to notify their parents, much like when parents are notified if their teen attempts to make a purchase. Parents can decide if they want to approve the download. They can also verify the age of their teen when setting up their phone, negating the need for everyone to verify their age multiple times across multiple apps.”

Here's the hole in that argument though: You don't need to use an app to access Facebook and Instagram. A teenager can sign up directly on the websites of either social media platform. So while it's true that Google and Apple could have an age-gating feature in place specifically for downloading the apps, that wouldn't preclude Meta from needing its own system too.

But regardless — Apple says “no” to the idea of verifying users' ages, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.

Apple says that websites and social media companies are best positioned to verify a user's age and that user privacy expectations would be violated if it was required to share the age of its users with third-party apps. Plus, Apple says it already provides tools for parents to control which apps their kids can and cannot install, and alleges that Meta is merely attempting to steer legislative responsibility away from itself and deflect attention from its challenges with child-safety issues.

I call malarkey on Apple's reasoning. To age-gate certain apps from being downloaded, Apple wouldn't have to share any information with the third-party app. Apple would simply prevent the underage user from downloading and installing the app in the first place. No info shared.

Meta asserts that verifying a child's age app-by-app isn't practical. A spokesperson said, “Rather than putting the onus on parents to upload sensitive information or provide proof of identity for their teen’s age for every single app their children use, app stores can provide a central place for families to do this.”

It certainly would be safer for Apple users to only share their personal information one time with Apple as opposed to with every app. Doesn't Apple claim similar privacy / safety reasons for why it requires all apps to collect payments through Apple Pay? Pick a lane, Apple.

Match Group, which owns Tinder, OKCupid, and other dating apps, also supports Meta's position, saying, “Kids are less safe when responsibility is limited only to developers.” (Of course, it's obvious why Match Group would want to abdicate the responsibility of verifying its users' ages to Apple.)

When state legislators in Louisiana were considering a bill that would make app stores responsible for age verification, Apple sent out a team of lobbyists to shut it down — a mission that it accomplished successfully, as that part of the bill was dropped.

Meanwhile Google is like… “Umm, we've got bigger problems on our hands.”

With neither Apple nor Meta's arguments solid in either direction — who's right? Should each individual app and social media company be responsible for verifying the ages of their users? Or should that responsibility fall on app stores? Hit reply and share your thoughts or join the convo on my LinkedIn post.

4. New York's Retail Worker Safety Act

New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed the Retail Worker Safety Act into law last week, which is designed to enhance workplace safety for retail workers. Here's what the new bill entails:

Corporate retail employers with over 10 employees must now adopt a violence prevention plan and train workers in de-escalation and active shooters, effective Mar 1, 2025. What a sad state of affairs when retail workers have to be trained on what to do in an active shooter scenario.
The Department of Labor will develop templates for the violence prevention policy and trainings to facilitate employer compliance.
Retailers with more than 500 employees statewide, like Walmart, are now required to install panic buttons throughout their stores by Jan 1, 2027, marking a first of its kind requirement among U.S. states.
The panic buttons must be easily accessible throughout the building or they can be wearable (like a panic watch) or part of a mobile-device carried by the employee.
Retailers must maintain records of violent incidents for at least three years. Of course, each individual retailers' definition of “violent” could vary, just like how Amazon's definition of a “serious injury” can vary (see story #2).

Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, said, “Working to stop retail violence and theft has been a centerpiece of the Governor’s work this legislative session, and with her signature on the Retail Worker Safety Act, our members, retail workers across the state, and shoppers will be safer. The preventative measures this law provides will help stop violence and harassment before it starts, but even more importantly, will more safely assist workers in getting help quickly in the event of an emergency.”

Walmart, the National Retail Federation, and the Food Industry Alliance previously opposed the new law. Walmart specifically argued against the panic button idea, citing concerns about the likelihood of false alarms, while the others expressed concerns about the costs.

5. PayPal takes a slice of Shopify's payment action in the U.S.

PayPal will become an additional online credit and debit card processor for Shopify Payments through its PayPal Complete Payments, a payment processing solution built for marketplaces and platforms.

With the new experience, PayPal wallet transactions will be integrated into Shopify Payments in the U.S., creating a single, unified (Shopify's keyword this year – see story #1) experience for PayPal and Shopify merchants for managing orders, payouts, reporting, and chargeback flows. And as part of the agreement, PayPal’s wallet will also integrate with Shopify Payments.

PayPal CEO Alex Chriss said about the partnership, “Collaboration is the key to unlocking better industry outcomes. When we work together with merchants and partners, we innovate faster, solve problems more effectively and drive progress that benefits our customers.”

This update builds on the two companies' partnership that started in 2022, when PayPal teamed up with Shopify to introduce Shopify Payments in France.

The partnership leads to several questions:

Wait, what about Stripe?
Why the sudden payment processor diversification in the U.S.?
Will U.S. merchants have a choice between PayPal and Stripe when setting up their Shopify Payments accounts or will it default to one option based on certain variables?
If a merchant runs into underwriting issues with Stripe, will they be able to switch to PayPal (or vice-versa)?

I dropped the bottom two questions as a comment on Alex Chriss' announcement post on LinkedIn, but might not hear back before I send this week's edition — so check that post to find the answers (if he responds).

In other PayPal news this week… PayPal is integrating its debit card with Apple Wallet via its new “PayPal Everywhere” solution, and with an expansion of its rewards program, is letting consumers pick a category of spending to receive 5% cash back on. Additionally, PayPal introduced a feature called “auto-reload” that lets users set a balance threshold that automatically tops up if it drops below a chosen amount.

6. Washington goes after Shein & Temu again

The Consumer Product Safety Commission is calling on its staff to determine if / how foreign-owned firms that rely on overseas suppliers meet their obligations under the Consumer Product Safety Act.

CPSC Commissioners Peter A. Feldman and Douglas Dziak asked staff to specifically evaluate Shein and Temu to determine whether the platforms comply with the law. In a statement, the commissioners said:

To the extent a platform falls outside the Commission’s reach, policymakers must understand where gaps exist and how best to address them. Likewise, the Commission must better understand what enforcement challenges exist with respect to foreign third-party sellers. Where agency compliance staff discover safety violations, we expect CPSC to initiate enforcement actions.
We are aware of recent media reports that deadly baby and toddler products are easy to find on these platforms.
We are also aware of reporting that “thousands of Chinese factories and vendors have joined the supply chain for Shein and Temu, whose popularity has exploded in the U.S. with their offers of inexpensive made-in-China goods, from T-shirts and handbags to electronics and kitchen items.”
We seek to better understand these firms, particularly their focus on low-value direct-to-consumer – sometimes called de minimis – shipments and the enforcement challenges when firms with little or no U.S. presence distribute consumer products through these platforms.

A Shein spokesperson said the company is investing millions of dollars ($50M to be exact) into strengthening its compliance programs to ensure strict adherence to product safety standards and local laws and regulations.

A Temu spokesperson said, “Temu requires all sellers on our platform to comply with applicable laws and regulations, including those related to product safety. Our interests are aligned with the CPSC in ensuring consumer protection and product safety, and we will cooperate fully with any investigation.”

7. Did you get your free money from the Chase Money Glitch?

Okay let's talk about it… The Chase Money Glitch.

Here's what went down: Last week videos went viral on TikTok showcasing a “money glitch” at Chase. Viewers were told that if they deposited false checks in an ATM — that they wrote to themselves for an amount of money that they didn't actually have — and withdrew that money soon afterward, they would be able to cheat the system and take out a large sum of cash before the check bounced.

Users posted hundreds of now-deleted videos showing their Chase accounts with negative amounts, sometimes up to $50,000.

LOL, right? Except it worked, and reportedly thousands of “idiots” (according to Gizmodo) participated in the scheme. The actual “glitch” was that users were able to take out such a large amount of money from the ATM (sometimes the full amount of the check), whereas usually banks only allow you to take out a portion of a large check that you can cover with your existing balance.

Yes, as you're aware, what participants were actually doing was committing check fraud.

Within 24 hours, after the suspicious activity was discovered, Chase users reported having their remaining funds frozen and bank accounts blocked. And now Chase is referring participants to the authorities, along with surveillance footage and other information related to their identities.

A Chase spokesperson said, “As with any fraud-related issue, we review internally and refer to law enforcement as appropriate. Regardless of what you see online, depositing a fraudulent check and withdrawing the funds from your account is fraud, plain and simple.”

The Wall Street Journal said that Chase was reviewing “thousands” of incidents, but that Chase doesn't yet know (or isn't willing to admit) the extent of the losses associated with the scheme.

While I agree that participants in the scheme should've known better… I also can't help but feel that this is a reflection on our education system in America. How did these people not know that they were committing fraud?

This type of check fraud can land folks in jail for years, and years, and years depending on the state they live — and while I don't condone the participants' behaviors, I do hope that authorities take the specifics of this crime into the equation given that most participants aren't “criminals”… they're just “idiots.”

I'd like to think that we can use this incident as an educational moment in society, as opposed to ruining the lives of thousands of people who were too uneducated to know that what they were doing was a crime. At minimum, authorities should be as lenient to participants of the Chase Money Glitch as they were to Chase executives when they've been caught committing fraud. But maybe I'm too soft.

8. WooCommerce's Black Friday Cyber Monday Trends Report

WooCommerce released its first-ever Black Friday Cyber Monday Trends Report, which includes results from surveys across its ecosystem of partners and stores. The surveys aimed to understand how store owners and employees prepared for last year's holiday season and what they'll be doing this year. Here are some highlights from the report:

72% of merchants attribute more than 20% of their annual revenue to BFCM and the holiday season.
Of stores that generate more than $1M per year in revenue, 56% plan at least a month ahead of BFCM, and another 28% plan in the month leading up to the event.
43% of Woo Partner Agencies prepare their clients’ stores for the holiday season one to three months in advance. (Can confirm.)
26% of surveyed stores plan to increase inventory.
Survey respondents recommended sending out your first BFCM communications at least 20 days in advance.
Only 11% of stores offered BNPL and only 22% offered express checkout for Black Friday Cyber Monday in 2023. WooCommerce recommends accepting both types of payments if you don't already for higher conversion rates.
Mailchimp customers saw 45% higher click-through rates from November 21 to December 1, 2022, when they segmented their campaigns. (Mailchimp actually delivered their e-mails? That's a surprise! LOL)
Stores that offer BNPL through Affirm report over 60% higher average order values, and Cyber Monday in 2023 saw a 42.5% YOY spike in BNPL usage. Some say they're still paying for those orders…

In 2023, BFCM generated $9.8 billion in sales, and this year is expected to be even bigger.

What are you doing different this year for Black Friday Cyber Monday than you did in years prior? Hit reply and let me know.

9. Other e-commerce news of interest

Alibaba's domestic platforms, Taobao and Tmall, will begin accepting payments from Tencent's WeChat Pay, which is a competitor to the company's own Alipay service. Tencent has also been a major investor in competing e-commerce platforms including JD.com and PDD Holdings, both which already offer WeChat Pay as an option. A win for consumers! Let people pay however they want.

Adobe launched its Journey Optimizer B2B Edition to the general public, a product that aims to use AI to give businesses a deeper understanding of the different types of customers they attract. Journey Optimizer B2B, which was built on the Adobe Experience Platform, consolidates individuals involved in a company's purchase decisions into cohesive units, visualizing the whole group responsible for making purchase decisions, as opposed to tracking individual leads within the organization.

TikTok announced an extension of its ongoing partnership with the NFL that'll see teams continue to post exclusive content to the platform. The two companies embarked on a multiyear partnership in 2019 which included the launch of the @NFL TikTok account. Last year in 2023, TikTok reported that NFL-related videos generated over 5B views.

Speaking of the NFL… Amazon is planning to install more of its Just Walk Out technology at NFL stadiums and college campuses throughout the U.S. this fall. The move is intended to help fans and students skip the checkout line and return to their game seats or classes quicker. There are now more than 80 sports stadiums and 30 universities across the U.S., U.K., Australia, and Canada that use the technology.

Mango, a Barcelona-based fast fashion company, is expanding its e-commerce operations to 12 more countries including Angola, Belize, Brunei, Gabon, Gambia, Equatorial Guinea, Honduras, Laos, Mongolia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, and Togo, bringing its total international reach to over 120 markets. The company also named Marlies Hersbach as its new e-commerce executive director, who will be tasked with overseeing Mango's online business strategy.

GoTo Group is planning to buy back as much as $200M of stock after recording its first-ever profit, hoping to restore investor confidence as its growth slows. To improve its profitability last year, GoTo agreed to relinquish control of its Tokopedia e-commerce platform to ByteDance, who pledged to invest $1.5B into the joint venture.

Mercari US is looking to cap buyer fees at 5-10%, depending on the item value, by the end of the year, according to David Lee, the company's VP of marketing. Earlier this year, Mercari US introduced a controversial new fee structure that shifted fees from sellers to buyers, which Lee said in an interview was to offer a new level of transparency for buyers on its platform.

26% of advertisers plan to cut spending or withdraw entirely from X next year over concerns that extreme content on the platform could damage their brands, according to a survey by Kantar, marking the biggest recorded pullback from any major global ad platform. Gonca Bubani, Kantar’s global thought leadership director for media, said, “X has changed so much in recent years and can be unpredictable from one day to the next — it’s difficult to feel confident about your brand safety in that environment.” Uh oh, those are some strong words! Sounds like a lawsuit from X is heading Kantar's way soon…

Meta will soon provide disclosures to citizens in Brazil about how their personal data is going to be used, after a demand was made by Brazil's watchdog for data protection. Starting Tuesday, users in Brazil will receive warnings via e-mail and app notifications, to which they will have the ability to give consent or opt-out of having their data used for AI training. That should be standard practice worldwide!

Amazon is giving a 9.8% raise to tens of thousands of employees at its U.K. fulfillment centers, bringing hourly wages up to £14.50/hour, depending on location, after defeating an attempt by the GMB trade union for bargaining rights over pay and conditions. Workers in the country have held a series of strikes over the past 18 months, demanding a £15/hour minimum wage and the right to negotiate directly with management. Rachel Fagan, a GMB organiser, said, “This is too little, too late from Amazon bosses who have been forced to act by worker’s industrial action.” So GMB only wants pay raises if they're the ones to negotiate them?

Shipster, a platform that allows merchants to create advanced shipping rules based on weight, destination, parcel type, and other variables and then routes the orders to the proper couriers, launched a new integration with Shopify that connects U.K. and EU stores to 100+ couriers. The integration simplifies shipping logistics by automatically creating shipments and courier bookings and generating tracking information and customs documentation.

“Maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s Maybelline,” the iconic tagline from the 90s of L’Oréal-owned Maybelline, is back in the beauty brand's newest TikTok campaign. (I never knew it left.) Maybelline sunset the slogan in 2015, replacing it with the unremarkable “Make It Happen” slogan, but is now bringing it back in collaboration with brand ambassadors Gigi Hadid, Storm Reid, Peggy Gou, and Shay Mitchell.

Workers at a Kroger warehouse outside of Atlanta voted to join the International Brotherhood of Teamsters with a whopping 96% of the drivers who participated in the vote choosing to join Teamsters Local 528, marking the second Kroger warehouse to unionize with the organization. A Kroger spokesperson said, “We respect our associates right to choose what is best for them. At Kroger, we are committed to continuing to provide a total compensation package that rewards our associates with competitive wages, affordable, industry leading healthcare and retirement benefits for their future.”

Seasonal jobs in India are expected to increase 20% YoY, especially in Tier 2 and 3 cities, as the country gears up for the festive season. The top five roles expected to see the highest increase in hiring are delivery drivers, warehouse workers, logistics coordinators, in-store salespeople, and customer service roles.

SellerX, a Berlin-based acquirer of Amazon FBA brands that launched in 2020 and raised $830M over 7 rounds, can no longer meet its financial obligations and will be auctioned on September 17th. BlackRock lent the company more than €500M to help the company acquire competing aggregators like KW Commerce and Elevate Brands, however, the company has failed to meet its repayment obligations.

In response to the flood of cheap Chinese imports entering Thailand, particularly Temu soft-launching in the country, the Electronic Transactions Development Agency will be requiring all foreign e-commerce operators to set up registered offices in Thailand under the digital platform service law. The digital platform service law require operators of a certain size seeking to do business in Thailand to provide key information to the ETDA before they can start operating, and now the agency will be adding a clause to the law requiring them to register in Thailand. Temu already registered with the ETDA, as has more than 1,400 operators.

TikTok is rolling out new safety tools for teenagers, including updated in-app resources for parents, improved advice guides, and a new video campaign that highlights its safety features. TikTok partnered with The Family Online Safety Institute to develop a new “Digital Safety Partnership” agreement for Families in order to help parents establish clear boundaries and parameters for social media use. Will the efforts be effective? Maybe. It's certainly more than I've ever seen Meta do.

Due to new requirements under the Digital Markets Act, Meta has enabled interoperability with third-party messaging services on its Messenger and WhatsApp platforms. The company shared an update on what the user experience will look like and the features available for third-party services who want to interoperate with their apps. Meta showed that although third-party messages will be easy to find, users will have the option to keep the chats separate from their primary inbox if they choose. Meta is also providing rich messaging features such as reactions, direct replies, typing indicators, and read receipt, with groups chats, voice and video calling coming in 2027.

Pizza Hut asked customers in the United Arab Emirates to post a trendy video on TikTok featuring its customizable My Box meal and tag the company's account in exchange for a free meal on their next visit. The “Pay With Your Trend” promo is connected to the company's My Box meal, which allows customers to create a box of their favorite menu items. Super smart idea!

10. Seed rounds, IPOs, & acquisitions

Salesforce agreed to acquire Own, a data protection and management solutions provider, for $1.9B in an all-cash deal that will finalize in Jan 2025 if approved by regulators. Own, formerly called OwnBackup, was valued at $3.35B in 2021, and the deal marks Salesforce's biggest acquisition since Slack in 2021.

Salesforce also agreed to acquire Tenyx, an AI voice-based customer service solution that launched in 2022, for an undisclosed amount. Salesforce will use Tenyx's AI voice expertise to advance its own AI solutions, and Tenyx's CEO and CTO and their employees will join the company.

Zamp, a startup that automatically calculates and files sales taxes for e-commerce and retail businesses, raised $10M in a Series A round led by Valor Equity Partners. Since launching 18 months ago, Zamp has grown its customer base to over 400 companies and is planning to launch a new product soon called Z-tax, which helps accountants and bookkeepers provide sales tax services to their clients.

Create, a D2C supplement brand that makes creatine-infused gummies, raised $5M in a round led by Unilever Ventures. The company will use the funds to bring new creatine products to market, assemble a team, and expand deeper into retail.

OfBusiness, an India-based B2B commerce and fintech startup that provides raw material procurement and financing solutions to SMEs, is planning an IPO in the Indian stock market to raise between $750M and $1B in capital. The company is currently in talks with Bank of America, Citi, JP Morgan, and Morgan Stanley for the offer and is planning to go public in the second half of 2025.

Ume, a Brazilian payment network and merchant services platform for SMBs on Pix, raised $15M in a Series A round led by PayPal Ventures and $20M in debt facility from Verde and other backers. The company will use the funds for sales and marketing to accelerate its expansion into new regions and enhance its Pix capacities. Pix is Brazil's instant payment system linked to over 700 financial institutions that allows users to send and receive money quickly, created by the Central Bank of Brazil in 2020.

Ziina, a Dubai-based payments app that launched in 2021, raised $22M in a Series A round led by Altos Ventures, bringing its total amount raised to over $30M. The company originally launched as a peer-to-peer payments app for splitting bills, but later pivoted into offering business payment services, a POS system, and CRM features. Ziina now serves 50k retail and business customers in the UAE.

Chpter, a Kenyan e-commerce startup that helps businesses convert social media engagements into sales with chat, order, and payment tools, raised $1.2M in a pre-seed round led by Pani. Chpter was founded by the two co-founders of Marketforce, a YC-backed Kenyan e-commerce platform once valued at over $100M that later went under.

SCI Ecommerce, an e-commerce solutions provider that helps brands setup and manage their online operations in Southeast Asia and China, is considering an IPO in Singapore as soon as mid-2025 and is working with financial advisers on the potential share shale. A listing could value the company at more than $1B.

Warehow, a U.K.-based e-commerce fulfillment startup, raised £2.1M in a Series A round led by Midlands Engine Investment Fund II, bringing its total amount raised to £3.75M. The fresh funds will be used to further develop its technology, create additional storage capacity, and step up its sales and marketing activities.

Portex, a platform for shippers to handle freight management in one place, raised $6.25M in a round led by Footwork and Cowboy Ventures. The company, which is approaching $100M in annualized freight transport bookings across its network, will use the new funds to accelerate its AI-focused product development and go-to-market strategies.

Rappi, an on-demand delivery service in Latin America, acquired Fountain9, an India-based company that provides AI-driven supply chain solutions. As part of the deal, Rappi will acquire Fountain9's IP and the existing team will join the company as part of its newly formed entity in India.

Tarabut, a UAE-based open banking platform, acquired Vyne, a London fintech that offers real-time A2A payments for online businesses. The acquisition will integrate Vyne's technology into Tarabut's operations, bringing A2A payment capabilities to the Middle East.

Tabby, a MENA-based BNPL platform, agreed to acquire Tweeq, a Saudi-based digital wallet licensed by the Saudi Central Bank that launched in 2020 as one of the earliest electronic money institutions licensed to operate in the country. The deal enables Tweeq to expand its solutions, while providing Tabby with accessible savings and spending accounts.

MyCarrier, a Phoenix-based shipping automation platform, acquired Curant, a digital payments platform for 3PLs and freight forwarders. The deal will enable MyCarrier to provide a single platform for shippers to quote, dispatch, track, analyze, and audit invoices, as well as resolve variances and pay their carriers.

Auréa, a British growth capital firm, acquired The Body Shop, a U.K.-based personal care brand in a deal that includes the brand’s 113 U.K. stores and its operations in Australia and North America. Earlier this year in July, The Body Shop signed an exclusivity agreement with Auréa to facilitate its acquisition out of insolvency. Auréa's co-founder Mike Jatania will take on the role of executive chairman.