Hi Shopifreaks!
Thank you to all my readers who helped propel Shopifreaks past 100+ five star reviews on Google!
Your reviews and referrals are my biggest drivers of growth since launching Shopifreaks in January 2021 — which since then I've never missed a weekly edition!
Thank you for your ongoing support of my publication. Please continue to share Shopifreaks.com with your colleagues and network and forward these weekly editions to folks who would benefit from the information.
This week's 189th consecutive edition covers:
- How often US consumers return online purchases
- Walmart's new resale and logistics capabilities
- Google's new AI tools for buyers & sellers
- Klarna's plans to fire half its 4,000 workers
- Turns out Facebook was listening
- Amazon to introduce quick commerce in India
- Temu & Pinduoduo's $38B cash stockpile
- BigCommerce's Next Big Thing – Aug 2024 Edition
- The current value of everyone's Twitter investment
- Nvidia envy in Silicon Valley
- A BNPL cash-advance loophole gone wrong
All this and more in this week's 189th Edition of Shopifreaks. Thanks for subscribing and sharing!
Stat of the Week
39% of consumers in the US return an online item at least once a month, according to a recent survey by Narvar. In 2023, consumers returned over $744B worth of merchandise.
1. Walmart introduces new resale and logistics capabilities
At its annual “Let's Grow! 2024 Walmart Marketplace Seller Summit” last week, Walmart announced category expansions and new features that the company believes will simplify selling for e-commerce merchants. Highlights include:
Resold at Walmart – Third-party sellers can now offer used items for the first time across categories including luxury fashion, electronics, collectibles, and sporting goods. Walmart's assortment of used products currently includes 5M items from more than 1,700 performance-managed sellers. The used marketplace builds upon the Walmart Restored storefront that launched in 2022, which sells a collection of refurbished electronics and small appliances.
Multi Channel Fulfillment – Merchants can now use Walmart Fulfillment Services to fulfill orders from any e-commerce website via Walmart's supply chain. Walmart will fulfill the orders and manage returns in plain, unbranded packaging with fast shipping at rates it says will average 15% lower than the competition. The program launches for the first time on Sep 10th, in time for the holidays. That's huge!
Walmart Cross Border – A new import service for full-container-load shipments where Walmart Fulfillment Services directly handles the transportation of inbound goods from ports of origin in Asia to facilities across the US.
Open Carrier Network – Sellers on the Walmart Preferred Carrier Program can now choose to ship an entire truckload at special rates through carriers vetted by Walmart.
Walmart LocalFinds – Walmart is introducing a new program that offers customers the ability to find sellers’ merchandise in their local vicinities and then have the goods delivered via Walmart's last-mile delivery network. The service launches this fall in Atlanta and Dallas with other cities to follow. 1-800-Flowers will be the first nationwide seller to participate.
Premium Beauty – Walmart is launching a new premium beauty assortment on its marketplace with more than 20 brands including COSRX, T3, and Beachwaver.
Collector Shop – Walmart is launching a new collector shop that enables sellers to offer pre-orders for product drops, including releases that are exclusive to Walmart. Eligible sellers can receive 0% commission fees for collectibles through Oct 31st on categories including action figures, dolls, trading cards, sports memorabilia, and comicbooks. “Crap!” said eBay.
Revamped Global Seller Center – The new dashboard and app make it easier to sell in the US, Mexico, Chile, and Canada with free translations. Attendees of the summit will be the first to access the new cross-listing capability and free translations.
Waived Peak Season Storage Fees – for sellers who inbound inventory by Sep 30th.
Walmart Marketplace Capital – is expanding to offer sellers access to cash advances up to $5M.
New Deals Dashboard – streamlines the process for sellers to enroll items in Walmart's deals events and provides additional seller data and insights.
Manish Joneja, Senior VP of Walmart Marketplace and WFS, said, “Sellers are looking for a smart path for growth. We’re bringing all the pieces together to be much more than a marketplace and investing in new ways for sellers to serve customers as we grow together.”
Walmart Marketplace has achieved more than 30% sales growth in each of the past four quarters, and the number of third-party seller listings on Walmart.com grew 20% during fiscal 2023.
2. Google adds new AI tools for buyers & sellers
Google unveiled new updates for businesses using its Google Merchant Center aimed at making it easier for merchant's to access reports and obtain insights.
Updates for sellers include:
#1) New Product Trend Insights that will highlight keyshopping search and purchase trends such as what's popular at any given time.
Google wrote, “This means you can jump on viral moments, make better-informed inventory decisions and ensure your product descriptions use the same terms shoppers are.”
#2) More AI elements to Merchant Center analytics including summaries of recent product performance.
Google shared an example of a summary that gave insight into products that are gaining the most traction.
#3) Conversational queries in Merchant Center that use generative AI to translate a user's request into a custom report that highlights their own performance data.
Google wrote, “With a simple description of the data analysis you'd like to review – like, ‘show me the performance of my best-selling dresses' – we'll produce a custom data set with the answers you care about… This means you can skip the process of building custom reports manually when you need something more tailored.”
I'd love to have that capability on GA4!
#4) New Custom Acquisition Goals in Performance Max and Search campaigns so that merchants can better refine their target customers.
Google also added new AI Chrome features aimed at helping buyers search, discover, and compare products across the web.
Updates for buyers include:
#1) Tab Compare – uses AI and page scraping to round up information about products open in various tabs and then displays a grid showing their price, reviews, and other info.
#2) Visual Search – brings the visual search capabilities from Google Lens, which is only available on mobile, into desktop browsers. Users can select, search, and ask questions about anything they see on the web without leaving their current tab.
#3) Enhanced History – starting in the US in the coming weeks, users will be able to search for sites they visited (but didn't save) in a more natural, conversational way. For example, you can access your history and type, “What was the ice-cream shop I looked at last week?” or “What coconut opener was I looking at on Amazon?” and Chrome will show you relevant pages from your browsing history.
Now these are the types of user features that get me excited about AI!
3. Klarna's CEO to replace half the company's employees with AI
Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said that he plans to reduce the company's workforce by half because the company can “do much more with less” through AI. Klarna currently employees around 4,000 workers.
This isn't the first time I've reported that Siemiatkowski has taken heat for his comments involving replacing human staff with AI.
- In May, Siemiatkowski posted on X that the company saved millions by using AI to cut costs and do the marketing work human employees previously did. His tweet was hit with immediate backlash, with one person replying, “If you still had a bigger marketing team, they probably would've advised you not to post this.”
- In March, Siemiatkowski shared (story #8) that within one month, Klarna's AI-powered assistant had handled two-thirds of customer service inquiries and is “doing the equivalent work of 700 full time agents.”
- In December 2023, Siemiatkowski told the Telegraph that Klarna has elected to not hire any new employees outside of its engineering department because he believes AI can automate many tasks.
Can you imagine working at Klarna this past year and NOT actively hunting for new roles outside the company?
I can't think of a better way to lose top talent than to tell them that you're diligently seeking ways to replace them with AI!
I can only imagine Siemiatkowski at company-wide meetings… “Look to your left. Now look to your right. One of you, ideally all of you, will be replaced with AI in the next 12 months if I can help it.”
Yes, I'm aware that many companies are also actively looking to replace their human workforces with AI, but they're certainly being more discreet about it.
Klarna, on the other hand, is aggressively and publicly looking to shed its human liabilities in anticipation of its upcoming IPO. The company announced that it made an adjusted operating profit of $66.1M in the six months through June 2024, up from a loss of $44.4M in the same period a year ago. I wonder where that margin came from?
If I were a Klarna employee, I wouldn't wait. My LinkedIn profile would straight up say, “Open to Work.”
EDIT: My friend Bonnie made a good point on my LinkedIn post on this subject. She commented, “Unless the severance package is good and the employee has enough saved up.” I hadn't thought about that. It might just be a “waiting out the clock” scenario for folks at Klarna right now.
If you work at Klarna, what's the internal sentiment like after your CEO makes these comments? Hit reply and let me know. Your replies will always be confidential.
4. Turns out Facebook was listening to your conversations
Everyone I know has had at least one of those experiences where they were talking to their friends about a random topic, and then later started seeing ads for related products or services in their Facebook feed. While you might have that they were crazy, or that it was just a coincidence, as it turns out — they may not have been wrong!
In a pitch deck to prospective customers, one of Facebook's alleged marketing partners revealed how it listens to users via the microphones on their smartphones and advertises to them accordingly.
According to 404 Media reports based on documents leaked to its reporters, Cox Media Group claims that its “Active Listening” software uses AI to “capture real-time intent data by listening to our conversations.”
The deck later says, “Advertisers can pair this voice-data with behavioral data to target in-market consumers.”
Cox Media Group counted Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Bing as clients of its “Active Listening” service.
After the report was published:
- Google removed the media group from its Partners Program site.
- Meta said it is reviewing CMG to see if it violates any of its terms of service.
- Amazon told 404 that its Ads arm “has never worked with CMG on this program and has no plans to do so.”
According to CMG, it can customize a campaign “to listen for any keywords/targets relevant to your business.” The result, it claimed, is “Advertising efficiency and timing taken to a new level.”
In a since-deleted blog post from November 2023, Cox wrote, “We know what you're thinking. Is this even legal? It is legal for phones and devices to listen to you. When a new app download or update prompts consumers with a multi-page term of use agreement somewhere in the fine print, Active Listening is often included.”
Fine print or not — this can't be legal! Shut Cox down and send anyone involved in the Active Listening scheme straight to jail.
5. Amazon to introduce quick commerce in India
Amazon is preparing to introduce its quick commerce services in India by the first quarter of next year in an attempt to rival Flipkart, which has already started testing its “Minutes” service in select regions of the country.
An insider told The Economic Times, “The action in quick commerce just can’t be ignored any more. The work has been in motion for some time, but now, there is clarity and a timeline.” Another insider confirmed the plan, saying that Amazon has been working on the project internally.
Currently the company is waiting for approvals from its global headquarters, as this would be Amazon's first quick service offering worldwide.
Amazon first embarked into grocery delivery in India via its Pantry offering, which later merged with the Fresh's two-hour service. Now the goal is to bring delivery time down to 20-30 minutes.
The Amazon insider said, “Amazon still has its next-day customer base for grocery and non-grocery items, but consumer adoption towards 30-minute deliveries has changed the landscape for everyone.”
He added, “A final product is still work-in-progress, but slotted deliveries may remain, and they are planning to start quick with select SKUs. It will still be a catch-up game with rivals — both existing and new entrants.”
In July, I reported that Amazon India was rumored to have approached Swiggy for a potential deal to buy a stake in its quick commerce business, Instamart, prior to its IPO. At the time, there was no official offer on the table, and there have been no updates on the potential deal since.
Global brokerages estimate India’s quick commerce market to be worth $6B by 2025, which is why Amazon and Walmart are so desperate to carve out a slice of the pie.
In other Amazon India news… the company launched its Rufus AI assistant in beta, to be rolled out to mobile app users in the coming weeks. Rufus, which has been available for several weeks in the US, can answer broad questions like “What should I consider when buying a blender?” or specific questions like “Is this blender a piece of junk?”
6. PDD Holdings' $38B cash stockpile
PDD Holdings, owner of Temu and Pinduoduo, is reportedly sitting on $38B in cash, marking the largest cash position of any listed company that doesn't pay dividends or buy back shares. PDD's cash stockpile is more than twice the size of its closest contender, Tesla.
The FT reported that most of the world's largest companies pay dividends or buy back shares. Out of the 151 companies on MSCI's Investable Market Index with more than $5B of net cash on their balance sheets, just five of them do not pay dividends or buy back stock — PDD, Tesla, Li Auto, Adyen, and Vernova.
Last week, PDD Holdings released quarterly earnings showing an 86% jump in revenue and a 156% increase in profits, but ruled out investor payouts, which sent the stock tumbling by 31%.
The stock price drop lost the company $50B in market value, knocking founder Colin Huang off his pedestal as the wealthiest person in China, just weeks after earning the title.
PDD Chairman and CEO Lei Chen said, “While encouraged by the solid progress we made in the past few quarters, we see many challenges ahead.”
Chen laid out plans to transition towards fostering a “sustainable ecosystem” by investing heavily in the platform's trust and safety, supporting high-quality merchants, and improving its merchant ecosystem.
He added, “We are prepared to accept short-term sacrifices and potential decline in profitability.”
How does PDD Holdings stack up against competitors?
According to Reuters, although PDD's revenue is less than half of Alibaba's and just one third of JD.com's, the company's lean structure of relying heavily on third-party vendors has allowed it to enjoy better margins.
- PDD employees 17,400 employees and operates at a 34% margin.
- Alibaba employees 200,000 and operates at a 15% margin.
- JD.com employees 517,000 (which includes 355,000 delivery personnel) and operates at a 3% margin.
7. BigCommerce's Next Big Thing – Aug 2024 Edition
BigCommerce released its Next Big Thing – Aug 2024 edition, a twice-yearly recap of new platform updates, partner integrations, and features. Some of these you've seen me cover in previous editions and others were announced for the first time. Highlights include:
- AI-Integrated B2B Quote Workflow – speeds up the quote-to-cash process and improves sales rep efficiency for B2B brands.
- Feedonomics’ Instant Commerce Offering – enables same-day BOPIS and local deliveries.
- FeedAMP V2 Upgrade – enhanced APIs provide features like real-time order synchronization, partial shipments, pre-orders, and enhanced store-level access control.
- New Integrations – with Shein, Amazon, and TikTok
- BigAI Copywriter – leverages Google AI to create SEO-optimized product descriptions using the brand's voice and tone.
- BigAI Product Recommendations – enables brands to offer real-time personalized recommendations powered by Google AI.
- Catalyst + Makeswift – BigCommerce is enhancing its previously announced Catalyst composable storefront with the Makeswift visual editor for Catalyst storefronts, offering more visual tools to build websites
- Buyer Role-Based Access Control – admins can now assign custom roles that define buyer permissions such as whether or not they can make purchases or submit requisition lists for approval.
- Advanced Account Hierarchy – enables servicing of more advanced data models of sophisticated B2B brands by enabling full mirroring of back-office account structure.
- Hyper-local Global Sales – users can now localize and customize the checkout for each storefront with specific payment methods for each market, enabling consent to a specific country's local privacy policy, and using different shipping services.
- Fastlane By PayPal – an accelerated guest checkout solution that allows customers to load saved payment info without logging into the website.
8. How much is everyone's Twitter investment worth now?
When Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022, although he covered the lion's share of the $44B purchase price, he also relied on bank loans and investors to cover the difference. The Washington Post reported how much other investors contributed vs how much their investments are worth today.
- Elon's personal $33.5B commitment is now worth $9.38B.
- Prince Alwaleed bin Talal's $1.89B investment is now worth $529.2M.
- Jack Dorsey and Larry Ellison's $1B investments are now worth $280M.
- Sequoia Capital's $800M investment is now worth $224M.
- Vy Capital's $700M investment is worth $196M.
- Binance's $500M investment is worth $140M.
- Andreessen Horowitz's $400M is now worth $112M.
The estimates are based on Fidelity's recent valuation of the company, which found X to be worth 72% less than when Musk acquired it. Of course that valuation was performed before X went dark in Brazil, its fourth-largest market (more on that below).
Only Prince Alwaleed responded to The Washington Post's request for comment, by saying that he is still happy with his investment.
Alwaleed noted that the outside valuations suggesting massive losses do not take into account X's bets through xAI, Musk's AI startup, of which Alwaleed and Kingdom Holding Co have become two of xAI's largest investors. He said, “In our books, on my books personally, we are valuing at minimum [at] the entry level that we entered with. There’s no devaluation whatsoever.”
9. Other e-commerce news of interest
While X investors are losing billions, Nvidia employees are getting rich! And Meta and Google staff are reportedly getting jealous of their wealthy Nvidia peers in Silicon Valley. Fortune reports that on Blind, an anonymous forum for professionals in the software and tech space, Nvidia employees are sharing their net worth, which is in the multi-millions. A user whose profile shows they work for Meta wrote, “The more I hear about Nvidia employees and their riches, the more jealous I feel. Anybody with me?”
eBay is reducing the number of free listings for private sellers in the UK from 1,000 per month to 300 and eliminating the cash option for local pickups. eBay also told sellers that if their registered address was in the UK, it would charge an international fee when the delivery address for the item is outside the UK. Some sellers disagreed with eBay’s designation of them as business sellers, expressing concern about the platform's ability to keep their sensitive information safe when requiring them to provide their National Insurance number (NINO).
BNPL users in Southeast Asia found a loophole to turn their BNPL credit into cash by paying for other people's utility bills and purchases with their BNPL account in exchange for cash (minus a fee). However the scheme is ripe for abuse, and many desperate consumers are finding themselves in the belly of a scam — making purchases for others, but not receiving the cash in return. Thailand’s National Credit Bureau called on BNPL providers to improve controls to prevent misuse of the system to create informal loans, and the The Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau also issued a warning about BNPL scams.
X went dark for Brazil's 20M users on Friday after the Supreme Court ordered the immediate suspension due to Elon Musk refusing to name a legal representative of the social network in the country. Justice Alexandre de Moraes demands that X needs a representative in the country to respond to government requests to suspend accounts found to be spreading fake news, but Elon Musk refused, on the grounds that anyone he appointed would be exposed to the possibility of arrest. Brazil is X's fourth-largest market and has become a key venue in the global debate between free speech and disinformation. The feud led to the freezing Starlink's bank accounts in Brazil this week.
Executives from Automattic and Elementor, along with developer community members like Joost de Valk, held a webinar to discuss the stagnation in WordPress growth and explore causes and potential solutions. The webinar, entitled “Is WordPress’ Market share Declining? And What Should Product Businesses Do About it?,” was a frank discussion about what WordPress is doing right and wrong, and what can be done to increase the market share of new users that are choosing a web publishing platform.
Shopify is hiring Mikhail Parakhin, a former Microsoft executive, as its new CTO. Parakhin worked with Microsoft since 2019, most recently serving as its CEO of advertising and web services, with previous experience as the president of its web experiences team and corporate VP of technology. Shopify said that Parakhin is “one of the finest machine learning crafters on the planet” and that he will oversee its engineering and data organizations.
Swiggy, an Indian online food ordering and delivery company, appointed Amitesh Jha as head of Instamart, the company's quick commerce business, marking Instamart's third head in the previous year and a half. Jha formerly held the position of Senior Vice President at Flipkart. Swiggy is replacing heads at a faster pace than Starbucks!
Cart.com appointed Timocin Pervane as its CFO, tasked with focusing on driving financial execution and accountability and operational efficiency. (Does that mean layoffs?) Pervane previously served as CFO of Shopify Logistics and brings more than two decades of experience in software, logistics, and consulting to the company.
Stripe promoted Rahul Patil to CTO, who will be responsible for overseeing the company's global operations including its ledger, billing, and financial data platforms. Stripe's current CTO, David Singleton, is leaving the company to start a new venture.
Qoo10, an e-commerce conglomerate that primarily operates in SEA, laid off 80% of its workforce, keeping mostly senior management, citing challenging market conditions and the need to restructure its operations as the primary reason for downsizing. Last month I reported (story #6) that that the South Korean government created a $445M rescue package to bail out merchants on WeMakePrice and TMON — both owned by Qoo10 — who did not receive payments from the platforms. The companies filed for court receivership, and Qoo10's CEO apologized for the incidents and pledged to use his own assets to help compensate affected customers and vendors.
Amazon hired Covariant's founders — Pieter Abbeel, Peter Chen, and Rocky Duan — along with around 25% of the AI startup's employees, while signing a non-exclusive license to use Covariant's robotic foundation models. In August, the New York Times published an article entitled “The New A.I. Deal: Buy Everything but the Company,” in which reporters Erin Griffith and Cade Metz shared examples of how Google, Microsoft, and Amazon have made deals with AI startups for their technology and top employees, but have shied away from owning the firms as a means to avoid regulatory scrutiny. This sounds like a classic example of that strategy in action.
Fiserv and PayPal are partnering up to offer the Fastlane by PayPal checkout experience to Fiserv's merchant clients. Fastlane is a new guest checkout experience that allows customers to make purchase using their saved payment info without having to log into their account on an e-commerce website. Last week I reported (story #5) that PayPal began offering the service to Adyen's enterprise and marketplace customers.
Alibaba Group completed its three year mandated rectification period following a 2021 fine for monopolistic behavior, according to China's State Administration of Market Regulation. In 2021, the regulator slapped a record $2.75B fine on Alibaba for abusing its market position by forcing merchants on its platforms to not work with rival platforms, a strategy that Shein has also been accused of last year. Times have changed quickly in China in recent years, and it's almost hard to remember that Alibaba was once a monopoly in the country.
Threads users can now see likes and replies from users on other networks, as the platform weaves itself deeper into the fediverse. The cross-service is now officially available to everyone, but will only affect accounts that have opted to enable fedverise sharing within the app.
Affirm was hit with a class action suit for allegedly failing to protect the personally identifiable information of its users from a cyberattack on its banking partner, Evolve Bank & Trust. According to the suit, Evolve confirmed on June 25th that it had been breached by a “known cybercriminal organization” that published its clients' data on the dark web. Regulators had previously issued an enforcement action on Evolve for engaging in “unsafe and unsound banking practices.”
X's lawsuit against Media Matters is headed to trial next year following a judge's refusal to toss the lawsuit. In November 2023, Media Matters published research reports documenting ads on X from companies like IBM, Apple, Oracle, and AT&T appearing alongside posts promoting hate speech, but X called foul, alleging that the account Media Matters used in its screenshots only followed major brands and racist trolls in an effort to stack the deck for its purposes. Now the courts will decide whether Media Matters presented the truth or manufactured images to depict a false typical X user experience.
Amazon's upcoming revamped version of Alexa will primarily utilize Anthropic's Claude AI model, rather than its own AI, five people familiar with the matter told Reuters. Amazon plans to charge between $5 and $10 per month for its new “Remarkable” version of Alexa, which will use generative AI to answer complex queries, while still offering the “Classic” Alexa voice assistant for free. However the initial versions of the new Alexa that used Amazon's in-house AI software struggled for words, sometimes taking six or seven seconds to acknowledge a prompt and reply, so the company is turning to Claude, which performed better than its own models.
Zip, an Australian-based BNPL provider, is looking to integrate with Apple to deploy its BNPL service in the US. Zip partnered with Stripe last month in the US and is now looking for strategic partnerships with other payment providers and US retailers. Apple launched its own internal BNPL service called Apple Pay Later in March 2023, but shut it down a year later, and said at the time that it planned to offer installment options on its Apple Pay via other providers.
TikTok is introducing a new Manage Topics feature in the US that gives users more control over what they see on their For You feed. The feature offers a slider for various topics such as Creative Arts, Current Affairs, and Dance that users can slide to adjust to see more or less of each type of content. It wasn't visible in the screenshots, but I'm curious if “Shopping Videos” will have its own toggle or if watching those types of videos are just going to be a price you pay moving forward to use the app.
Seko Logistics, an end-to-end global logistics provider that you might remember is suing (story #2) the US Customs and Border Protection after it suspended Seko and other customers brokers earlier this year, is partnering with Loop Returns, a posts-purchase platform, to handle e-commerce returns management for its clients. The partnership will allow Loop customers to execute cross-border returns with Seko handling all necessary documentation and logistics to reduce shipping costs, while Seko clients gain access to a more cost-effective returns management solution.
Uber drivers in Kenya are ignoring the app and charging their own rates, which are at least 50% higher than Uber's official fare. A rate card published by a Nairobi drivers' union has become the new fare standard as high gas prices in the country have eaten into drivers' earnings. A union rep told Rest of World, “We tried to talk to Uber about adjusting the prices, but it was in vain, so we decided to take matters into our own hands to provoke them into discussing our terms and conditions.” Why are they still using Uber? Build a local app with your own rates and keep all the revenue in your own country. Uber's technology is a commodity at this point. Market share is the only value.
Airbnb is partnering with By Rotation, a fashion sharing platform, for a limited time promotion that lets guests receive a complimentary outfit rental from its platform. The campaign will initially target UK guests traveling for destination weddings at specified locations, but the companies hope to expand to US customers soon.
JD Global Sales, the international e-commerce division of JD.com, launched three new overseas shipping services for customers in the USA, Japan, and Singapore — Air Express, Air Standard, and Sea Economical. The new services reduce the shipping costs to the US for orders under 1kg by 50%, with rates starting as low as $2.80. The company is also introducing regional free shipping services on qualifying orders for a selection of 400k SKUs.
TikTok is being sued by one of its content moderators in the UK who is alleging that disability discrimination and a toxic work environment caused her stress and pregnancy complications. Olivia Anton Altamirano worked on TikTok’s Badness Project, which was built to remove harmful content from the platform, and said she was given targets that were “impossible to meet” and was discriminated against because she suffered from multiple sclerosis.
Meta struck a deal to buy geothermal power from Sage Geosystems to supply its US data centers, as it races to build out infrastructure to support its investments in AI. The first phase of the 150-megawatt project should be operational by 2027 in a location east of the Rocky Mountains. The exact location has not been revealed.
Meta and Spotify are testing a new functionality that allow Instagram users to continuously share the music they are listening to directly into the app's Notes feature, marking a notable expansion of users' current ability to share 30-second song clips. The feature, which was discovered by Alessandro Paluzzi who posted a screenshot on Threads, reads, “Continuously share what you're listening to. You can stop sharing at any time.” Next up… continuously share what you're viewing on Reddit! Or not…
Mountain Dew is reimbursing five consumers' moving fees for relocating to the Mountain Time Zone and for posting on TikTok how they plan to enjoy the outdoors, as well as providing free Mountain Dew for a year. The company is now claiming Mountain Time as its own with a multi-channel campaign that leverages geo-fencing to offer a free drink to registered user who crosses into the time zone. Great idea, but I still think Dave had the best Mountain Dew campaign pitch of all time…
10. Seed rounds, IPOs, & acquisitions
Axio, an India-based BNPL firm with 9M customers and 3k merchants, raised $20M from Amazon's Smbhav Venture Fund, bringing its total amount raised to $671M in debt and $137M in equity. The company will use the funds to enhance its checkout finance offering and expand credit offerings to existing customers.
Uni-One, a Vancouver-based foodtech startup that offers a food distribution network to restaurants and grocery businesses, raised $10M CAD in a Series A round that saw participation from Celtic House Asia Partners, Red River Investments, and others. The company will use the funds to scale up its supply chain network across Canada and the US, as well as fund strategic mergers and acquisitions in both countries.
Zepto, an India-based quick commerce grocery delivery service, raised $340M in a follow-on financing round led by General Catalyst at a $5B valuation, following its $665M raise in June at a $3.6B valuation. The company plans to use the funds to double the number of its dark stores from 350 to 700 prior to its IPO in the next two to three years.
GrubMarket, an online marketplace that connects consumers with local food producers, acquired FreshGoGo, an Asian grocery and specialty food e-commerce platform serving North America. The deal will strengthen GrubMarket's position in the online grocery delivery market, while enabling FreshGoGo to take advantage of GrubMarket's proprietary technology solutions like its wholesale platform, inventory management, and logistics.
Carbon6, a Toronto-based e-commerce software aggregator, acquired Junglytics, a Washington D.C.-based AI retail analytics platform, for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition will integrate Junglytics' AI tech with Carbon6's data platform to provide online sellers with a data-driven decision-making tool.
Shift4, a Pennsylvania-based payment processing company, acquired Givex, a global provider of gift cards, POS solutions, and loyalty programs, for $148M in an all-cash deal that's expected to complete in November and offers a 64% premium over Givex's current stock price. Shift4 has been acquiring companies around the world in a bid to become a large payments player that operates in multiple areas of the payments market.
Agrim, an Indian agriculture marketplace that connects manufacturers with rural retailers, raised $17.3M in a round led by Asia Impact. The company will use the funds to expand its catalog of agri-inputs from 30k items to over 150k items in the next three years, as well as expand to southern and western parts of India.
The Boldest, a Los Angeles-based venture studio and media house, acquired Jupiter, a D2C health and wellness brand known for using natural products, for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition represents the third exit for founders Simon Saval and Tyler Turner, who plan to continue to pursue angel investments and co-found new brands.
Bridge, a crypto startup that aims to create infrastructure that builders can use to take advantage of stablecoins for cross-border payments, raised $40M in a Series A round led by Sequoia Capital, Ribbit, and others, bringing its total amount raised to $58M. Bridge positions itself as the “Stripe of Crypto,” offering APIs that enable companies to use a stablecoin rail with ease. The company has processed over $5B in payment volume since its launch 18 months ago.
Pylon, a San Francisco startup that helps companies track, manage, and route B2B customer conversations in channels like Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Discord, raised $3.2M in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz, bringing its total amount raised to $20M. Over the last year, the company expanded its mission to include features like ticketing, chatbots, and traditional channels like e-mail to begin building a platform of customer communication services.
Wasako and MaxAB, two of Africa's largest B2B e-commerce platforms that act as distributors for small mom-and-pop shops across the continent, completed their merger in an all-stock transaction. Talks of the merger between the two companies began last December and took over 8 months to finalize. The merger is the first of its size in Africa and involves integrating 16 subsidiaries across multiple countries.
Rep AI, an Israeli startup that leverages behavioral AI to analyze the browsing patterns of each shopper on Shopify, raised $8.2M in a Series A round led by Osage Venture Partners. The company will use the funds to develop its e-commerce sales tools which aim to provide personalized sales assistance at scale.
Thanks for being a Shopifreak!
If you found this newsletter valuable, please leave a review on Google and share the newsletter with your friends and colleagues to help us grow.
See you next Monday,
PAUL
Paul E. Drecksler
🌐 Shopifreaks.com
🧑💼 Add me on LinkedIn
📧 [email protected]
📱 +1-828-273-3031
⭐ Leave A Review
PS: Why aren't koalas considered bears? Because they don't have the right koalafications!