Hi Shopifreaks
This newsletter has experienced significant growth during the past few months — now surpassing 23,000 subscribers! Thank you for sharing and recommending it, which has been my number one growth driver.
Given the amount of new subscribers, I want to take a minute and reintroduce myself. I'm Paul Drecksler (add me on LinkedIn) and I've been working in the fields of online business and e-commerce for the past 20 years, traveling the world and working remotely for a good period of that time. In addition to Shopifreaks, I run a boutique consulting and development agency called Ideas Focused. I'm also an avid real estate investor and am actively seeking to diversify into investing in e-commerce-related businesses.
I grew up in Asheville, NC, and now I live with my wife and daughter in Cuenca, Ecuador — still traveling as often as we can, but for the first time in many years, I've got a permanent residency and actually own couches, beds, and appliances! Prior to that, I'd lived out of furnished rentals, traveling with just a bookbag for work and a duffel bag with clothes. A true “digital nomad” before the term existed.
Here are two truths and one lie about me (you guess which is which):
- I once made international news for spending the night in the wrong Airbnb.
- I bake the absolute best chocolate chip cookies in Ecuador.
- I once won a low seven-figures prize in a scratch off lottery.
Nice to meet you! If you've never introduced yourself, please hit reply and do so now. I appreciate knowing who's on the other end of these e-mails.
And now onto this week's edition where I cover:
- AI Overviews killing click-thru rates
- Walmart's four super agents
- Amazon kills its Google Shopping ads
- The White House's AI Action Plan
- PayPal's new Pay with Crypto
- Target ends price matching
- An update on the TikTok ban
- Backlash over Delta AI pricing
- Vogue's AI model blunder
- Temu's troubel in the U.S.
- The petition against Visa & Mastercard
- Meta's two chief AI scientists
All this and more in this week's 236th Edition of Shopifreaks. Thanks for subscribing and sharing!
Stat of the Week
Google users who encountered an AI summary clicked on a link in the summary itself just 1% of the time, according to Pew Research Center. Scrolling past the AI Overview section, users who encountered an AI summary clicked on a traditional search result link in only 8% of all visits, as opposed to 15% on visits without AI summaries displayed. The study also revealed that the most frequently cited sources in both Google AI summaries and standard search results are Wikipedia, YouTube, and Reddit.
1. Walmart reveals its four AI-powered “super agent” horsemen
Walmart unveiled plans to roll out a suite of AI-powered “super agents” designed to improve the shopping experience for customers and streamline its backend operations. The company believes that its four agents powered by agentic AI will soon be the primary way people engage with the retailer and serve as the entry point for every AI interaction that shoppers, employees, suppliers, sellers, and software developers have with Walmart.
Here are Walmart's super agents:
- Sparky – currently assists customers with product search and discovery, and soon will be able to reorder items and help plan special shopping trips or events.
- Associate – will allow store workers and corporate staff to automate HR and inventory tasks like submitting an application for parental leave or providing sales data for a certain product or category.
- Marty – to streamline the onboarding process for sellers, suppliers, and advertisers, manage orders, and create ad campaigns.
- Developer – will be the platform on which all future AI tools will be tested, built, and launched.
Hari Vasudev, CTO of Walmart U.S., said during the virtual “Retail Rewired” innovation event:
“We expect that the search bar and the conventional way of searching for items will be replaced by this multimodal interface in Sparky. You could basically give it a very high level task saying, you know, I've just moved into a new apartment. I'm looking to furnish the entire apartment within this budget, this color scheme, and Sparky will come back and give you the entire selection that'll help you meet exactly that need.”
Walmart's chief technology officer, Suresh Kumar, said that the company chose to launch these super agents now because “customers are ready, they are using AI in pretty much everything they do.”
To aid with its AI product roadmap, Walmart hired former Instacart executive Daniel Danker as executive VP for AI acceleration, product and design, and created a new VP AI role that has yet to be filled.
Walmart declined to comment on whether the AI super agents would replace jobs, but it doesn't take a crystal ball to predict the future on that one.
2. Amazon retreats from Google Shopping
Amazon removed its entire Google Shopping advertising presence across all major markets, including the U.S., UK, Germany, and Japan, between July 21 and 23, 2025. The retailer's median Shopping ad impression share dropped from as high as 60% to 0%, marking one of the most dramatic exits from Google’s retail ad ecosystem in recent history.
Mikael Brakker, L'Oréal Luxe E-Commerce Director for Europe Zone, spotted the move and shared potential reasons why Amazon would pull its listings:
- Stress Test – Amazon did the same blackout in 2020 to learn what traffic actually needs paid search
- Post Prime Day Detox – to keep ROAS in good shape before the back-to-school rush
- Margin Grab – to avoid the Google middleman
- Negotiation Power Move – to renegotiate a deal with Google (or maybe reset the auctions?)
- AI Search Turf War – to gain full-funnel control over its AI search and discovery
Market observers noted that Amazon cut its Google Shopping spend in the U.S. by 50% in May 2025, indicating that the July withdrawal was part of a longer-term strategy rather than an impulsive move.
David Kyle, a digital marketing analyst, also noted:
“Have they completely disconnected Merchant Center altogether? I can't get them to show up for anything in Free Listings. This is drilling down on Amazon products like Fire and Kindle. I click more stores until all it does is show me ebay listings.”
I'm experiencing similar results when searching for products like “car dash cam” or “USB car charger” that would usually be populated with Amazon listings across free and paid Shopping results.
Advertisers are already seeing changes in click volume and impression share, with some reporting increased ad inventory and early signs of CPC volatility. The long-term impact will depend on whether this shift is a temporary pause, like Amazon’s 2020 retreat, or a permanent reallocation of ad spend away from Google.
If Amazon listings no longer populate on Google Shopping, does that make customers more or less likely to directly visit Amazon's website to comparatively shop?
Whereas before, if Amazon products surfaced alongside other retailer's listings, there'd be less reason to visit Amazon unless the customer was ready to purchase.
Now they might think, “I wonder how this compares to Amazon?” and visit the site directly to find out — subsequently increasing the odds that they continue with their purchase without returning back to Google.
I guess we will find out soon enough…
3. The White House unveiled its AI Action Plan
The White House unveiled its “AI Action Plan” last week, consisting of a 28-page document laying out three pillars of AI policy in the US:
- Accelerating AI innovation
- Building American AI infrastructure
- Leading international diplomacy and security around AI
Highlights from the action plan include:
- Deleting “references to misinformation, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and climate change” and prohibiting the federal government from contracting with LLM developers unless they “ensure that their systems are objective and free from top-down ideological bias” — which hasn't explicitly been defined yet.
- Recommending that the U.S. “reject radical climate dogma and bureaucratic red tape” to win the AI race.
- Removing state and federal regulatory hurdles for AI development by denying states AI-related funding if their rules “hinder the effectiveness of that funding or award.”
- Cutting rules that slow building data centers and semiconductor manufacturing facilities.
- Expanding the power grid to support “energy-intensive industries of the future.”
- Create a “try-first” culture for AI across American industry, which feels a bit like “ask for forgiveness, not permission.”
- Fostering science and research around AI development.
- Investing in biosecurity as AI is used to find new cures for diseases.
- Creating the necessary legal framework to combat deepfakes.
President Trump followed up with a speech at an AI Summit in Washington where he:
- Signed an executive order titled “Preventing Woke AI in the Federal Government,” directing government agencies “not to procure models that sacrifice truthfulness and accuracy to ideological agendas.”
- Dismissed copyright payments for AI training, saying, “You can't be expected to have a successful AI program when every single article, book, or whatever you've studied you're expected to pay for.”
Major AI firms like Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic have not publicly condoned or opposed the plan, likely due to the plan’s favorable treatment of the private sector.
4. PayPal launches Pay with Crypto
PayPal launched a new Pay with Crypto service to allow businesses to accept payments in more than 100 types of cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin and Ethereum. Customers can use their existing Coinbase, Binance, Kraken, or MetaMask wallets, among others, to complete the purchases, and the payments are automatically converted to fiat or stablecoin (including PayPal's own PYUSD stablecoin) for the merchant.
Alex Chriss, president and CEO of PayPal, said in a post on X:
“Building on our 25+ years in payments, we let users link their wallet, pay with any token, convert it instantly to PYUSD, and deliver USD to merchants in seconds. The result? Merchants pay less in fees and can instantly use funds.”
The fees he's talking about? PayPal is offering a 0.99% crypto transaction rate until July 31, 2026 before it'll jump to 1.50%, which is still well below the going rate for credit card processing, which is around 2.90%.
Chriss offered an example of an international transaction in the press release:
“Imagine a shopper in Guatemala buying a special gift from a merchant in Oklahoma City. Using PayPal's open platform, the business can accept crypto for payments, increase their profit margins, pay lower transaction fees, get near instant access to proceeds, and grow funds stored as PYUSD at 4% when held on PayPal.”
Last week PayPal launched PayPal World, a global partnership that brings together five of the world's largest digital wallets on a single platform, which serves as the wallet ecosystem for Pay with Crypto. This type of interoperability is crucial to the adoption of Pay with Crypto, and PayPal is smart to not limit users into using PayPal Wallets to store their crypto, which would add unnecessary friction to the transactions.
Pay with Crypto will be available to U.S. merchants in the coming weeks.
5. Target ends its decade old price match policy
Target is ending its price matching policy today (July 28th), which since 2013 has allowed customers to request a price match if they found an identical item sold for less at Amazon or Walmart. The item had to be exactly identical — same brand, size, weight, color, and model number — to take advantage of the price match guarantee.
Moving forward, Target will only price match items if a cheaper price is found on its own website or in one of its other stores within 14 days.
Target said in a statement to USA TODAY:
“We've found our guests overwhelmingly price match Target and not other retailers, which reflects the great value and trust in pricing consumers see across our assortment and deals.”
Neil Saunders, managing director of the retail consulting firm GlobalData, said the new policy puts Target in line with rival retailers who don't offer price matching, but indicated that, “the onus is on Target to now make sure its pricing is right.” He also noted that if guests didn't really price match other retailers that often, why bother to change the policy?
Target has previously said that it is committed to “being priced right daily,” but Profitero’s 2024 Price Wars study found Target’s prices are on average 13% higher than Amazon’s, versus Walmart, which averages just 5% over Amazon’s lowest price. So perhaps Target's price match policy was hitting it a little harder than it cares to admit. Either that, or the company is so desperate right now that it's looking to shave points wherever it can in any direction.
Is Target finally giving up on competing on price? If so, I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing! However I'm curious what they plan on having as their differentiator moving forward.
Last month I wrote about how copying the strategies of other retailers has never worked for Target. The company needs to sit down, have a nice long look in the mirror, and ask, “Who am I?” And then build an offering for the next twenty years that reflects that answer.
I'm still hopeful that this reckoning is on the horizon for Target, but in the meantime, the company needs to tread lightly on taking away customer perks.
6. The White House threatens (again) to shut down TikTok
“I'm gonna do it! I'm really gonna do it this time!”
Shit or get off the pot already! Or are you too busy scrolling TikTok while on the pot like the rest of us? LOL
On Thursday, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CNBC that TikTok will go dark for Americans unless China agrees to give the U.S. more control over the app. His comments follow President Trump's third deadline extension last month, which now gives ByteDance until Sep 17th to divest its TikTok U.S. business.
Lutnick said that Americans “will have control,” “own the technology,” and “control the algorithm” or else “TikTok is going to go dark.”
President Trump has repeatedly said that he has “very wealthy people” lined up who are ready to buy TikTok U.S. — but I've never been convinced that there's actually a seller in this supposed deal that Vice President Vance is negotiating. Obviously there are more than a number of hungry buyers for the app, but both ByteDance and China have been tightlipped about whether a deal is actually on the table or if the company has simply been buying time to grow their business in other territories.
In January, ByteDance board member, Bill Ford, told World Economic Forum attendees that a non-sale option “could involve a change of control locally” to ensure that TikTok complies with U.S. legislation without actually selling off the app or its algorithm.
Is that a compromise that President Trump would accept? And does he have the power to do so without Congressional approval? Frankly it's a grey area whether these deadline extensions are legal.
Does the Trump administration even want to shut down TikTok? Or does it simply view the app as a bargaining chip for its other negotiations with China? I can't think of a faster way to piss off 150M Americans than to turn off their favorite daily pastime. Anything to keep them distracted from those Epstein files, am I right?
7. Delta faces backlash over AI-driven pricing model
Last week I reported that Delta Air Lines launched a pilot program that uses AI to determine how much you personally will pay for a ticket, as opposed to offering static prices to all customers. The personalized pricing is currently in effect for 3% of fares, but the company aims to increase that to 20% by the end of the year.
This week the backlash has begun…
Democratic lawmakers have moved to ban what they call “predatory surveillance pricing” with the newly proposed “Stop AI Price Gouging and Wage Fixing Act” or “SAIPGWFA” for short (just kidding).
The bill would prohibit practices like an airline raising prices for a customer after seeing that they searched for a family obituary or a ride share app paying a driver less after seeing that they visited a pawn shop and thus may be more desperate for money.
Congressman Greg Casar (D-Texas) said:
“Giant corporations should not be allowed to jack up your prices or lower your wages using data they got spying on you. Whether you know it or not, you may already be getting ripped off by corporations using your personal data to charge you more. This problem is only going to get worse, and Congress should act before this becomes a full blown crisis.”
Advocacy group Public Citizen said:
“This bill draws a clear line in the sand: companies can offer discounts and fair wages—but not by spying on people. Surveillance-based price gouging and wage setting are exploitative practices that deepen inequality and strip consumers and workers of dignity. Public Citizen strongly supports this bill because it gives the FTC, EEOC, state attorneys general, and individuals the tools they need to stop these abuses and put power back where it belongs: with the people.”
I support the intentions of the bill, but enforcement may be difficult. After all, what's the difference between “offering a discount” and “jacking up prices” for two different customers? It's a fine line. The former simply means raising the base price for everyone.
On a deeper level, I argue that consumer privacy protection should be so STRONG in our country that the digital environment doesn't exist for Big Tech companies to be able to leverage our browsing history and online behavior to offer dynamic prices. However since that reality is not going to happen anytime soon, band-aid solutions like “SAIPGWFA” aren't a horrible idea, I guess.
What are your thoughts on the proposed act? Good for consumers? Over regulation? Hit reply and let me know.
8. Vogue prints advertisement with AI-generated model
Vogue magazine and the fashion company Guess are taking heat for printing an advertisement featuring an AI-generated model showing off a striped maxi dress and a floral playsuit from the brand's summer collection. In small print in one corner, the ad revealed that she was created using AI (so at least they were transparent about it), marking the first time an AI-generated person has been featured in the magazine.
The wild part is that Guess paid a company low-six figures to employ five people for a month to create the AI model. I feel like that's a lot of extra steps to just hiring and photographing a real model!
The magazine faced immediate backlash for running the advertisement from social media users who complained about it furthering the unrealistic expectations already set by the fashion industry.
Sara Ziff, a former model and founder of Model Alliance, said the Guess AI campaign was “less about innovation and more about desperation and need to cut costs.”
Seraphinne Vallora, the company behind the advertisement, rejects the idea that it is about cost cutting putting people out of work, and claims its technology “is supplementary and not meant to replace models.” It adds that they have actually created jobs because the process of creating AI models requires them to hire a real model and photographer to see how the product looks on a person in real life. (Again, which feels like extra steps.)
However, its website lists one of the benefits of working with the company as being cost-efficient because it “eliminates the need for expensive set-ups, MUA artists, venue rentals, stage setting, photographers, travel expenses, hiring models.”
So, which is it — Mrs. Briggs or Ms. Mathers? It doesn't matter.
Vogue said that the photo was simply part of an advertisement and not an editorial decision, but declined to respond further. Either way, it certainly set a precedent for the next publication to use AI models (or at least whether they'll be as open about it).
9. Other e-commerce news of interest
Temu is having trouble rebuilding its online retail business in the U.S. following President Trump ending the de minimis exemption that allowed it to import cheap goods directly from China without paying customs duties. Several U.S. companies and sellers told Temu that they cannot provide cheaper prices on branded products than those offered on Amazon in fear that they'll lose their coveted Buy Box if they did so, according to FT sources. Amazon said, “Selling partners independently make decisions regarding their inventory and selection, and set their own prices” — of course they didn't mention anything about the consequences of doing so.
Mastercard and Visa are taking heat following an online petition for the payment gateways to “stop policing” and censoring legal adult-oriented fictional content due to pressure from advocacy groups that aim to push their moral agendas. An Australian feminist non-profit called Collective Shout is at the center of the petition for actively calling for online gaming distribution sites to take down games which depict rape and incest, as well as non-pornographic games with LGBTQ+ themes. In response, a movement has sprung up against Collective Shout for “weaponizing” payment processors to ban legal content worldwide.
Block released a policy agenda, urging Congress to modernize regulations to enable Bitcoin to be used for everyday purchases. The company calls for: 1) passing the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act to define Bitcoin’s legal status; 2) protecting non-custodial actors like wallet providers and miners; and 3) enacting a de minimis tax exemption for small BTC transactions. Under current rules, buying a cup of coffee or other small item with appreciated BTC triggers a taxable event, which Block believes “disincentivizes everyday use.” With Square planning to support Bitcoin payments at the point of sale this year, Block argues that without federal reform, the U.S. risks falling behind nations where Bitcoin is already used at retail scale.
Google is officially launching its new AI feature that lets users virtually try on clothes to all U.S. users, just two months after it began testing it with select groups. The feature works by allowing users to upload a photo of themselves to try on apparel items in Google's Shopping Graph across Search, Google Shopping, and product results on Google Images. The feature is not to be confused with the Doppl app that Google launched last month, which is powered by the same generative AI technology, but is designed for shoppers to go deeper with curating their own personal styles.
Meta hired Shengjia Zhao, co-creator of ChatGPT and former lead scientist at OpenAI, as the new chief scientist of its Superintelligence Labs, where he'll copy OpenAI “set the research agenda and scientific direction for our new lab” working directly with Mark Zuckerberg and their current chief AI scientist, Yann LeCun. The announcement sparked questions about the role LeCun, who clarified that his position as chief scientist of FAIR remains unchanged and focused on long-term AI research. Meta’s AI division now includes FAIR, foundations, and product teams under the Superintelligence Labs umbrella, overseen by newly appointed Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang.
Albertsons is taking a “higher level approach” to e-commerce after its rapid pandemic-era digital expansion as it sees steady growth in the segment with online sales now representing 9% of grocery revenue. New initiatives include a digital food court for ordering hot meals, online custom cake ordering, and gifting options via app and web. Albertsons also rolled out an “Ask AI” search tool that lets shoppers pose natural-language questions like “What are healthy snacks for toddlers?” and view product recommendations in a single screen. Early data shows AI users are spending more per session.
Samsung partnered with Splitit to bring in-store installment payments to Samsung Wallet, allowing users to split purchases using existing credit cards without credit checks or new applications. The move marks the first time a card-linked installment solution is embedded directly into Samsung Wallet. The feature debuted last week on Galaxy Z Fold7 and Z Flip7 devices in 20 U.S. states, supporting eligible Mastercard and Visa credit cards.
eBay removed the option for sellers to select “unknown” as the Country of Origin on product listings, likely due to new or upcoming global tariff and import requirements. Sellers of vintage items noted that they're now being forced to guess because they have absolutely no idea where some items originated from, however, they fear that doing so may impact their ability to sell the items internationally in the future.
Cybercrime authorities in France are investigating X for embedding right-wing bias into its algorithm, accusing the company of data tampering and fraud, which are punishable in the country by the same penalties as computer hacking (up to 10 years in prison). The authority requested access to X's recommendation algorithm and real-time data about all user posts as part of its investigation, but X denied the request and said it would not be cooperating with what it called a “politically-motivated criminal investigation.”
DuckDuckGo is rolling out a new feature that lets users remove AI-generated images from their search results. The company posted on X, “Our philosophy about AI features is ‘private, useful, and optional.' Our goal is to help you find what you’re looking for. You should decide for yourself how much AI you want in your life – or if you want any at all.” The company is also planning to add more filters in the future to help its algorithm weed out AI-generated content as well, which means there will be like 12 websites left that appear in its search results.
Alibaba, JD.com, and Meituan have pledged almost $28B combined in recent months to subsidize their respective instant-delivery businesses, leading customers who order beverages and other low-cost items to effectively receive them for free, as a means to gain market share. The pricing wars have gotten so extreme that the three companies were summoned for the second time last week to the State Administration of Market Regulation, which called for “rational competition” in the space. The platforms are looking five to ten years down the road with their strategies and believe that earning customers now for their one hour delivery services might mean life or death for their companies in the future, according to Ed Sander, a tech analyst for Tech Buzz China.
India's financial crime watchdog filed a complaint against Myntra, a fashion e-commerce platform owned by Walmart-backed Flipkart, for allegedly violating foreign investment rules by channeling over $191M through a related-party scheme that disguised retail operations as wholesale trade. India restricts foreign companies engaged in wholesale business from making direct sales to consumers in order to protect local retailers. It also restricts wholesalers from selling more than 25% of its products to retailers that it owns a stake in. Myntra allegedly tried to skirt that law by selling 100% of its goods exclusively to one retailer named Vector E-Commerce.
Optoro is shutting down its BULQ liquidation marketplace for open-box and excess goods as of today (July 28th). The platform gained traction during the pandemic, handling liquidation of excess returned and open box inventory for major retailers and marketplaces like eBay, Walmart, Target, Bed Bath & Beyond, Lowes, and Wayfair, however, since then some of its clients, like Target, have taken their resell efforts in-house, and new competition has entered the space. Optoro did not provide a specific reason for the shutdown.
Researchers in Italy developed a way to create a biometric identifier for people based on the way their bodies interfere with Wi-Fi signals, dubbed WhoFi. Observers could track a person as they passed through signals sent by different Wi-Fi networks, even if they're not carrying a phone, with 95.5% accuracy. Imagine walking into a store in the future and being identified by the way your gut interferes with their Wi-Fi signal! In the past decade, scientists have found that Wi-Fi is not just great at transmitting data, it's also good for seeing through walls, recognizing movements and gestures, and sensing the presence of humans and other creatures. Turns out Superman's x-ray vision was just Wi-Fi eyes!
Google removed nearly 11,000 YouTube channels, ad accounts, and other accounts tied to state-linked propaganda campaigns from China, Russia, and other countries, as part of the Google Threat Analysis Group’s work to counter global disinformation campaigns. Meanwhile, Meta removed 635,000 predator-linked accounts across Instagram and Facebook and rolled out new teen safety tools on Instagram such as the ability to see the date of when an account they're messaging with joined Instagram as well as the country of the person they're chatting with.
Tea, an app for women to safely talk about men they date, was breached, with tens of thousands of user selfies and photo IDs exposed. However the company says no e-mails or names were accessed. The app is taking heat for having no cybersecurity around its user databases due to being “vibe coded”. (UPDATE: Minutes before publishing this week's edition, 404 Media reported that a second data breach at Tea exposed more than a million direct messages between users discussing abortions, cheating partners, and phone numbers they sent to one another.)
Speaking of vibe coding, Replit, the Andreessen Horowitz-backed startup that thinks autonomous AI agents can write, edit, and deploy code with minimal oversight, had to apologize after its software deleted a company's code base during a test run. Even worse, the AI coding agent lied about it and tried to hide the incident by creating fake data and reports to cover up its mistake!
Uber is launching a new feature in the U.S. that gives women riders and drivers the option to exclusively pair with each other and create a preference in their app settings. The company said that the rider's preference isn't guaranteed, but the feature increases the chances of women pairing with other women, starting in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Detroit. One question though… what's the definition of a woman? Guaranteed this will come up at some point in the U.S. with a feature like this.
🏆 This week's most ridiculous story… Astronomer, the company whose CEO was just caught having an affair at a Coldplay concert, hired Gwyneth Paltrow as its “temporary spokesperson” to field questions about the recent incident and re-focus attention back towards Astronomer's core service of data automation. The ridiculous part? Gwyneth Paltrow is the ex-wife of Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin! LOL. Good burn guys. In other news, Astronomer will now be selling vagina scented candles.
10. Seed rounds, IPOs, & acquisitions
Doss, a San Francisco-based ERP that combines inventory, order, and accounting functions into a single system, acquired Genie, a London-based inventory management platform for Shopify merchants, for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition expands Doss's capabilities in inventory and supply chain management for e-commerce businesses and brings on Genie's more than 300 merchants to its ecosystem. Genie founder Sebastiaan Debrouwere will join the company as head of partnerships and ecosystem.
OpenStore, a Miami-based e-commerce aggregator and store operator, raised $15M in a Series C round led by existing investors Khosla Ventures and Atomic, at a $50M valuation, marking a significant drop from its $1B valuation after its $32M raise in 2022. The company will now concentrate exclusively on expanding Jack Archer, a menswear brand it acquired in 2022 for just under $1M, hiring Emma Crepeau, former chief growth officer at apparel company Rhone, to serve as CEO of the brand.
Ashby, a San Francisco-based AI-powered recruiting platform that provides applicant tracking, scheduling, analytics, and automation tools that works with OpenAI and Shopify, raised $50M in a Series D round co-led by Alkeon Capital and Lachy Groom. The seven-year-old company says it has more than doubled its customer base over the past year from about 1,300 to 2,700 clients and saw its ARR jump by 135%. The company declined to share its valuation, only saying it was a 2x increase compared to its most recent $30M Series C raise a year ago.
HeyMax, a Singapore-based travel and loyalty rewards platform that helps users earn free vacations, acquired krip, a Hong Kong-based fintech startup that aggregates personalized credit and debit card rewards and offers, for an undisclosed amount. As part of the acquisition, krip's brand will be discontinued and the two companies will operate under the HeyMax brand, and krip CEO and founder David B. Wang will join the combined company as head of loyalty partnerships and general manager for Hong Kong.
Figma, a San Francisco-based collaborative web design platform that filed for an IPO earlier this month, revealed that it plans to offer more than 36M shares of its class A stock between $25 and $28 per share, aiming to raise around $1B. Existing shareholders are expected to sell more shares than the company plans to sell, by a high ratio, with the company's founder and CEO Dylan Field planning on cashing out around $62M, while still retaining control of the company. Figma’s biggest venture investors, which include Index, Greylock, Kleiner Perkins, and Sequoia, are planning to cash out between 1.7M and 3.3M shares apiece. TechCrunch notes that if the company hadn't opened up share sales to existing investors, it might not have had enough shares to meet the demand of the IPO.
Amazon acquired Bee, a startup that makes a Fitbit-like device that listens in on your conversations and uses AI to transcribe everything that you and the people around you say, for an undisclosed amount, marking a strategic move in Amazon's efforts to enter the wearables space. Bee's CEO Maria de Lourdes Zollo said on LinkedIn that the company is joining Amazon to help “bring truly personal, agentic AI to even more customers.” All Bee employees have received offers to join Amazon. One reader commented on The Verge article, “Boy can't wait for Amazon to start pushing products on me that my Bee overheard from a nearby commercial or someone mentioned in passing.”
Jeff Bezos is exploring a potential acquisition of CNBC to expand his media footprint after its parent company Comcast spins off the cable network later this year into a new publicly traded entity called Versant. New York Post sources say Bezos sees CNBC as a complementary, “neutral voice” addition to his media portfolio, following recent controversy over his efforts to shift The Washington Post, which he acquired in 2013, toward a more centrist, pro-business editorial stance. Tax rules may prevent a sale for two years after the spinoff, making an immediate deal unlikely.
SALESmanago, a Polish customer engagement platform designed to help e-commerce marketing teams acquire customers through omnichannel experiences, acquired Thulium, a social customer care and engagement platform that helps brands manage customer communication across social media and messaging apps. The acquisition combines SALESmanago's hyper-personalized marketing automation with Thulium's omnichannel support capabilities and brings together almost 4,000 customers across the two platforms.
Fiserv, a Wisconsin-based global fintech and payments company, signed a strategic agreement with TD Bank Group to power TD’s merchant services with its Clover POS platform and acquire a portion of TD’s Canadian merchant processing business. The deal includes around 3,400 merchant relationships representing 30,000 locations and a multi-year managed services arrangement. TD will retain business banking services while leveraging Fiserv’s infrastructure to offer modern payment solutions to its clients. Last year TD Bank entered into a partnership with BigCommerce to launch its own branded e-commerce platform in Canada.
Gupshup, a San Francisco-based conversational messaging platform that helps businesses automate customer interactions across channels like WhatsApp and SMS, raised $60M from Globespan Capital Partners and EvolutionX Debt Capital to expand its operations. The company, which claims more than 50,000 customers across 130 countries, began as a text messaging platform in 2004 and now focuses on building industry-trained AI agents to help businesses handle customer and employee interactions across voice/text messaging services, websites, and mobile apps.
Credibur, a Berlin-based fintech that offers financing solutions for small e-commerce businesses across Europe, raised $2.2M in pre-seed round led by VC Redstone. The platform replaces manual, Excel-based debt facility management with automated tools for structuring, reporting, capital calls, and SPV administration. With this funding round, the company is emerging from stealth mode and ready to launch with its first pilot customers.
TWAI, a U.S. travel tech company that enables companies to sell flights, hotels, and travel experiences through its booking engines and payment orchestration tools, acquired Travello, an Australian social travel app that helps travelers discover, book, and share activities with other travelers. In the coming months, the two companies will launch joint solutions to bring curated experiences to airlines, OTAs, and loyalty platforms worldwide.
Block joined the S&P 500 on Wednesday, replacing Hess, an energy company that sells crude oil and natural gas, and marking the third public company with Bitcoin holdings to join the index. Block holds 8,584 BTC worth approximately $1B, making it the 13th largest corporate holder of Bitcoin. The company's shares on the NYSE jumped nearly 14% over the past week since it announced it would join the S&P 500.
Coda, a Singapore-based fintech company that provides cross-border payments and monetization solutions for digital content creators and publishers, acquired Recharge, an Amsterdam-based fintech that offers digital prepaid solutions like mobile top-ups, gift cards, and gaming credits, for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition accelerates Coda's expansion beyond gaming and extends its presence in Europe, while bringing access to deeper partnerships for Recharge, especially across Asia.
Havas, a global advertising and communications company headquartered in Paris, acquired Tidard, a Madrid-based agency specializing in digital marketing strategy and e-commerce, for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition is intended to strengthen the Havas Market division and reinforce the group's expansion in Spain.
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Paul E. Drecksler
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