Commerce

SoftBank stays in as Meesho $606M IPO becomes India’s first major e-commerce listing

Commerce /

Meesho, an Indian e-commerce rival to Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart, is set to launch a roughly $606 million IPO marked by token sell-downs from early backers and no sales from big names such as SoftBank and Prosus, signalling investor conviction in India’s booming online retail market at a time when tech shareholders globally have been […]

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Onton raises $7.5M to expand its AI-powered shopping site beyond furniture

Commerce /

Major tech companies aren’t just using AI to help you generate or summarize content — they also want you to use it for shopping. OpenAI, Google, and Amazon have heavily invested in AI assistants that research new product categories for you and suggest the right ones to buy. Startups like Perplexity, Daydream, and Cherry have

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OpenAI and Perplexity are launching AI shopping assistants, but competing startups aren’t sweating it

Commerce /

With holiday shopping on the horizon, OpenAI and Perplexity both announced AI shopping features this week, which integrate into their existing chatbots to help users research potential purchases. The tools are markedly similar to one another. OpenAI suggests that users could ask ChatGPT for help finding a “new laptop suitable for gaming under $1000 with

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Cavela lands $6.6M to help brands beat pre-tariff manufacturing costs

Commerce /

When Anthony Sardain began developing Cavela in 2023, an AI startup that helps brands automate supplier sourcing, he did not foresee that new tariffs would drive customers to become increasingly wary of manufacturing products in China. “You don’t just walk into Vietnam and build up a supply chain,” Sardain told TechCrunch. “A lot of brands

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Agentio secures $40M from Forerunner as it scales its creator marketplace beyond YouTube

Commerce /

Views on sponsored videos on YouTube have risen 28% year-on-year, and the number of sponsored videos has grown by 54% year-on-year in the first half of 2025, according to a report from Tubefilter. What’s more, ad spend through creator channels has been steadily rising and is even set to outperform traditional media in some cases.

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BNPL is expanding fast, and that should worry everyone

Commerce /

When Nigel Morris tells you he’s worried about the economy, you listen. As industry observers know, Morris co-founded Capital One and pioneered lending to subprime borrowers, building an empire on understanding exactly how much financial stress the average American can handle. Now, as an early investor in Klarna and other buy-now-pay-later companies like Aplazo in

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Facebook Marketplace gets new collaborative and social features, Meta AI integrations

Commerce /

Meta is overhauling Facebook Marketplace with new collaborative tools, social features, an improved checkout experience, and Meta AI integrations, the company announced Thursday. Marketplace is getting a new “collections” feature that lets users create groups of listings and invite friends to join. Users can get started by saving a listing, starting a new collection, and

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Google augments AI shopping with conversational search, agentic checkout and an AI that calls stores for you

Commerce /

Google is rolling out a suite of AI shopping updates just ahead of the holiday season. The company on Thursday unveiled a host of new tools and features, including conversational shopping in Google Search, new shopping features within its Gemini app, agentic checkout, and even an AI tool that can call local stores to find

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