Before breaking up with Shopify, Mailchimp quietly acqui-hired LemonStand, a Shopify competitor

Here’s an interesting twist on the story from last week about the break-up between Shopify and Mailchimp, after the two said they were at odds over how customer data was shared between the two companies. It turns out that before it parted ways with Shopify, Mailchimp had quietly made an acquisition of LemonStand, one of the […]

View More Before breaking up with Shopify, Mailchimp quietly acqui-hired LemonStand, a Shopify competitor

Ocean drone startup merger spawns SoFar, the DJI of the sea

What lies beneath the murky depths? SolarCity co-founder Peter Rive wants to help you and the scientific community find out. He’s just led a $7 million Series A for SoFar Ocean Technologies, a new startup formed from a merger he orchestrated between underwater drone maker OpenROV and sea sensor developer Spoondrift. Together, they’re teaming up […]

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Instacart rolls out an Instant Cashout feature for shoppers

Instacart is today launching a new feature aimed at allowing shoppers to access their earnings more quickly, the company announced this morning. Instant Cashout, as the option is called, was built in partnership with payments platform Stripe and is being made available to shoppers in-app for instant transfers to a debit card. Previously, workers would […]

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The danger of “I already pay for Apple News+”

Apple doesn’t care about news, it cares about recurring revenue. That’s why publishers are crazy to jump into bed with Apple News+. They’re rendering their own subscription options unnecessary in exchange for a sliver of what Apple pays out from the mere $10 per month it charges for unlimited reading. The unfathomable platform risk here […]

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Flipkart ranked highly for ‘fairness’ of working conditions in India gig platform study

The Oxford Internet Institute has published what it bills as the world’s first rating system for working conditions on gig economy platforms. The Fairwork academic research project is a collaboration with the International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore, the University of Cape Town, the University of Manchester, and the University of the Western Cape. As […]

View More Flipkart ranked highly for ‘fairness’ of working conditions in India gig platform study

Wayfair to open its first brick-and-mortar store this fall

Another major e-commerce brand its expanding its business offline. Wayfair, the Boston-based online furniture retailer whose net revenue topped $2 billion in the fourth quarter, announced this morning it plans to open its first full-service retail store this fall. The store, which will be based in Natick, Massachusetts, will connect the company’s online business to […]

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Alibaba acquires Israeli VR startup Infinity Augmented Reality

Infinity Augmented Reality, an Israeli virtual reality startup, has been acquired by Alibaba, the companies announced this weekend. The deal’s terms were not disclosed. Alibaba and InfinityAR have had a strategic partnership since 2016, when Alibaba Group led InfinityAR’s Series C. Since then, the two have collaborated on augmented reality, computer vision and artificial intelligence […]

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Mailchimp and Shopify break up

Shopify and Mailchimp today announced that the Mailchimp app, which let its users use their Shopify data to create targeted email campaigns, for example, is no longer available in its marketplace. The reason for this, Shopify says, is that it “had growing concerns about Mailchimp’s app because of the poor merchant experience and their refusal […]

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Gig workers need health & benefits. Catch is their safety net

One of the hottest Y Combinator startups just raised a big seed round to clean up the mess created by Uber, Postmates, and the gig economy. Catch sells health insurance, retirement savings plans, and tax withholding directly to freelancers, contractors, or anyone uncovered. By building and curating simplified benefits services, Catch can offer a safety […]

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Slowdown or not, China’s luxury goods still seeing high-end growth

Despite well-documented concerns over an economic slowdown in China, the country’s luxury goods market is still seeing opulent growth according to a new study. Behind secular and demographic tailwinds, the luxury sector is set to continue its torrid expansion in the face of volatility as it’s quickly becoming a defensive economic crown jewel. Using proprietary […]

View More Slowdown or not, China’s luxury goods still seeing high-end growth

Amazon Pay inks Worldpay integration as it branches out in the wider world of e-commerce

Amazon rules the roost when it comes to e-commerce marketplaces in countries like the US, but today it’s announcing a deal that it hopes will be a start its plan to have that same kind of ubiquity outside of its walled garden. The company has inked a deal with Worldpay for the latter to become […]

View More Amazon Pay inks Worldpay integration as it branches out in the wider world of e-commerce

Opendoor raises $300M on a $3.8B valuation for its home marketplace

Last month, we reported that Opendoor — the startup that is taking on the real estate industry with its own platform for buying up homes and selling them on to interested buyers — filed to raise $200 million on a $3.7 billion valuation. Now, we can confirm that the round has closed, and it has […]

View More Opendoor raises $300M on a $3.8B valuation for its home marketplace