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

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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This YC-backed startup preps Chinese students for US data jobs

In recent years, data analysts have gone from optional to a career that holds great promise, but demand for quantitative skills applied in business decisions has raced ahead of supply as college curriculum often lags behind the fast-changing workplace. CareerTu, a New York-based startup launched by a former marketing manager at Amazon, aims to close […]

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The gaming clips service, Medal has bought Donate Bot for direct donations, and payments

The Los Angeles-based video gaming clipping service, Medal, has made its first acquisition as it rolls out new features to its user base. The company has acquired the Discord -based donations and payments service Donate Bot to enable direct payments and other types of transactions directly on its site. Now, the company is rolling out […]

View More The gaming clips service, Medal has bought Donate Bot for direct donations, and payments

Patreon’s future and potential exits

Through the Extra Crunch EC-1 on Patreon, I dove into Patreon’s founding story, product roadmap, business model and metrics, underlying thesis, and competitive threats. The six-year-old company last valued around $450 million and likely to soon hit $1 billion is the leading platform for artists to run membership businesses for their superfans. As a conclusion […]

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Easyship, a Stripe for global e-commerce shipping, raises $4M

Easyship, a Hong Kong-based startup that aims to make international shipping for e-commerce as easy as payments, has closed a $4 million Series A round. The company was founded in 2015 by former Lazada duo Tommaso Tamburnotti and Augustin Ceyrac, and ex-banker Paul Lugagne Delpon. From their time with Lazada, the then-Rocket Internet -owned e-commerce site […]

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Facebook’s GraphQL gets its own open-source foundation

GraphQL, the Facebook -incubated data query language, is moving into its own open-source foundation. Like so many other similar open-source foundations, the aptly named GraphQL Foundation will be hosted by the Linux Foundation. Facebook announced GraphQL back in 2012 and open sourced it in 2015. Today, it’s being used by companies that range from Airbnb […]

View More Facebook’s GraphQL gets its own open-source foundation

Facebook’s GraphQL gets its own open-source foundation

GraphQL, the Facebook -incubated data query language, is moving into its own open-source foundation. Like so many other similar open-source foundations, the aptly named GraphQL Foundation will be hosted by the Linux Foundation. Facebook announced GraphQL back in 2012 and open sourced it in 2015. Today, it’s being used by companies that range from Airbnb […]

View More Facebook’s GraphQL gets its own open-source foundation

Shopify opens its first brick-and-mortar space in Los Angeles

Shopify, the provider of payment and logistics management software and services for retailers, has opened its first physical storefront in Los Angeles. The first brick and mortar location for the Toronto-based company, is nestled in a warren of downtown Los Angeles boutique shops in a complex known as the Row DTLA. For Shopify, Los Angeles […]

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Shopify rolls out fraud protection to U.S. merchants

Large e-commerce businesses have systems in place to fight online fraud, but smaller sellers with their own storefronts don’t always have the same advantages. Today, e-commerce platform Shopify is aiming to change that with its rollout of Fraud Protect for Shopify Payments. The service is initially available in the U.S. The company had announced its plans […]

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Deliverr raises $7M to help e-commerce businesses compete with Amazon Prime

Deliverr, a startup that helps retailers offer a Prime-like delivery experience has raised a $7.1 million Series A led by Joe Londsdale’s 8VC, with participation from Zola founder Shan Lyn Ma, Flexport chief executive officer Ryan Peterson and others.

View More Deliverr raises $7M to help e-commerce businesses compete with Amazon Prime