Commerce

SaaS goes to space as some software startups are in a race to survive

Welcome back to Equity. This is our Friday show, and today, Mary Ann Azevedo, Kirsten Korosec and Alex Wilhelm got together to go over the week's biggest tech and startup news.

Amazon is piloting a new $9.99 monthly grocery subscription for Prime members in three cities

Amazon is piloting a new grocery subscription offering for Prime members in three cities, the company revealed on Thursday. The new $9.99 per month subscription gives Prime members access to unlimited

Creators, no-code and how regular folks can build an online business

Welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture-capital focused podcast. Today, we’re bringing you a conversation from TC Disrupt 2023, with Serhii Bohoslovskyi, founder of no-code app-builder Tribl

Poppy says ‘I do’ to new capital for digital booking, fulfillment of wedding flowers

Poppy creates customized wedding floral proposals, with images, and provide on-demand pricing for couples.

Vancouver’s Fantuan raises $40M to deliver real Asian food at your doorstep

For those who move abroad from China, one thing they miss dearly is the convenience of food delivery apps. Fantuan, a Vancouver-based company, has been working on replicating the experience of Chinese

Omniful, a supply chain and e-commerce enablement startup, emerges from stealth with $5.85M

Supply chain and e-commerce enablement startup Omniful has today emerged from stealth with $5.85 million seed funding led by VentureSouq, with participation from 500 Global, DASH Ventures, Jahez Group

Mastercard launches Shopping Muse, an AI-powered shopping assistant

Mastercard is launching a new generative AI shopping tool called “Shopping Muse” that is designed to help users get personalized product recommendations. The tool is powered by Dynamic Yie

Spotify’s layoffs make sense when you consider its margins and market

Spotify is simply tinkering with its economics so that it is more attractive to investors. That means it needs to pay fewer salaries.

Shein a light

We won't be getting our hands on a Shein filing just yet, but we can’t wait to.

Tech-enabled warehousing startup Huboo raises another $36.6M amid continued e-commerce growth

When consumers switched to home deliveries and “digitized” their lifestyles during the pandemic, it led to a surge in e-commerce sales and thus, also, in the need for warehousing and shipping. But

NomuPay, formed out of Wirecard’s ashes, acquires Total Processing for tooling and customer service

NomuPay — the payments startup that was formed out of some of the healthier pieces of the dramatically failed fintech Wirecard — has made an acquisition as it continues on its trajectory o

Zubale bags new capital for software to help retailers scale e-commerce in Latin America

The new investment will be deployed into growing Zubale's three e-commerce productivity offerings, continued product development and strategies to consolidate its presence in Mexico and Brazil.

As Temu shakes up global e-commerce, PDD nears overtaking Alibaba

PDD, the firm behind the fast-growing shopping app Temu, is shaking up China’s Big Tech club. On Thursday, news of Alibaba’s market cap sliding under that of PDD made headlines all over th

The TechCrunch+ 2023 Holiday Gift Guide

We have options for all of your loved ones!

Google search ads spotted in compromising placements

Research delving into a less visible component of Google’s search ads business — a network of third-party sites called Google Search Partners (also known as the GSP network or SPN) —

Amazon’s iRobot purchase sucks up formal competition concerns in EU

European Union regulators have sent Amazon a formal statement of objections setting out competition concerns over its proposed acquisition of robot vacuum maker, iRobot. The step does not confirm the

Shein files confidentially to go public in the US

Singapore-based fast fashion platform Shein has confidentially planned to go public in the United States, according to multiple media reports. The Wall Street Journal broke the news earlier on Monday.

Affirm’s head of product discusses its new approach to buy now, pay later

Affirm's head of product Vishal Kapoor discusses buy now, play later in a debit card, and how that’s setting Affirm apart from competitors.

Construction marketplace Construex takes in first capital to expand in Latin America

Co-founders Roberto Arroyo and his brother, Nicolas Arroyo, bootstrapped the company for almost four years and reached profitability while expanding into Chile, Guatemala and Argentina.

Black Friday online buying hits a record $9.8B in the US, $70.9B globally

A rush of deep discounts and the growth of flexible payment options were the drivers behind $9.8 billion in online sales in the U.S. on Black Friday — a record figure for the day. According to A
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