Commerce

Flights to offer drinks, snacks and now Starlink • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 19, 2022Posted in Commerce, Elon Musk, Hardware, Space, SpaceX, starlink, Starlink AviationNo Comments

Having barely expanded Starlink onto the seas and looking at the Ukraine war as a business opportunity, Elon Musk has expanded Starlink through a commercial- and private jet-focused sub-brand, Starlink Aviation. The idea of having Wi-Fi up in the sky isn’t new, but your service is typically limited. On a commercial flight, one is charged fees to access, at best, mediocre service. Most in-flight services use air-to-ground services which top out at around 10 Mbps. Because the speeds offered are per plane, what you actually get is dependent on how many individuals are using it. For the most part, Starlink Aviation is tackling the speed issue, claiming to provide services that’ll let users game, stream, make video calls and so on “at any altitude”. The service will offer 350 Mbps (the same offered on Starlink Maritime) on each plane and with “latency as low as 20 ms.”. “Passengers can engage in activities previously not functional in flight, including video calls, online gaming, virtual private networks and other high data rate activities,” Starlink claims on its website. “As the world’s largest satellite constellation with coverage over land, the oceans and polar regions, Starlink is positioned to connect passengers wherever your flight routes evolve.” However, with monthly fees ranging from $12,500-$25,000 and a one-time hardware installation cost of $150,000 the question of accessibility has been thrown out the door. The kits will include the Aero Terminal (an “electronically steered phased array antenna” that sits flush to the plane’s surface) 2 wireless access points. The service noted there are no long-term contracts and any hardware is covered by warranty for as long as the buyer subscribes. Starlink has already secured a deal with Hawaiian Airlines to provide their Wi-Fi service to passengers, according to a report from CNBC. The report further detailed the airline will provide the service to passengers for free across their Boeing 787s and 717s. SpaceX has also secured a contract with charter carrier JSK. It’s a direct challenge to Gogo, the leading inflight connectivity provider. Buyers can begin accessing Starlink Aviation at the start of 2023.

Klarna launches new creator features and shoppable video • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 19, 2022Posted in Apps, Commerce, e-commerce, Fintech, Klarna, online shopping, retailersNo Comments

As consumers turn to content creators to influence their online shopping habits, Klarna, the buy now, pay later platform, today launched a new Klarna Creator app for retailers and influencers to collaborate on brand campaigns and to track earnings, performance and sales. Klarna’s creator platform allows over 50,000 vetted creators to have access to leading brands and retailers. Retailers can use the app to direct message a creator they want to partner with and send them products for content. The app also has a tracking feature to watch sales and commissions. The new creator tool is available for desktops, iOS devices and Android devices. Separately, the company also announced new features and updates to its Klarna platform, which rolled out to the U.S. today. These include shoppable video content, a new search and discovery tool, as well as a donations feature and an upgraded CO2e tracker. Image Credits: Klarna Over 150 million global consumers use Klarna’s platform for its flexible payment options. Consumers can shop from 400,000 retailers on the app while having the choice to pay immediately, pay later or pay over time. With today’s announcement, the Sweden-based company hopes to move beyond being just a payment platform but a place for consumers to search and discover, for influencers to create content and for retailers to promote their products. “Seventeen years ago, Klarna started as a place where you could pay…With this latest product release, we strengthen our position as a true shopping utility for consumers and a growth partner for retailers and lay the groundwork for a new era of shopping where the entirety of the world’s commerce will be condensed into one single point,” Klarna co-founder and CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski told ZebethMedia. The most notable feature added to Klarna’s platform is the “Watch and shop” widget. According to Klarna’s 2022 Holiday report, 65% of Gen Z favor video content when shopping online. So, as Gen Z shoppers turn to video-based platforms like TikTok and Instagram, consumers can also go to Klarna for video content that’s specifically tailored for shopping and discovering products by well-known brands. At launch, 70 cosmetics brands use the feature, such as Haus Labs By Lady Gaga, e.l.f. Cosmetics, Keys Soulcare and more, with videos on the app ranging from unboxings, tutorials and reviews. Consumers can also save videos of brands they like or add them to their wishlists. Since soft launching “Watch and shop” three months ago, the brands “see an average click-through rate 3x higher than click-through rates of social media platforms,” Siemiatkowski claimed. Image Credits: Klarna The new search and compare tool allows consumers to look up what products are on sale, the lowest price, rankings, ratings, shipping options and what’s in stock. Consumers can also use automated coupons at check-out to save even more money. Klarna is also expanding its sustainability efforts with an upgraded CO2 tracker and a new donations feature. The tracker displays emissions from over 50 million products, bringing more awareness to carbon footprints. Consumers can use the donations feature to donate products to high-impact organizations.

Deliveroo confirms Dutch exit next month • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 19, 2022Posted in Commerce, Deliveroo, economic downturn, on-demand deliveryNo Comments

Deliveroo has confirmed it’s exiting the Netherlands following an announcement this summer that it was consulting on pulling out of the market. In a statement today, the on-demand delivery app said its consultation had concluded that achieving and sustaining a top-tier market position in the market would require “a disproportionate level of investment with highly uncertain long-term potential returns” — with Deliveroo reiterating that the market represented just 1% of its gross transaction value (GTV) in the first half of this year. “The decision to end operations in the Netherlands reflects the company’s disciplined focus on continuing to maximise returns on investment of resources while meeting existing profitability targets against a challenging economic backdrop,” it said, making a reference to the downturn that’s been driving losses for on-demand delivery players. The decision to terminate operations in the Netherlands does not impact previously communicated full year guidance on Group annual GTV growth and gross profit margin, it added. Deliveroo’s final operating day of service in the Netherlands will be November 30. It also said compensation packages were agreed with employees and riders during the consultation. Commenting in a statement, Eric French, its chief business officer for its international unit, added: “We want to thank all the riders and restaurant partners who have worked with Deliveroo in the Netherlands, as well as our customers. The company is proud to have partnered with some of the Netherland’s best restaurants, grocers and riders. We are grateful to our employees for their commitment to the company and all they have done. We also thank the many riders who chose to work with us for their hard work and we are pleased to have agreed appropriate compensation packages for them as well as our employees.” As it exits the Netherlands, Deliveroo’s operational footprint will be trimmed back to ten markets — with service remaining in Australia, Belgium, France, Hong Kong, Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and the U.K. Dutch app users in larger cities like Amsterdam have a number of rival options for ordering a hot meal or speedy groceries via their smartphone — from on-demand delivery players like UberEats, Gorillas and Flink — although, with the quick commerce space also weathering tough times, further near-term service flux can’t be ruled out.

Nigerian retail automation platform Bumpa raises $4M, led by Base10 Partners • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 19, 2022Posted in africa, Base10 Partners, bumpa, Commerce, StartupsNo Comments

Millions of small and medium businesses still operate inefficiently due to dependency on manual processes, which limits their capacity to grow and scale; this is despite contributing to about 48% of Nigeria’s GDP in the last five years, But the tide is turning. Over the last couple of months, we’ve seen a wave of upstarts launching solutions geared toward digitizing small business operations. In the latest development, Bumpa, one of them which says it is building the infrastructure to power online commerce and enable African small business owners to start, manage and grow their businesses from their mobile devices, has raised a $4 million seed round. The company, which announced a $200,000 pre-seed last September, said it intends to use the investment to hire talent, build up its processes, structure, and scale into new African markets. Founded by Kelvin Umechukwu and Adetunji Opayele, Bumpa intends to use the investment to hire talent, build up its processes and structure and scale into new African markets. It announced a $200,000 pre-seed last September. The platform’s origin story can be traced to 2018 when founders Kelvin Umechukwu and Adetunji Opayele — while running another startup that involved consulting for small businesses — built websites for small business owners interested in coming online for the first time. Subsequent versions were tailored in Shopify’s image: a basic website builder small businesses could use without much assistance. However, after gaining little traction, it was clear that Bumpa had to evolve to meet the growing demands of businesses on the platform, including recording sales and bookkeeping, inventory tracking, and storing customer details. It also helped that both founders came from families of small business owners, so they had a firsthand view of these problems. And as businesses moved online in droves when COVID hit in 2020, Bumpa returned to the drawing board, revamped its product and launched a new version into the market the following year. This version lets businesses create websites in “60 seconds,” accept payments, manage inventory, handle bookkeeping, fulfil orders and engage customers. “We’re trying to solve the inefficiencies small businesses face as most of them have operated in a black hole for the longest time. They don’t have enough data and insights into what’s happening, what’s being sold and how their products are being sold,” CEO Umechukwu said on a call with ZebethMedia. “While many startups are trying to solve this, we’re doing it differently. We’re evolving, and we consider our features as the foundation of what is possible with Bumpa.” Bumpa 2.0: Integrating an ecosystem of products These days, small businesses in Nigeria are spoilt with options, in addition to Bumpa, for products that can digitize their operations, including bookkeeping, invoicing and inventory management. Some include Pastel, Kippa and OZÉ. In August, Bumpa made a move that conveyed a message: It approached its relationship with small businesses differently as a retail automation company, not an embedded finance platform. “I think the ideology and the product direction between Bumpa and other companies differ. Most of them have fintech elements; we are not trying to be fintech — we’re in the retail automation space,” CEO Umechukwu expressed. “We’re not trying to solve things in fintech that have already been solved. There are new things that have not been tested before, like the Meta integration.” Our big announcement is finally here! Bumpa has now integrated Meta to make selling on Instagram 5x faster! Business owners can now connect their Instagram business account with Bumpa, receive Instagram DMs directly on their Bumpa app & sell products @ Bumpa speed.#BumpaXMeta pic.twitter.com/DMRrW2HEpN — Bumpa (@getBumpa) August 1, 2022 Bumpa’s integration with Meta allows its merchants to connect Instagram and Facebook accounts to their Bumpa app, receive DMs from their customers and respond via the Bumpa app. The integration also lets them share and sell products, share invoices/receipts, record sales, store buyers’ information and request payments on the Bumpa app while it reflects on their customers’ Instagram DMs. All these transactions occur without the merchants leaving Bumpa and the buyer leaving Instagram. Several tech onlookers have lauded the Meta integration, which, according to Umechukwu, will carry Bumpa to its next phase: bringing various digital solutions essential to the daily operations of small businesses and integrating them under the social commerce and retail automation platform. “There’s so much fragmentation in the space. A business owner probably uses up to 10 solutions, including social media, payments, invoicing, logistics and marketplace apps. But none of these solutions communicate with one another,” he said. “We want to be that connecting platform on the continent. The idea now is to connect all of these solutions and channels that small businesses use together with a click of a button and basically facilitate the transfer of information for efficiency.” That said, Bumpa would not be heading into this Herculean task blindly. It will prioritize based on orders and activities completed on the platform. For instance, what drove the Meta integration was that 40% of all the orders on Bumpa come from Instagram and WhatsApp. And in a subtle bid to bring conversational commerce to over 50,000 small businesses on its platform, the next couple of integrations will include WhatsApp, Messenger and Google My Business. The play is similar to what Charles has in Europe. These integrations are not free, though. Bumpa has latched them to a subscription plan to complement its first revenue stream: commissions on online transactions. Umechukwu said subscriptions have doubled Bumpa’s revenues from Q2 to Q3 this year. Generally, Bumpa has completed over 200,000 orders since its inception and recorded a GMV of more than $20 million. Base10 Partners, the world’s largest Black-led fund, is the lead investor in Bumpa’s seed round; it’s the firm’s second investment in Africa after Okra, a Nigerian API fintech. Other participating investors include Plug & Play Ventures, SHL Capital, emerging markets-focused fund Magic Fund, Jedar Capital, DFS Labs, FirstCheck Africa Angel Program, E62 Ventures, Club14 and Fast Forward Ventures. Fast Forward Ventures’ managing partner Opeyemi Awoyemi said Bumpa

MaxAB, an Egyptian B2B e-commerce platform for food and grocery supplies, nabs $40M • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 19, 2022Posted in africa, b2b e-commerce retail, Commerce, e-commerce, Fintech, MaxAB, StartupsNo Comments

Last year, MaxAB, the food and grocery B2B e-commerce and distribution platform serving a network of traditional retailers across Egypt and Morocco, raised its $55 million Series A in two tranches; the latter accompanied its acquisition of the Morocco-based and YC-backed WaysToCap. The moves signaled MaxAB’s ambition to dominate Egypt’s and North Africa’s B2B retail and e-commerce market, which includes Cartona and the troubled Capiter, other players that have raised significant capital to compete within the past year. To continue growth due to the rising demand for food and groceries and fuel its expansion across the MENAP region, MaxAB has raised more money, this time a pre-Series A to the tune of $40 million. Although smaller than last year’s prized round, CEO Belal El-Megharbel told ZebethMedia that the pre-Series A was neither a down round nor a flat round in terms of valuation. He also noted that the company raised new capital, not because it needed the money but because “there are many opportunities that we believe we can tap into quicker the more capitalized we are.” The asset-heavy MaxAB has raised over $100 million in total. Small traditional retailers serve as the backbone of the FMCG industry across Africa. For most B2B e-commerce platforms across the continent, groceries are one of the many consumer goods they help retailers source from suppliers. For MaxAB, that’s its sweet spot. And since its launch in 2018, MaxAB has connected suppliers with over 150,000 unique traditional retailers in this food and grocery supply chain across Egypt and Casablanca, Morocco, delivering over 2.5 million orders within this timeframe. MaxAB’s perspective of going deep rather than wide with its product offerings also extends to how it regards geographical expansion. After scaling its B2B grocery delivery across Egypt for over three years, it intends to utilize its network and relationships with local and multinational suppliers and advance full distribution into Morocco, which now accounts for 10% of MaxAB’s business, and entry into Saudi Arabia by the end of 2023. The company estimates that more than 750,000 mom-and-pop businesses require its services in Egypt and Morocco alone. At the same time, Saudi Arabia is appealing due to the government’s drive to digitize the informal sector and the FMCG’s willingness to explore new business models. “We’re trying to offer more services to the grocery stores since they are the foundation of the economy we operate in before jumping into these other supply chains. Think about Amazon; they kept selling books for eight years before adding another category. And that’s the school of thought we like to go with,” said the CEO who founded MaxAB with Mohamed Ben Halim. “In Egypt, we focused on launching the grocery supply chain and we’ll use the learnings that have come from that to launch across multiple markets. It’s easier to launch the grocery supply chain in various markets than launch, for example, electronics in our core market because it’s just a completely different business model that we have to relearn from scratch.” Another growth stream for MaxAB is the fintech business launched last year, which leverages its large pool of merchants and operational capacity to carry out cash collections. And its entry approach to offering financial services differs from the competition; it launched a bill aggregation product — which has grown 5x in transaction value since the start of the year — rather than a BNPL product that many B2B e-commerce platforms introduce to merchants first. It didn’t take long for MaxAB to delve into the popular B2B fintech category, though; last month, the platform launched a working capital product to its merchant base. However, like Wasoko, another B2B e-commerce platform based in sub-Saharan Africa, MaxAB opted not to raise debt financing to scale that part of its operations. According to El-Megharbel, who was an ex-general manager at Careem, MaxAB currently gets a lot of supplier credit that helps it finance the working capital without raising debt, at least for now. “And because the buy now, pay later product is still early, we can still do some financing with equity without having to pay for debt that we won’t be utilizing in the short term,” the CEO added. MaxAB’s equity round includes an impressive list of new investors: DisruptAD, ADQ’s venture capital platform; the British International Investment (BII); and the Menlo Park–headquartered private equity firm Silver Lake — its first check of any form in an African startup. Silver Lake invested through its Long-Term Capital strategy with Mubadala Investment Company. “We’re always proud of our ability to attract top-tier investors to the region. Historically, since our seed round, we’ve always had at least one VC that has invested in Egypt, North Africa or Africa for the first time,” said El-Megharbel on the investment, referencing firms such as 4DX Ventures and Flourish Ventures. They participated in this round alongside other existing investors, Beco Capital and Africa Platform Capital.

Mother Honestly’s new commerce offering aims to give employees more freedom when it comes to caregiv • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 18, 2022Posted in Battlefield, battlefield 2022, Commerce, Disrupt, Fintech, Mother Honestly, StartupsNo Comments

Being a working parent is challenging. Being a working mother, according to many studies, is extra challenging. Many mothers have had the unfortunate experience of having to choose between their careers and children as the balancing act of both can be overwhelming. Factor in aging parents and the number of women who are caregivers for multiple people is greater than ever. To address this, Blessing Adesiyan launched Mother Honestly. Today, the company reaches more than 1 million working parents, caregivers, employers and business leaders. It has generated about $1 million in revenue since inception. And while its initial focus was on working parents, it has broadened its scope to help caregivers of all kinds — regardless of gender. Now, to further extend its reach, Mother Honestly is presenting a new commerce offering at ZebethMedia’s Startup Battlefield. Adesiyan had her first child while she was in college and remembers taking her daughter with her to an internship she had at one multinational corporation. Upon graduating, she started immediately working with Fortune 100 companies such as PepsiCo, DuPont, BASF and Cargill. Once she got into the workforce, she poured herself into her work while managing her caregiving responsibilities, and concluded early on it was “not designed” for her — “a single mother, a black woman that was a chemical engineer who really wanted to remain ambitious.” She knew she wasn’t the only working mother who felt that way, so she created multiple Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) within those companies around parents and caregiving. A bit scarred from her first foray into the corporate world, Adesiyan admits she was actually “terrified of having more kids” without her career being “solid.” Eventually, she had her second child nine years after giving birth to her first. All of the feelings she had when starting her career began coming back — the recognition of a lack of a reliable and affordable care infrastructure, a lack of support from her supervisors and having to spend a small fortune flying her parents back and forth from Nigeria to take care of her children when she had to travel for work. “I eventually ran out of money, and couldn’t keep flying them back and forth,” Adesiyan recalls. The straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak, was when she was consulting for a large chemical company and was asked to travel to Morocco. She called her then-boss, asking if the company could provide a stipend toward meeting some of her caregiving obligations. Her boss’s response, Adesiyan told ZebethMedia, shocked her. “He told me it was important that I keep my professional and personal life separate, and that a male colleague had been doing this for 10 years and had never asked for that kind of support,” she recounts. “So I said, ‘No offense, my colleague is a white man with a stay-at-home wife who subsidizes the cost of care.’” Two weeks later, Adesiyan had landed another job, but she was still angry at the thought that she was “making millions of dollars” for a company which “thought it was too much to support” her caregiving needs. She added: “I was out of the country two weeks at a time, and I was a single mom, an immigrant with no real network to support me.” In frustration, Adesiyan turned to Instagram to ask others how they were effectively managing work and family. “People started sending DMs and videos, and she had amassed about 10,000 followers in three months,” Adesiyan recalls. That turned into a conference in Detroit that had hundreds of attendees from all over the country. And by 2018, Mother Honestly — a startup that Adesiyan says was “somewhat of an external ERG” — was born. The website was initially built to offer content and community to caregivers who needed support. “I wanted to support mothers holistically in balancing their careers and personal lives, and I wanted them to do it honestly without comparing themselves to others,” she recalls. “It became clear that only a parent could actually solve this problem holistically, so I like to think of our product as ‘built by mothers, for everyone.’” By 2020, Adesiyan left her job in engineering to focus full time on her venture. Current customers include Indeed, Care.com, Splendid Spoon, Bobbie, Nanit and more. Past customers include Lincoln, Google, JP Morgan Chase, Bright Horizons, Pacira and others. Bootstrapped since inception, Mother Honestly has thus far made money primarily from brand partnerships with the likes of Indeed, Care.com and Splendid Spoon, doing things like co-creating content for employee caregivers together. The natural evolution of Mother Honestly has led to the creation of something Adesiyan believes has been missing, but is crucially needed, in the workforce: a Work-Life Wallet. Mother Honestly will make money by charging a fee to provide the wallet that would give employees the freedom to spend on things such as caregiving or medical travel. Mother Honestly would serve as a middleman, either denying or approving the expenses based on predetermined categories so that employees would have privacy and not have do disclose personal details to their employers. For Adesiyan, widespread adoption would be a dream come true. “Employers, instead of wasting millions of dollars away at EAP (Employee Assistance Programs) that employees don’t use, can redirect their cash into the hands of their employees via our Work-Life Wallet, which they can customize who gets how much and over what time period,” she said.

‘Investors got scared off by Amazon’s attack’ • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 18, 2022Posted in Commerce, Disrupt, Marc Lore, Startups, TechCrunch Disrupt 2022No Comments

Way back in 2010, Marc Lore struck a more than half-a-billion dollar deal to sell Quidsi — the company behind Diapers.com and Soap.com — to Amazon. The blow-out acquisition helped turn Amazon into “the everything store,” but twelve years later, Lore described the sale as “upsetting.” “We sold out,” said Lore — who co-founded both Quidsi.com and Jet.com — at Disrupt 2022. “With Walmart, we were happy to sell; we saw that as a way to accelerate our vision,” said the billionaire of the 2016 sale of Jet.com to Walmart. The “Amazon situation was different. It was a forced situation. We did not want to sell,” Lore said on stage in conversation with ZebethMedia’s Ingrid Lunden. To stick it to the competition, Amazon “cut the price of diapers by 30%, right? Which is unheard of,” recalled Lore. But in the face of ratcheting pressure, the former Quidsi executive claimed his now-defunct business was “still growing nicely.” Lore claimed this was among the reasons why Amazon ultimately decided snapped up the brand. But before that point, Lore believed that Quidsi needed to raise at least $100 million more to adequately challenge Amazon— an especially hefty sum at the time. Only, he couldn’t secure it. (In all, Quidsi raised around $79 million in equity and debt from investors, including Accel, Bessemer Venture Partners and Pinnacle Ventures.) “That’s what it would have taken to feel like we had enough capital to really do it,” said Lore. “And yeah, the investors got scared off by Amazon’s attack.” In a side note, Lore claimed that Quidsi also “had an offer from another company” for “like $100 million more,” yet the co-founder enigmatically declined to share additional details. A day after the Amazon-Quidsi transaction closed, Lore said that he and others from the company went to a bar, “drinking our tears away” over “how upsetting it was, because we sold out.” “We were building something really special,” Lore added, citing Wag.com and other sites under the now-extinct Quidsi umbrella. In the eyes of the co-founder, Quidsi’s customer experience back then “was a lot better than you’d find on Amazon or anywhere else.” But $100 million “was a lot of money” back then, and Lore concluded: “People were just scared of Amazon.”

Marc Lore shares exclusive details on Jump Platforms, his stealth sports ticketing startup • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 18, 2022Posted in Commerce, Disrupt, dynamic pricing, Marc Lore, Sports, Startups, TechCrunch Disrupt 2022No Comments

Today at ZebethMedia Disrupt, serial entrepreneur Marc Lore disclosed exclusive details about a new dynamic ticketing startup, still in stealth, that he founded with former New York Yankee all-star Alex Rodriguez. Called Jump Platforms, the company will sell access to seats that free up when people leave midway through a game. Fans already at the game are alerted when better seats become available. Pricing starts high and drops depending on demand in a reverse auction format. Lore, who co-owns the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves with A-Rod, has applied for a patent that is still pending. He said he started looking into dynamic ticketing years ago when he was attending various sporting events. “I just felt like wow, why are all the seats empty close to the field or close to the arena? And why, when people leave, like when they leave the baseball game in the eighth inning, and all these incredible seats — why do they have people that don’t let anyone go down?” he said, referring to event security staff. “Nobody’s sitting there.” “So I thought, why couldn’t you — this was the patent — dynamically in real time make these seats available so that people could could jump to any new seat so they would always be filled in. Everybody from the top would naturally come down because there would be a reverse auction,” Lore said. “I call it dynamic real-time ticketing. There’s lots of other things you can do with that technology.” Lore assigned the patent to the company and is an investor in the startup. Jump is still in stealth mode, according to CEO Jordy Leiser’s LinkedIn profile. According to incorporation papers filed in Delaware, the company was founded in August 2021.

Snapcommerce grabs its cape and becomes Super • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 18, 2022Posted in Commerce, debit card, Fintech, Hussein Fazal, Snapcommerce, SuperNo Comments

Mobile shopping experience company Snapcommerce is moving from commerce to fintech, unveiling both a new name, Super, and a new credit card product. The company, which raised $85 million last year, describes its SuperCash card as a “first-of-its-kind, debt-protecting card” that provides users with rewards and cash back in a way that enables them to build credit. Here’s how it works: anyone can apply for the card — there are no credit checks or minimum purchases — and it connects to the user’s debit card. So they spend the same way, but instead of not getting any rewards from the debit card, SuperCash users get a whopping 10% cash back on SuperTravel, 5% on SuperShop and 2% everywhere else Mastercard is accepted, Hussein Fazal, Super CEO, told ZebethMedia. When building Snapcommerce, the company noticed that the majority of its customers were paying with a debit card. “It’s because they typically didn’t have access to credit or they were afraid of credit, and in fact, 54% said they wanted access to credit and they couldn’t get it,” Fazal added. “Launching this SuperCash Card makes you think holistically about how all this stuff works together. For every spend decision our customers make, we want them to come to us because it’s a better way to spend because they’re going to save 20% to 30% on hotels and build a credit score while getting 2% cashback.” Radhika Duggal, Super’s chief marketing officer, told ZebethMedia that the decision to change the company’s name to Super was a move to continue to be top-of-mind with customers. “It really delivered on the mission that we’re trying to focus on which is enabling consumers to spend less, save more and build credit to make the most out of their lives,” Duggal said. “‘Super’ was a word that we really gravitated to because it had strength, excitement and positivity associated with it. We want consumers to feel that way and feel good about the decisions that they make.” Fazal explained the strategy for pivoting from a commerce focus to a fintech focus was centered around Super’s customers and understanding how to better serve them. The company relies on a lot of data, and when it was telling them that customers didn’t just want to save more, but needed to save more, he felt Super was in a “unique position to be able to help them do that” by moving closer to the intersection of commerce and fintech and by removing barriers to a better credit score. Meanwhile, Super had been operating with a waitlist, of which Fazal said 10% of its over 7 million customers had signed up, and officially opened up its credit applications today. To date, Super raised over $100 million in venture-backed capital, surpassed $1 billion in sales, saved consumers $145 million, and, based on its last quarter, has over $100 million net revenue annualized business, Fazal said. In the past year, the company also increased its head count from 70 to 200 employees. “Hitting those growth levels has resulted in a lot of inbound interest from investors,” he added. “We have a lot of cash on the balance sheet, so we aren’t aggressively going to try and fundraise, but sort of given all the inbound interest, we probably will close on some funding before the end of the year.”

Advances in fit technology could minimize those onerous online returns • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 18, 2022Posted in Bessemer Venture Partners, Commerce, EC Ecommerce and D2C, eCommerce, Kent BennettNo Comments

If you’ve watched even one episode of “Project Runway,” you’ve noted that clothing designers use a “fit model” as the basis for creating their garments. That same method is used by clothing brands all over the world. However, everyone’s body shape is different, and very few of us are built like a fit model, so how the outfit looks on the person modeling the clothes online and how it fits an individual person can also be radically different. Startups and big retailers have jumped in with technology to help brands better manage returns, but they’re also attempting to tackle the root cause — the fit itself. However, Bessemer Venture Partners partner Kent Bennett said not enough attention is being focused on fit technology. “This is an area that people are not covering as closely as they should be,” he told ZebethMedia. “It’s such a huge part of our lives, but one where I think the tech has gotten a little older and dusty, and I do think there’s potential for a revolution here.”