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 Adobe Analytics, sales were up by 7.5% on last year’s numbers (you can see those here). Sales easily surpassed […]

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Sam Altman launches eyeball-scanning Worldcoin to ‘drastically increase economic opportunity’

Worldcoin Foundation, Sam Altman’s crypto startup with the vision to “drastically increase economic opportunity,” has started the rollout of its services in 20 nations. The startup said it’s rolling out its identity technology as well as the token internationally. Individuals can download World App, the startup’s protocol-compatible wallet software and visit an Orb, the startup’s helmet-shaped eyeball-scanning verification device, to receive their World ID. As TechCrunch has previously noted , Worldcoin is perhaps one of the most audacious efforts to bribe the world to embrace their currency. The startup, founded by OpenAI CEO Altman and Alex Blania, wants to put a crypto wallet (and some of their currency) onto every human’s smartphone, but in order to do so they have to build a way to determine whether someone is a unique human. “If successful, we believe Worldcoin could drastically increase economic opportunity, scale a reliable solution for distinguishing humans for AI online wh...

A judge dismissed Phhhoto’s antitrust suit against Meta

A U.S. District Court Judge for the Eastern District of New York threw out a lawsuit against Meta this week that had been simmering for a year and a half. The suit, filed in late 2021 by now-shuttered social app Phhhoto, alleged that Meta violated federal antitrust law by copying its core features with the Instagram-adjacent video looping app Boomerang . Like Boomerang, which Meta launched in October of 2015 and later integrated into Instagram itself, Phhhoto invited users to share very short GIF-like loops. U.S. District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto ultimately granted Meta’s motion to dismiss the complaint due to time-limits imposed by the relevant statutes of limitations. “Phhhoto has failed in its 69-page Amended Complaint of 222 paragraphs to allege sufficient facts that cure the untimeliness of all of its federal claims,” Matsumoto wrote in the opinion, calling the possibility of any amendment to resolve the issue of the lawsuit’s timing “futile.” New antitrust suit from Phhhoto a...

Ivella is the latest fintech focused on couples banking, with a twist

Money can make people moody. There are layers of privilege, or lack thereof, that can make even the simplest conversation about bills feel like baggage to deal with. Translate that discomfort to relationships and it can feel like an awkward — and fragmented — dance on who pays which bill when (and how). Ivella , a Santa Monica-based startup, wants to build banking products for couples to take away some of these tensions. Led by CEO and co-founder Kahlil Lalji , the startup is launching with a split account product that just raised $3.5 million in funding from Anthemis, Financial Venture Studio and Soma Capital. Other investors include Y Combinator, DoNotPay CEO Joshua Browder and Gumroad CEO Sahil Lavingia. Lalji, who helped creators with digital content before jumping into the world of fintech, says that the startup was born out of his own frustration at the expectation that couples would just use Venmo unless they were married. The best solution, so far, has been joint accounts...

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