The Weekly Sweep: June 25 - June 30
Ecommerce:
Fenty Beauty is partnering with Roblox for a four-week virtual experience where players can engage in scavenger hunts, explore mazes, and learn about Fenty products. New avatar accessories will be released weekly and users can create custom Fenty lip glosses in the virtual Fenty Beauty Lab. The creation with the most votes will be selected by CEO Rihanna to be produced and sold on Fenty Beauty and Sephora websites in 2024.
Cart.com, a commerce solution provider, has shared it has raised 60 million dollars in a Series C equity funding round, bringing its valuation to 1.2 billion dollars. Funds will be used to meet increased demand from enterprise and B2B clients, as well as accelerating the company’s international expansion and expanding product development. Cart.com offers software, services and fulfillment solutions for multichannel commerce brands and large enterprises, for which it is looking to expand on its software and artificial intelligence capabilities to further enable greater order and inventory control.
YouTube is launching its first official shopping channel in South Korea today, June 30 2023, making Youtube the world's pioneer in this domain. The channel will provide a live commerce platform for around 30 brands at its launch. YouTube's move into the shopping space aims to create an engaging and entertaining shopping experience for users in Korea. This strategy strives to foster more creators, increase content from creators and viewership from fans, and create new opportunities for advertisers.?
Unspun, a textile innovator, has shared that they have raised 14 million dollars in a Series A funding round to support Vega, its 3D weaving technology. The money will be used to help the company expand Vega’s manufacturing operations. Unspun’s proprietary technology powers Vega machinery, which can weave a pair of pants in under 10 minutes directly from yarns, both reducing the time for finishing and transportation costs and emissions.The approach allows products to be created upon request, minimizing waste and giving brands further control over their inventory.
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Web3
On Thursday, Lacoste expanded their NFT ecosystem and introduced a rewards and co-creation feature for its UNDW3 community. Lacoste released their UNDW3 collection of 11,212 profile picture NFTs in June 2022, offering "Genesis Passes" to holders as the company teased plans for a Web3 expansion, and by owning the NFTs, the community was able to access limited-edition merchandise and in-person community events. The latest expansion of Lacoste’s Web3 universe gives Genesis Pass holders the ability to convert their NFTs into an UNDW3 card and connect their wallets to a dedicated site to gain access to "creative sessions”, contests, video games and interactive conversations.
Crossmint is rolling out a NFT wallet-as-a-service to aid companies in implementing simplified, interoperable blockchain technologies into their existing goods and services. The wallet-as-a-service tech stack allows firms to create smart contracts and send NFTs via email and generate wallets for NFT collectors. The white-label product will also allow users to connect their wallets to third-party sites using decentralized application services, Wallet Connect or Crossmint Connect. Additionally, the service allows users to purchase NFTs in fiat.
Digital fashion platform SYKY has launched The SYKY Collective, a one year-long incubator program to help emerging digital designers grow their brands. The inaugural class includes 10 designers. With the goal of “disrupting” the traditional fashion industry, the group will work together to develop their individual brands and pave the way for the fast-evolving world of digital fashion, and the members of the group will be releasing their first collections on SYKY later this year.
The United States Secret Service has finally shared more details on their bizarre NFT collection. The collection was first revealed during a Reddit AMA on May 16 2023, where agents answered questions from members of the r/cryptocurrency subreddit about their involvement in cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. Agents from the Secret Service’s “Digital Asset Technology Alliance” (DATA) Squad, said they wanted to better understand how NFTs worked and the agency also has interest in the broader crypto ecosystem.
The Faroe Islands have issued a new series of digital “crypto stamps,” with a digital copy stored on the blockchain as a NFT while still serving as actual postage. On June 23 2023, the Posta Faroe Islands’ official website for issuing postage shared that they issued its first collection of crypto stamps called Stamps of Maybe in collaboration with VariusSystems.