Enterprise

SoftBank leads $150M round for Firework’s shoppable video

Comment

Image of a live agent on a laptop assisting an individual on a smartphone to represent inclusive e-commerce.
Image Credits: MicrovOne (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

Firework, a San Mateo livestreaming commerce company, secured $150 million in Series B funding led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2.

The company says it is now valued at $750 million. In 2021, Firework raised $55 million to value it at $230 million. Firework has now taken in more than $235 million in funding since it was founded in 2017 by co-founders Vincent Yang and Jerry Luk.

“We chose Softbank Investment Advisers because of their shared vision,” said Luk in a statement. “We have big ambitions at Firework — to become the infrastructure on which the next-generation of the internet is built and run — and Softbank Investment Advisers supports that vision.”

Firework provides shoppable video and livestreaming commerce capabilities for retailers, consumer brands and publishers that want to tap into their own customer data to build engaging video experiences across their own digital properties and social channels.

Last year, Firework was working with some 600 companies, including Albertsons Companies, The Fresh Market and Omnicom Media Group. Last October, Albertsons was the first U.S. grocer to utilize Firework’s platform to create, host and curate their own short-form and livestream video for the Albertsons brands websites and app to improve customer engagement.

The new funding comes as live commerce continues to grow in adoption. Live commerce is still most popular in China, where sales are expected to hit $423 billion in 2022. That compares to the U.S. live commerce market, which is poised to reach $35 billion in sales by 2024.

Firework’s co-founders say there is much opportunity to be had in a North American market where live commerce represents just 0.1% of overall online sales, or less than $6 billion. Other companies think so, too. Startups like Upmesh and Drip are also attracting some of those venture capital dollars; most recently Drip raised $28.5 million for its livestream shopping approach. The industry is also dominated by Whatnot and Popshop.

Firework’s new round is a chance to grab more of that market share and invest in its technology and product development, especially with a shift toward web3. As a result, the company will be adding to its employee headcount in engineering, product and marketing.

As part of the investment, Linda Yu, partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers, has joined Firework’s board of directors.

“Short videos and livestreaming are now the default language for the digital era, which is reshaping how consumers engage with brands and products online,” Yu said in a statement. “We believe Firework empowers businesses to use video to transform their websites into social and storytelling hubs so they can build deeper, long-term relationships with customers. Vincent and Jerry have assembled an impressive team in the digital commerce space and we’re thrilled to partner with them to build a next generation customer experience.”

Livestream e-commerce: Why companies and brands need to tune in

More TechCrunch

Silo, a Bay Area food supply chain startup, has hit a rough patch. TechCrunch has learned that the company on Tuesday laid off roughly 30% of its staff, or north…

Food supply chain software maker Silo lays off ~30% of staff amid M&A discussions

Featured Article

Meta’s new AI council is composed entirely of white men

Meanwhile, women and people of color are disproportionately impacted by irresponsible AI.

6 hours ago
Meta’s new AI council is composed entirely of white men

If you’ve ever wanted to apply to Y Combinator, here’s some inside scoop on how the iconic accelerator goes about choosing companies.

Garry Tan has revealed his ‘secret sauce’ for getting into Y Combinator

Indian ride-hailing startup BluSmart has started operating in Dubai, TechCrunch has exclusively learned and confirmed with its executive. The move to Dubai, which has been rumored for months, could help…

India’s BluSmart is testing its ride-hailing service in Dubai

Under the envisioned framework, both candidate and issue ads would be required to include an on-air and filed disclosure that AI-generated content was used.

FCC proposes all AI-generated content in political ads must be disclosed

Want to make a founder’s day, week, month, and possibly career? Refer them to Startup Battlefield 200 at Disrupt 2024! Applications close June 10 at 11:59 p.m. PT. TechCrunch’s Startup…

Refer a founder to Startup Battlefield 200 at Disrupt 2024

Social networking startup and X competitor Bluesky is officially launching DMs (direct messages), the company announced on Wednesday. Later, Bluesky plans to “fully support end-to-end encrypted messaging down the line,”…

Bluesky now has DMs

The perception in Silicon Valley is that every investor would love to be in business with Peter Thiel. But the venture capital fundraising environment has become so difficult that even…

Peter Thiel-founded Valar Ventures raised a $300 million fund, half the size of its last one

Featured Article

Spyware found on US hotel check-in computers

Several hotel check-in computers are running a remote access app, which is leaking screenshots of guest information to the internet.

10 hours ago
Spyware found on US hotel check-in computers

Gavet has had a rocky tenure at Techstars and her leadership was the subject of much controversy.

Techstars CEO Maëlle Gavet is out

The struggle isn’t universal, however.

Connected fitness is adrift post-pandemic

Featured Article

A comprehensive list of 2024 tech layoffs

The tech layoff wave is still going strong in 2024. Following significant workforce reductions in 2022 and 2023, this year has already seen 60,000 job cuts across 254 companies, according to independent layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi. Companies like Tesla, Amazon, Google, TikTok, Snap and Microsoft have conducted sizable layoffs in the first months of 2024. Smaller-sized…

11 hours ago
A comprehensive list of 2024 tech layoffs

HoundDog actually looks at the code a developer is writing, using both traditional pattern matching and large language models to find potential issues.

HoundDog.ai helps developers prevent personal information from leaking

The changes are designed to enhance the consumer experience of using Google Pay and make it a more competitive option against other payment methods.

Google Pay will now display card perks, BNPL options and more

Few figures in the tech industry have earned the storied reputation of Vinod Khosla, founder and partner at Khosla Ventures. For over 40 years, he has been at the center…

Vinod Khosla is coming to Disrupt to discuss how AI might change the future

AI has already started replacing voice agents’ jobs. Now, companies are exploring ways to replace the existing computer-generated voice models with synthetic versions of human voices. Truecaller, the widely known…

Truecaller partners with Microsoft to let its AI respond to calls in your own voice

Meta is updating its Ray-Ban smart glasses with new hands-free functionality, the company announced on Wednesday. Most notably, users can now share an image from their smart glasses directly to…

Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses now let you share images directly to your Instagram Story

Spotify launched its own font, the company announced on Wednesday. The music streaming service hopes that its new typeface, “Spotify Mix,” will help Spotify distinguish its own unique visual identity. …

Why Spotify is launching its own font, Spotify Mix

In 2008, Marty Kagan, who’d previously worked at Cisco and Akamai, co-founded Cedexis, a (now-Cisco-owned) firm developing observability tech for content delivery networks. Fellow Cisco veteran Hasan Alayli joined Kagan…

Hydrolix seeks to make storing log data faster and cheaper

A dodgy email containing a link that looks “legit” but is actually malicious remains one of the most dangerous, yet successful, tricks in a cybercriminal’s handbook. Now, an AI startup…

Bolster, creator of the CheckPhish phishing tracker, raises $14M led by Microsoft’s M12

If you’ve been looking forward to seeing Boeing’s Starliner capsule carry two astronauts to the International Space Station for the first time, you’ll have to wait a bit longer. The…

Boeing, NASA indefinitely delay crewed Starliner launch

TikTok is the latest tech company to incorporate generative AI into its ads business, as the company announced on Tuesday that it’s launching a new “TikTok Symphony” AI suite for…

TikTok turns to generative AI to boost its ads business

Gone are the days when space and defense were considered fundamentally antithetical to venture investment. Now, the country’s largest venture capital firms are throwing larger portions of their money behind…

Space VC closes $20M Fund II to back frontier tech founders from day zero

These days every company is trying to figure out if their large language models are compliant with whichever rules they deem important, and with legal or regulatory requirements. If you’re…

Patronus AI is off to a magical start as LLM governance tool gains traction

Link-in-bio startup Linktree has crossed 50 million users and is rolling out the beta of its social commerce program.

Linktree surpasses 50M users, rolls out its social commerce program to more creators

For a $5.99 per month, immigrants have a bank account and debit card with fee-free international money transfers and discounted international calling.

Immigrant banking platform Majority secures $20M following 3x revenue growth

When developers have a particular job that AI can solve, it’s not typically as simple as just pointing an LLM at the data. There are other considerations such as cost,…

Unify helps developers find the best LLM for the job

Response time is Aerodome’s immediate value prop for potential clients.

Aerodome is sending drones to the scene of the crime

Granola takes a more collaborative approach to working with AI.

Granola debuts an AI notepad for meetings