Welcome to the Moast newsletter. We spend the week collecting news, trends, and other content that we think would be interesting to e-commerce founders and CMOs. Our goal is to provide value without sounding like a promo for our app. Helpful wether you use Moast or not.

OpenAI confidentially filed its S-1 with the SEC this week, targeting a September IPO at a valuation somewhere between $852 billion and $1 trillion. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are leading the deal. The company is generating $2 billion a month in revenue and growing fast. It's also losing $1.22 for every dollar it makes. The IPO race is officially on, SpaceX, Anthropic, and Oura all filed the same week.

Here's what else caught our attention this week 👇

1/ DTC Headlines

Amer Sports (Arc'teryx, Salomon, Wilson) posts 32% revenue growth and has no idea when tariff refunds are coming

-> Q1 revenue hit $1.9B, up 32% YoY. Arc'teryx technical apparel up 33%, Salomon outdoor performance up 42%. Wilson up 13%.

-> CFO Andrew Page: the company has filed for tariff refunds and received a small amount, but has "no visibility at all" on timing or scale.

-> The upshot: premium sports and outdoor is "one of the healthiest segments in all of consumer",refunds or not.

What Amer Sports' tariff refund uncertainty says about the state of retail right now →

Article, the DTC furniture brand, is opening its first US stores this fall

-> San Francisco and Bellevue, WA - both chosen because e-commerce performance was already strong in those markets.

-> Its Vancouver debut store drove 47% revenue growth in the local market and AOV in-store was 20%+ higher than online.

-> The classic DTC playbook: prove the product online, use store data to justify physical, open where your fans already are.

Why Article is betting that its best e-commerce markets are also its best store markets →

Harry Styles' Pleasing launches its first tech collab, with Loop Earplugs

-> Two limited-edition colorways ("Loud Enough" in blue, "Love Enough" in pink) at $39.95, built for live music environments.

-> Timed to Harry's "Together, Together" world tour, debuted at an immersive pop-up in Amsterdam before global sale on May 21.

-> A clean example of how a lifestyle brand crosses into tech without losing its aesthetic, earplugs are now a Pleasing product.

Why the Pleasing x Loop collab is a masterclass in brand extension →

TikTok World 2026: AI agents can now manage your TikTok ad campaigns for you

-> The new TikTok Ads MCP Server lets external AI tools like Claude and ChatGPT connect directly to TikTok's ad platform and run campaigns autonomously.

-> Also new: TopReach bundles TopView + TopFeed into a single buy guaranteeing 100% reach in a day, and Dreamina Seedance 2.0 powers AI video creative.

-> The goal is to own the full path from "I saw it" to "I bought it", with AI making more decisions in between.

What TikTok World's ad AI tools mean for DTC marketers →

Trump's financial disclosure reveals a $1M-$5M bet on Kura Sushi - a conveyor belt sushi chain

-> The disclosure shows 3,700+ trades in Q1 2026 totaling $220M-$750M - including Nvidia, Amazon, Apple... and Kura Sushi USA.

-> The internet's reaction: Trump famously hates raw fish. Internet consensus is that his bankers accidentally bought it instead of Fujikura (a Japanese tech company).

-> Kura Sushi stock jumped 6% on the news anyway. KRUS stock is officially a meme now.

The story behind Trump's surprise sushi investment →

Oura files confidentially for IPO at an $11B valuation

-> The Finnish smart ring maker submitted its S-1 to the SEC this week, targeting a listing later in 2026.

-> Revenue hit $500M+ in 2024, $1B in 2025, and is tracking toward $1.5-2B in 2026. Half of all 5.5M rings ever sold shipped in the last 12 months.

-> 80% of users renew subscriptions after year one. Goldman, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, Allen & Co, and Jefferies are on the deal.

Why Oura's IPO is the most interesting consumer health listing in years →

A startup just raised $2M to find new scent molecules using machine learning

-> Patina is building a foundation model called Sense1 that maps how scent receptors in the nose actually work -- not just how humans describe smells.

-> Most scent molecules used in consumer products come from a handful of labs and haven't changed much in 50 years. Patina is trying to unlock new ones.

-> Funded by Betaworks and True Ventures. The founders met at a scent-focused art gallery in New York. Very DTC origin story.

Why AI-powered fragrance molecule design could change what your products smell like →

Jeff Bezos said lower earners shouldn't pay income tax. TechCrunch pushed back.

-> Bezos argued the bottom half of Americans - a nurse in Queens paying $12K on $75K - shouldn't be sending money to Washington.

-> TechCrunch's response: Bezos paid zero income tax in 2007 and 2011 by legally avoiding taxes on unrealized gains. He's the one not sending money to Washington.

-> Worth reading if you want a clear-eyed take on how billionaires make tax arguments that sound empathetic but miss the bigger picture.

Why Bezos' tax argument almost landed, but didn't →

Shein acquires Everlane for $100M - the internet is not happy

-> Everlane was built on "radical transparency" and sustainability. It had ~$90M in debt and L Catterton needed an exit. Shein offered $100M.

-> The CEO promises Everlane will remain "an independent brand, staying true to our sustainability commitments." Eco-Stylist immediately pulled its certification.

-> The headline in Fast Company: "The era of millennial optimism is officially over." That's about right.

What Shein's Everlane acquisition says about the state of sustainable fashion →

2/ Shopify

Harley Finkelstein on the Universal Commerce Protocol - the open standard for AI shopping

-> UCP is Shopify and Google's open-source protocol that lets AI agents speak directly to any merchant - on Shopify or not.

-> The pitch: instead of brands paying for ad placement, AI surfaces the best product for each shopper based on genuine preferences. Merit-based discovery.

-> AI-mediated orders on Shopify are up 15x since Jan 2025. This is early, but it's accelerating fast.

Harley Finkelstein on why UCP is the standard agentic commerce runs on →

Shopify's customer account sign-in page is now fully customizable

-> The new editor lets you match the sign-in experience to your brand - colors, logo, layout, messaging, without any code.

-> Finally brings the login experience in line with the rest of your storefront. One fewer off-brand moment in the purchase journey.

-> Available in the Shopify editor now for all stores using new customer accounts.

What Shopify's customizable sign-in page means for your customer experience →

3/ What We Found Interesting

What's really happening at Lululemon right now

-> Retail Dive's podcast breaks down the chaos: new CEO Heidi O'Neill hasn't started yet, stock is down 40%+ YTD, and founder Chip Wilson is waging a proxy fight with the board.

-> Wilson says the brand has "deprioritized creative excellence at the altar of efficiency." The board says his perspectives are "outdated" and his nominees would derail the turnaround.

-> The shareholder vote is June 25. The stakes are high enough that both sides have gone fully public with their arguments.

The full breakdown of what's actually happening inside Lululemon →

Amazon's Bee wearable: intriguing, slightly creepy, genuinely useful

-> A clip-on pin that records, transcribes, and summarizes your conversations throughout the day. Connects to your calendar and can draft emails or create meeting invites automatically.

-> The reviewer's verdict: works better than expected, raises real questions about whether you want an always-available transcript of your life.

-> At $50, it's the most affordable serious AI wearable on the market. Worth knowing about as the category matures.

An honest review of Amazon's Bee AI wearable →

The unlikely rise of Richard Mille - the watch everyone called ugly

-> Founded in 2001, Richard Mille makes ~5,300 watches a year with an average price of $250,000 and they're worn by Rafael Nadal, Jay-Z, Pharrell, and Jeremy Strong.

-> The design is intentionally polarizing: tonneau-shaped, skeletonized, made from aerospace materials. Diddy famously called them "ugly" while admitting he owns several.

-> In 22 years, RM went from a brand with no heritage to a $1.5B revenue business by making the price and the controversy the brand.

The story behind Richard Mille's rise to luxury dominance →

4/ What We Found Helpful

Google just overhauled its search box for the first time in 25 years

-> The new "Intelligent Search Box" expands dynamically, accepts text, images, files, videos, and Chrome tabs, and suggests queries that go beyond autocomplete.

-> It's powered by Gemini 3.5 Flash and rolling out globally now. AI Mode has 1 billion monthly users after just one year. Queries are at an all-time high.

-> This directly affects how your customers find products. Worth understanding what changed and how SEO and SEM strategy needs to adapt.

What Google's new intelligent search box means for your brand's visibility →

How to import TikTok and Instagram Reels directly into your Shopify store

-> A step-by-step guide to pulling your best social video content into Shopify, no re-uploading, no format conversion, no friction.

-> Once it's in your store, you can make it shoppable: product tags, direct add-to-cart, and embedded on PDPs, homepages, or collection pages.

-> If you're already creating content on TikTok and Instagram, this is the fastest way to put it to work in your store.

How to import TikTok and Reels into Shopify and make them shoppable →