cross-border-commerce
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Sky Xu Built a Fashion Machine. Then He Finally Stepped Into View.
For years, SHEIN's founder let software, suppliers and parcels do the talking. In 2026, the quiet architect of ultra-fast fashion walked onstage - just as the private machine he built entered public life.
The Snack Box That Refused to Be Cute
Bokksu began with a suitcase, an unpaid intern named Mom, and a stubborn thesis: Japanese snacks could travel without turning Japan into a cartoon. Then one successful Facebook campaign broke the warehouse.
Red Harp Union and the work after the click
Selling a consumer brand abroad takes more than a good campaign. Red Harp Union puts brand storytelling, sales channels and customer support in the same conversation - with a Philips Water case study that shows both the promise and the friction.
SHOPLINE sells the shop behind the shop
A storefront gets the applause. SHOPLINE wants the inventory, payments and repeat orders to work together - and its best sales pitch is the work a merchant can stop doing.
Ella Zhang Built the Back Room - Then Went Looking for the Next Frontier
From Tencent’s founding e-commerce team to a garage-born fashion platform, Zhang learned to prize the infrastructure nobody sees. Now she is carrying that operator’s instinct back into venture investing at YZi Labs.
The Company Running the Store Behind the Store
Baozun built its name doing the unglamorous work behind online retail. Now it is testing whether the machinery that runs a brand can become a brand business of its own.
Jumia's Real Product Is the Road Between a Click and a Front Door
The pan-African marketplace is learning that the hard part of online shopping is not the screen. It is everything that must happen after a customer taps buy.
The $2.9 Billion Vitamin Cabinet That Learned to Travel
iHerb began with one herbal remedy and grew into a cross-border machine for the bathroom cabinet. Its real product is confidence - the right bottle, from a traceable source, delivered before global distance becomes the customer's problem.
Avalara
Avalara built a large software business by hiding one of commerce's least-loved chores inside the systems companies already use. Now it wants AI agents to calculate, classify and file without waiting for a human to open the tax screen.