This Week in M&A Issue #219
January 12, 2026
Greetings earthlings 👽
Today’s trend of the week is “scalp care”.
Searches for scalp serums, massagers, and head spas are blowing up, thanks to TikTok routines, influencers, and relaxing before-and-after videos that are oddly satisfying to watch.
Beauty insiders are calling the scalp the new “it” body part, while searches for “head spas” have hit record highs on Google. But it’s not just about selling products. There’s room for educational content, simple how-to guides, subscription boxes, and partnerships with salons and head spas.
Is scalp care necessary for everyone? Probably not. But just like face masks or bath soaks, it feels good and feels indulgent. And that’s often enough. It’s about relaxation, self-care, and a little luxury. Right now, that’s exactly what consumers are buying into.
Today we have for you:
- A new wave of Public Domain classics is available to use in 2026
- Amazon faces seller backlash over Shop Direct listings
And:
- Are conferences worth the time?
- Shopify rival Swap Commerce raises $100M in just 6 months
-
PubMatic’s AgenticOS takes the manual work out of online Ads
Alright, let’s dive in.
public domain
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Image Source: Giphy (Fleischer Studios)
From Betty Boop to Miss Marple: These Characters Are Now Free to Use
As of January 1, 2026, thousands of creative works from 1930 officially entered the public domain in the United States, along with sound recordings from 1925.
These creations have been locked away by copyright for nearly a century. Now they’re back in play, available to be copied, shared, remixed, and built on without permission or fees.
On screen, certain films starring Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo, the Marx Brothers, and John Wayne in his first leading role are now free to use, along with the Oscar-winning classic All Quiet on the Western Front.
Betty Boop, that indomitable Fleischer flapper, also made her debut in 1930 in the cartoon Dizzy Dishes. But there’s a catch. The original Betty was more dog than flapper, with her famous earrings starting life as floppy dog ears. Only that early version is in the public domain. The same goes for the first appearance of Disney’s Pluto, who debuted as “Rover” in The Picnic. He didn’t officially become Mickey’s dog until 1931, which means that version is still protected for now.
It’s also a big year for female sleuths. The earliest Nancy Drew novels and Miss Marple’s debut in Agatha Christie’s The Murder at the Vicarage are now fair game. Sadly, Hollywood seems more interested in turning public domain characters into horror villains. A Betty Boop slasher film is already in the works.
Content creators and online business owners are now free to rethink how public domain characters can be used more creatively and commercially across ecommerce, content, and digital products.
Just remember: public domain rules are country-specific, and only the exact 1930 versions are free to use. Later iterations are still off-limits. You can dive deeper into the copyright rules here.
The Opportunity podcast
![Are Conferences Worth Your Time as a Business Owner [Ep.200]](https://1745913.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/1745913/Are%20Conferences%20Worth%20Your%20Time%20as%20a%20Business%20Owner%20%5BEp.200%5D.png)
Networking or Noise? The Real Value of Conferences
Most online business owners are torn on conferences. Some leave feeling energized and full of new ideas. Others leave wondering if they just paid a lot of money for bad coffee and small talk.
In this episode of the Opportunity Podcast, Greg talks through when conferences are actually worth your time and when they’re not.
He explains the difference between attending as a practitioner versus a vendor, why the ROI looks very different for each, and what most people get wrong when they try to sell at events.
Greg also shares practical advice on how to get real value from conferences without big budgets, including when sponsoring makes sense, when it doesn’t, and why the best opportunities usually happen outside the talks and workshops.
If you want an honest take on how to approach conferences and actually make them work for your business, this episode is worth a listen.
Amazon
Amazon’s New Feature Pulls Listings Without Seller Consent
Amazon is drawing criticism from retailers after quietly testing a new feature that displays products from other websites without first getting permission from the sellers. The feature, called Shop Direct, highlights items Amazon does not sell and sends shoppers to external retailer sites to complete their purchase.
At first glance, Shop Direct sounds like a win for everyone. The beta test, limited to certain product categories, is designed to help customers discover more products and help businesses reach new audiences. Product names, prices, and details are pulled from public information available on brand websites.
Shop Direct is part of a bigger initiative known internally as Project Starfish. The goal is to turn Amazon into a central product directory by crawling and organizing data from hundreds of thousands of brand websites. In doing so, Amazon starts to look less like a marketplace and more like a product search engine, similar to how Google indexes retail sites and sends users elsewhere to buy.
For many sellers, though, the reality has been far less positive. Sellers are not asked to opt in before listings appear, but can request removal after the fact. Brands report that their products appeared on Amazon without notice, often with incorrect names, descriptions, or prices. Sellers are then forced to either honor incorrect pricing or disappoint customers and risk damaging their reputation.
Customer relationships are another concern. Orders frequently come through with masked or proxy email addresses, making it difficult for sellers to handle support requests, returns, or shipping updates. Amazon keeps control of the customer data, while sellers are left to manage fulfillment and complaints, straining long-term trust.
Critics are also pointing to hypocrisy in platform behavior. Amazon actively blocks AI companies from scraping its own data, while treating independent retailers’ websites as open resources. This double standard has intensified debates around intellectual property, consent, and platform power.
As AI-driven scraping accelerates, this situation highlights growing tension between platforms seeking more data and independent retailers trying to protect their brands. For many small businesses, the concern is not visibility, but losing control over how their products are presented and discovered online.
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ecommerce
Swap is Poised to Challenge Shopify with $100M Funding
eCommerce startup Swap Commerce has raised $100 million in just six months. This follows a $40 million Series B round just six months ago.
Founded in 2022, Swap started as a returns-management platform but has quickly evolved into a full AI-powered commerce operating system.
Swap now helps brands create web storefronts and manage cross-border sales, tax compliance, demand planning, inventory, and returns. The platform has gained popularity among luxury clothing brands and companies looking to expand internationally.
The latest funding will help Swap scale its U.S. business, enhance product development, and grow teams in sales, customer support, and engineering. The company is also targeting new verticals such as beauty, home goods, and consumer technology while continuing its expansion into Europe, Canada, and Australia.
Unlike Shopify, which primarily helps sellers set up online stores, Swap focuses on global commerce and operational intelligence. Its AI-driven platform allows sellers to:
- Handle cross-border transactions and currency conversions
- Manage returns efficiently and reduce operational headaches
- Forecast demand and optimize inventory with real-time data
- Streamline tax compliance across multiple countries
- Make smarter logistics decisions to maximize revenue
For sellers aiming to scale internationally or simplify complex operations, Swap is positioning itself as a valuable alternative to current mainstream platforms. Its AI-powered insights help brands anticipate demand, cut costs, and improve efficiency, giving sellers a competitive edge that standard e-commerce platforms may not offer.
While it may not yet be mature enough to truly compete with established players like Shopify, Magento, and WooCommerce, keep an eye on the rise of Swap. It could be the next big thing.
Advertising
PubMatic’s AI Advertising System Runs Campaigns So You Do Not Have To
PubMatic has launched AgenticOS, a new AI-powered operating system designed to take the manual work out of online advertising. For business owners who advertise across Google, streaming TV, apps, and websites, the goal is fewer knobs to turn and better results with less effort.
With AgenticOS, you tell the system what you want in plain language. That includes your campaign goals, budget limits, brand safety rules, and creative guidelines. Once those guardrails are set, AI agents handle the heavy lifting, planning campaigns, buying ad inventory, and optimizing performance in real time while you stay in control of the overall strategy.
This matters because online advertising has become more complex than ever. Ads now run across streaming platforms, mobile apps, video, and traditional websites, all moving at high speed and generating massive amounts of data. Managing this manually is slow, expensive, and prone to mistakes.
Under the hood, the platform runs on NVIDIA-powered infrastructure that can process millions of ad transactions per second. That speed is especially important for connected TV and live events, where audiences surge without warning, and ad decisions need to happen instantly.
Early results look promising. PubMatic reports that campaign setup time dropped by 87%, and issues were resolved 70% faster. Alongside the launch, PubMatic announced an Agentic AI Acceleration Program to help advertisers, agencies, and publishers move quickly from testing to live agent-led workflows.
The release follows strong business momentum for PubMatic, which reported $68 million in revenue for the third quarter, exceeding analyst expectations.
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