--- title: Thrive Capital Bets $100 Million on Shopify’s AI Future source: newsletter source_url: https://www.pymnts.com/news/ecommerce/2026/thrive-capital-bets-100-million-on-shopifys-ai-future/ tags: [fintech, ai, earnings, chime] ingested: 2026-05-19 sha256: fd6075fa3ce6 review_value: 7 review_confidence: 8 review_recommendation: worth-reading --- Published Time: 2026-05-15T00:58:09+00:00 Markdown Content: # PYMNTS | Thrive Capital Bets $100 Million on Shopify’s AI Future # Thrive Capital Bets $100 Million on Shopify’s AI Future [![Image 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[Joshua Kushner](https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshua-kushner-711b45230)’s [Thrive Capital](https://www.thrivecap.com/) has invested about $100 million in [Shopify](https://www.shopify.com/), betting that artificial intelligence could enhance commerce, Bloomberg [reported](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-05-14/joshua-kushner-s-thrive-capital-invests-100-million-in-shopify) Thursday (May 14), citing unnamed sources. ## Get the Full Story Complete the form to unlock this article and enjoy unlimited free access to all PYMNTS content — no additional logins required. - [x] yes Subscribe to our daily newsletter, PYMNTS Today. By completing this form, you agree to receive marketing communications from PYMNTS and to the sharing of your information with our sponsor, if applicable, in accordance with our [Privacy Policy](https://pymnts-com-develop.go-vip.net/privacy-policy/) and [Terms and Conditions](https://pymnts-com-develop.go-vip.net/terms-conditions/). Δ Alternative: WPA Neither Shopify nor Thrive Capital immediately replied to PYMNTS’ request for comment. Thrive Capital announced in February that it raised more than $10 billion for a fund called Thrive X. The company said in a [press release](https://www.thrivecap.com/thrive-x) that Thrive X would designate $1 billion for early-stage investments and $9 billion for growth-stage investments. “We take a long view grounded in the belief that category-defining companies tend to create structural compounding advantages over long arcs,” the firm said. “This fund reflects the continuity of our approach and the ways our work has deepened alongside the founders we support.” Shopify reported May 5 that during the first quarter, [AI-driven traffic](https://www.pymnts.com/earnings/2026/ai-drove-orders-shopify-up-13-times-q1/) to Shopify stores grew eight times year over year, orders from AI-powered searches grew nearly 13 times, and new buyer orders from AI searches arrived at nearly twice the rate of traditional organic search. Together, those numbers drove Shopify’s strongest quarterly revenue growth rate in over four years. Advertisement: Scroll to Continue Shopify President [Harley Finkelstein](https://ca.linkedin.com/in/harleyf) attributed the success of the company’s agentic strategy to its catalog, in which Shopify has structured more than 1 billion products with clean attributes, real-time pricing and accurate inventory. “In a world where real-time information is now table stakes, the edge is the insight behind it,” Finkelstein said during an earnings call. “And that requires a depth, not just access, but experience.” In March, Shopify launched a free mobile app called Tinker that is designed for merchants and consolidates more than 100 specialized [AI tools](https://www.pymnts.com/news/retail/2026/shopify-debuts-tinker-app-for-ai-powered-store-creation/) into a single guided environment for building brand assets, storefronts, social content and visual identity from plain-language inputs. During the same month, Finkelstein said Shopify is making a significant push toward [agentic shopping](https://www.pymnts.com/news/ecommerce/2026/shopify-bets-big-on-agentic-ai/) by using agentic applications as personal shoppers. He added that agents will bring context to shopping in a way traditional search engines cannot. “We’re probably more excited about this particular new era of commerce than we ever have been because we think it’s just going to create so much opportunity, not just for the large merchants, but for the long tail of merchants,” Finkelstein said. 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