1102. News: Amazon blocks Meta’s AI agent, Ryft raises £20m, and Sprive bags $10m

Merchants like Amazon are gatekeeping unauthorized AI shopping agents over risk and trust concerns, while infrastructure and life-moment-focused fintechs keep attracting capital.

• Amazon blocks Meta's Muse: Amazon cut off Meta's new Muse shopping agent (900,000+ downloads) for lacking authorization, not identifying itself, and reportedly capturing customer credentials; Amazon has similarly restricted Google and OpenAI agents and is in litigation with Perplexity's Comet browser.
• Ryft's £20m Series B: Manchester-based multi-party payments infrastructure firm Ryft raised £20m led by Gresham House Ventures (with Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund and Pembroke VCTs), serves 6,500+ businesses, tripled processing volumes in a year, and is expanding via a Malta EU license into Netherlands, France, Germany.

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