Cosmose AI, a retail analytics company, has partnered with blockchain protocol Near to create a payment system that allows users to shop with cryptocurrency at low transaction fees. As part of the partnership, Near Foundation has made a strategic investment in Cosmose, lifting the company's valuation to $500m. The pair are building a system that claims to reduce the transaction costs of one’s annual coffee consumption to just $4, which is 50 times less than the Stripe or PayPal method. Cosmose’s shopping discovery app KaiKai settles payments in its native stablecoin Kai-Ching, which runs on Near’s network. https://techcrunch.com/2023/04/24/near-cosmose-ai/