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Klarna announces Rep Her initiative addressing gender-based disparities in women’s sports merchandise accessibility

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In partnership with Sports Innovation Lab, key findings from a groundbreaking, data-led report identify a $4 billion untapped U.S. women’s sports merchandise market for retailers, with 79% of women’s sports fans indicating they would buy more merchandise if more options were available to them; To further address the cause, Klarna and women-owned media and commerce company TOGETHXR have released limited edition merchandise with proceeds benefiting the Women’s Sports Foundation

NEW YORK, June 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Klarna, the AI-powered global payments network and shopping assistant, today announced, Rep Her, a multifaceted, research-backed initiative to raise awareness around gender-based gaps in women’s sports merchandise availability. In partnership with fan intelligence company Sports Innovation Lab, Klarna has released a first-of-its-kind report titled Rep Her: Revealing the Unmet Demand for Women’s Sports Merchandise. The Rep Her report values the rapidly growing women’s sports merchandise market at an estimated $4 billion annually, proving the sector’s drastically unmet consumer demand, and measures gender-based imbalances between men’s and women’s sports fan communities. To further address consumer appetite, Klarna has teamed up with female Olympian-founded, trailblazing media and commerce company TOGETHXR and 2x World Cup Champion, NWSL Champion, ESPN Analyst and TOGETHXR consultant Ali Krieger to launch limited edition merchandise and has also launched a new innovative shopping experience within its app and website.

Key findings from Klarna and Sports Innovation Lab’s report include that fans are:

Hungry for Options: 79% of surveyed respondents reported they would purchase more women’s sports merchandise if there were more options available to them, while 28% reported they could not find a style they likedDemanding Inventory: More than 60% of fans who searched for and intended to buy women’s sports merchandise did not make a purchase because it was not in stockSeeking Out Retailers: 32% of women’s sports fans cannot find a retailer that carries merchandise related to their favorite teams and athletesSearching for More Styles: Buyers of women’s sports merchandise are 60% more likely to have trouble finding a style than buyers of men’s sports merchandiseExpressing Fandom Through Merch: 67% of women’s sports fans have purchased sports merchandise despite only 49% having ever purchased a ticket to a live sporting eventLimited Compared to Men’s Sports: For every nine pieces of men’s sports merchandise available, women’s sports has one (The 30-team NBA has 9x more merchandise options than the 12-team WNBA, and the 29-team MLS has 6x more merchandise options than the 14-team NWSL)Vast Supporters: Most women’s sports fans identify as fans of multiple sports and leagues – top leagues include the WNBA (60%), NWSL (51%), NCAA Women’s Basketball (49%), NCAA Women’s Volleyball (39%) and the USWNT (37%)

“Consumer appetite for league, team, and athlete merchandise is vastly exceeding supply,” said Angela Ruggiero, Co-Founder of Sports Innovation Lab. “There is a golden opportunity for retailers to capitalize on a surging market that is telling us if you create something authentic to the community, they will buy it.” 

Klarna, TOGETHXR and Krieger have tapped designers Sophia Chang and Mellany Sanchez to create t-shirts and tote bags featuring the phrase “A movement, not a moment,” celebrating their passion for women’s sports and allowing fans to Rep Her with pride. This merchandise not only symbolizes the growing influence of women’s sports, but also empowers fans to showcase their dedication. Available for purchase on both Klarna.com and TOGETHXR.com, a percentage of all proceeds from the collection will go to Billie Jean King’s Women’s Sports Foundation, emphasizing that the interest in women’s sports is a formidable force that’s here to stay.

Additionally, to help women’s sports fans find merchandise to represent their favorite teams with ease, Klarna has curated an innovative women’s sports destination on Klarna.com and in its app, offering a seamless way to discover, shop and purchase women’s sports merchandise utilizing its interest-free pay in 4 payment option.

“As a brand that breaks the status quo and is a big supporter of women’s sports through our three-year partnership with Angel City Football Club, we saw there was a lack of merchandise available for women’s sports fans yet demand for it so we want to do our part to find a solve and contribute to fueling women’s sports fandom to continue to help propel the industry forward,” said Klarna’s Head of B2C Marketing in North America and the United Kingdom, Megan Gokey. “We are energized by the growing attention surrounding women’s sports and are proud to launch this initiative with Sports Innovation Lab and TOGETHXR to raise awareness around the merchandise gap, ultimately helping to make merchandise more accessible to millions of fans and create a space for women’s sports fans to shop smarter and ‘fan’ harder.”

“As a female athlete myself, it’s incredibly important to see efforts like these that highlight and address gender disparities in sports, like the gap in women’s sports merchandise. This initiative is a pivotal step in recognizing the value of women’s sports and ensuring that fans have the merchandise they want,” shared TOGETHXR consultant Ali Krieger. “Klarna has pushed the boundaries when it comes to creating a smart way to shop and pay, and this initiative directly speaks to the brand’s impactful efforts to push the women’s sports movement forward.”

This report is the fourth annual installment in Sports Innovation Lab’s internationally acclaimed The Fan Project series, which has become the global sports industry’s north star guidance on the commercialization of women’s sports since launching in 2021.

To view the full Rep Her report, please visit HERE. Additionally, Sports Innovation Lab is hosting a live webinar on July 11 to provide a report read-through and data deep dive, which can be accessed by registering HERE.

About Klarna

Since 2005 Klarna has been on a mission to accelerate commerce with consumer needs at the heart of it. With over 150 million global active users and 2 million transactions per day, Klarna’s fair, sustainable and AI-powered payment and shopping solutions are revolutionizing the way people shop and pay online and in-store, empowering consumers to shop smarter with greater confidence and convenience. More than 500,000 global retailers integrate Klarna’s innovative technology and marketing solutions to drive growth and loyalty, including H&M, Saks, Sephora, Macy’s, Ikea, Expedia Group, Nike and Airbnb. For more information, visit Klarna.com.

About TOGETHXR

TOGETHXR is a media and commerce company founded by Jessica Robertson alongside four of the world’s top professional athletes, Alex Morgan, Chloe Kim, Simone Manuel, and Sue Bird. With a focus on rich storytelling rooted in lifestyle and youth culture, TOGETHXR is an unapologetic platform where representation and gender equality are both expected and required. TOGETHXR highlights a diverse and inclusive community of game-changers, culture shapers, thought-leaders, and barrier breakers – finding and telling the stories of women who are doing the same. As one of the most compelling platforms for women in sport and culture, TOGETHXR’s in-house production studio has created a slate of scripted and unscripted premium content, including Surf Girls: Kaikaina, More Than A Name, FENOM, Summer of Gold, and more, which are in discussions to be adapted for film, TV, and digital media. In 2023, TOGETHXR was named one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies and won Media Company of the Year in the DigiDay Media Awards.

About Sports Innovation Lab

Sports Innovation Lab is a data company that enables brands and sports properties to build more effective sponsorships, improve targeted advertising, and enhance fan experiences. Known for its pioneering research on fan behavior and the commercialization of the women’s sports market, Sports Innovation Lab’s flagship Sports Data Cloud offering built on proprietary observational, transactional, and deterministic fan data is evolving how organizations use data to understand their customers and acquire more of them – starting with sports & entertainment. Learn how global brands including the NFL, Nike, NHL, Ally Financial, WNBA, and NASCAR use Sports Innovation Lab’s data, audiences, and strategic advisory to drive revenue by visiting sportsilab.com or following on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.

Media contacts:
Klarna – Kimberly Gibbs
kimberly.gibbs@klarna.com
(614) 967-5032

Sports Innovation Lab – Anthony Baldini
anthony@athletestrategies.com
(408) 506-5975

TOGETHXR – Togethxr@laruepr.com

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

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SOURCE Klarna Bank AB (publ)

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KarbunWise Introduces Fast, Cost-Effective LCA Platform for the LEED v5 Era at Greenbuild 2026 in New York

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NEW YORK  , Oct. 23, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — As global property developers, architects, and manufacturers face rigorous new green building standards and cross-border carbon scrutiny, KarbunWise, an enterprise climate technology and advisory firm, announced its formal participation in the Greenbuild International Conference + Expo 2026 in New York City.

Exhibiting under this year’s Greenbuild theme, “Invest for Impact,” KarbunWise has launched a modern, cost-effective software to enable real estate developers, AEC (Architecture, Engineering, and Construction) firms, and industrial manufacturers to automate complex Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) and Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) with verifiable, audit-grade accuracy.

With the rollout of LEED v5, Whole-Building Life Cycle Assessments (WBLCA) and embodied carbon tracking have evolved from optional bonus credits into non-negotiable prerequisites. This is likely to scale the adoption of LCAs, and KarbunWise offers an alternative to legacy incumbent players that are expensive and not customer-centric. KarbunWise’s product translates Building Information Modeling (BIM) data and factory-floor inputs directly into submission-ready WBLCA models (aligned with MRp2 and MRc2 credits).

Representing KarbunWise at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center were the founders, Arjun Vijayaragavan and Divya Sukumar. “For years, carbon accounting and life cycle assessments were treated as passive, check-the-box exercises. Today, with LEED v5 mandating embodied carbon baselines and global supply chains enforcing strict transparency, carbon data has become commercial infrastructure. Bringing our platform to North America at Greenbuild marks a pivotal step in our mission to make sustainability data as trusted and audit-ready as financial data for 10,000 enterprises worldwide.” said Arjun Vijayaragavan, Founder & CEO of KarbunWise.

To accelerate adoption across US project teams, KarbunWise also announced a major Greenbuild show initiative: free first-year platform access for qualifying architecture firms, consultants, and developers visiting Booth #1044 during expo, backed by continuous 24/7 technical support from certified LCA practitioners.

Already trusted by more than 100 organisations across the UK, Middle East, and India, including listed conglomerates, leading bedding manufacturers, and global infrastructure contractors, KarbunWise’s platform connects over 200,000 verified LCA datapoints across international databases, including USLCI, Ecoinvent, and ÖKOBAUDAT.

About KarbunWise:

Founded in 2023, KarbunWise is an enterprise climate technology and advisory firm building the trust layer for global sustainability. The company combines an integrated, cloud-based software platform with deep consulting expertise to transform complex carbon and ESG data into audit-ready proof for regulators, enterprise buyers, and investors.

Mediacontact-
team@karbunwise.com 

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SOURCE KarbunWise

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Curios Launches Video-on-Demand Tools for Filmmakers as Vimeo On Demand Shuts Down

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The direct-to-fan marketplace gives independent filmmakers a new home to sell films, series, and memberships, with help migrating from Vimeo

AUSTIN, Texas, Oct. 23, 2026 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — Curios, the direct-to-fan entertainment marketplace, has launched a full set of video-on-demand tools for independent filmmakers and video creators. The launch gives creators affected by the closure of Vimeo On Demand a new place to sell their work directly to audiences, keep their sales revenue, and hold on to the customer relationships they have spent years building.

Vimeo is phasing out its On Demand service in stages. New uploads were blocked on August 22, 2026, and new purchases and subscriptions stopped on September 21, 2026. Final seller payouts were processed on September 24, and the platform will shut down completely on November 20, 2026. On that date, all Vimeo On Demand storefronts and purchase pages go offline, and viewers lose access to the films and series they previously bought or rented.

For filmmakers, the impact is immediate. Sales have already stopped, so every week without a new storefront means lost revenue. And with Vimeo only allowing sellers to export buyers who opted in to updates, many creators risk losing touch with a large part of their audience.

“Every time a platform shuts down, creators get a painful reminder that they never really owned their audience,” said Grant Powell, founder of Curios. “Filmmakers on Vimeo On Demand did everything right, and they’re still losing their storefront. We launched Curios so that can’t happen. You sell directly, you keep your revenue, and every buyer’s contact details are yours to keep, whatever happens next.”

A complete home for independent film

Curios gives filmmakers flexible ways to sell, including full support for TVOD and SVOD, with possible plans for AVOD in the future. Creators can sell titles to own permanently (Electronic sell-through / EST), for one-time rental (Download-to-rent / DTR), offer pay-per-view (PPV) access for events and premieres, and run subscription memberships covering an entire catalog, a single series, or selected titles.

Pre-orders, timed releases, and limited quantities help build excitement around a launch. Bundles and deluxe editions, automated upsells and cross-sells, coupons, and an affiliate program help filmmakers grow each sale and reach new audiences. Free claims let creators give away trailers, extras, or short films in exchange for viewers’ email addresses.

Filmmakers decide whether each title is streaming-only or downloadable. Buyers watch in the Curios mobile app, where films and series sit alongside ebooks, audiobooks, and music. To help creators get started, Curios has also published pricing guidance for film, suggesting typical ranges of $9.99 to $29.99 for titles sold to own.

Better economics and full access to buyers

Curios takes no commission on sales, so creators keep their full sale price. They pay for platform access through a Curios subscription, with a free plan available and no credit card required to sign up. As merchant of record, Curios collects and files sales tax and VAT worldwide, removing a major administrative burden for independent creators.

Filmmakers on Curios receive the contact details of every buyer, along with sales, traffic, and viewing analytics, so they can see how audiences engage with their work and market future releases directly.

Moving from Vimeo On Demand in three steps

Curios has published an automatic importer, and a step-by-step migration guide for Vimeo On Demand sellers. Filmmakers simply connect with Vimeo account to Curios, then Curios automatically migrates their original files, trailers, extras, and artwork directly from Vimeo. Finally, they replace their old Vimeo On Demand links with a single Curios link and let their fans know where to find them.

Curios will also import a filmmaker’s existing Vimeo buyers who opted in to updates. Imported customers will find the films they already own waiting in their Curios library, ready to watch, so viewers who were about to lose access can keep enjoying the work they paid for. Customer lists from other platforms can be imported as well.

Curios is continuing to expand its video tools, with caption and subtitle uploads, region restrictions, country-specific pricing, and smart TV apps currently in development.

Filmmakers can create a free account and read the full migration guide at studio.curios.com.

About Curios

Curios is a direct-to-fan entertainment and content marketplace helping creators publish, promote, sell, and distribute their work directly to audiences. Built for authors, musicians, filmmakers, comedians, and creators of all kinds, Curios supports digital and physical formats in one place.

Creators keep 100% of every sale, retain full ownership of their work, and get direct access to customer data. As merchant of record, Curios handles sales tax, along with customer support, content delivery, fraud disputes, and fast payouts, giving creators the infrastructure to sell direct without having to build it themselves.

Media Contact

Grant Powell, Curios, Inc, 1 3102952129, support@curios.com, https://www.curios.com

View original content:https://www.prweb.com/releases/curios-launches-video-on-demand-tools-for-filmmakers-as-vimeo-on-demand-shuts-down-302917739.html

SOURCE Curios, Inc

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Violet PR Wins Five PRSA-NJ Awards for Campaigns Driving Economic Growth and Innovation

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Award-winning media relations initiatives generated hundreds of news stories for clients

MONTCLAIR, N.J., Oct. 23, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Violet PR, a national public relations agency specializing in economic development and place branding, has earned five awards from the Public Relations Society of America’s New Jersey Chapter (PRSA-NJ). Together, the campaigns generated more than 425 earned media placements in national, international, regional and niche outlets.

The winning programs ranged from launching a major fitness facility and promoting the growing film industry in New Jersey to showcasing Pittsburgh International Airport’s new terminal, navigating international trade uncertainty in Topeka, Kan., and positioning the Brooklyn Navy Yard as an innovation hub.

“These awards reflect the range of challenges our team helps clients navigate – including building support for emerging industries and elevating major infrastructure investments,” said April Mason, CEO and founder of Violet PR. “Whether we’re promoting a new airport terminal or helping a community navigate international trade uncertainty, our job is to uncover the stories that matter, connect them with influential audiences and deliver results that support our clients’ broader goals.”

For the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA), Violet PR’s “Hollywood East: New Jersey Takes Center Stage” campaign earned PRSA-NJ recognition in the “Community Relations” category. Working with the New Jersey Motion Picture & Television Commission and NJEDA, the agency helped build support for the state’s expanding film and television industry by highlighting its economic impact, career opportunities and benefits for local businesses and communities. Over 10 months, the campaign generated 38 earned media placements and more than 336 million impressions.

Violet PR also earned an “Events” award for “Building More Than Muscle: Launching a New Jersey Success Story,” developed for Iron Culture’s new flagship gym in West Orange, N.J. The campaign promoted the grand opening of the $10 million fitness facility, bringing together elected officials, business leaders and community members while generating 45 earned media placements.

The Montclair, N.J.-headquartered agency also won a “Media Relations” award for its campaign, “Brooklyn Navy Yard: From Shipyard to Innovation Engine,” which spotlighted the historic waterfront campus’s transformation into a hub for advanced manufacturing, entrepreneurship and innovation. The campaign generated 85 earned media placements, reaching an audience of 662 million.

The agency’s national work was recognized as well. The “Ready for Takeoff: Commemorating Pittsburgh’s New Airport Opening (2025)” campaign for Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT) earned an award in the “Public Affairs” category. Violet PR executed a strategic communications campaign surrounding the opening of PIT’s new terminal, securing more than 200 earned media placements across national news, business, travel and aviation outlets, with a combined audience reach exceeding 525 million.

In Topeka, Kan., Violet PR’s “The U.S. City Bridging Borders: How Topeka Tackled Tariffs” campaign was recognized in the “PR on a Shoestring Budget” category. As rising U.S.-Canada tariffs threatened up to 20% of local jobs, the agency transformed a complex international trade issue into a compelling story about the economic ties between Kansas and Canada. With a budget of just $10,000 over two months, the campaign secured 57 media placements, with an estimated reach of 224 million.

“What makes these awards especially meaningful is that they recognize five very different campaigns, each requiring a tailored strategy, creative thinking and close collaboration with our clients,” said Christina Forrest, vice president, Violet PR. “We take pride in developing strategic campaigns that deliver meaningful results for our clients, and we’re grateful to PRSA-NJ for the honor.”

The PRSA-NJ Pyramid Awards recognize excellence in public relations and communications, honoring the strategy, creativity and impact of agencies and in-house teams across New Jersey and beyond.

Violet PR continues to earn national recognition for its growth and economic development industry expertise. The agency ranked No. 96 on O’Dwyer’s 2026 list of independent public relations firms following 22.6% year-over-year growth in 2025 and has appeared on the Inc. 5000 list for three consecutive years. Violet PR opened its second office in New York City this year.

About Violet PR

Violet PR is an award-winning public relations firm, recognized nationally as a top agency specializing in economic development, commercial real estate and place branding. The agency partners with cities, states, regions, developers, destinations and mission-driven organizations to build visibility through earned media, thought leadership, social media and strategic storytelling.

Founded in 2010, Violet PR helps clients attract investment, business growth, visitors and talent through earned media campaigns. For more information, visit www.violetpr.com.

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SOURCE Violet Public Relations

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