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• I spent last New Year’s Eve on a solo trip, celebrating with new friends from around the world.
• It felt meaningful to start the year focused on what brings me joy: new experiences and connection.
• Now, I hope to spend every New Year’s Eve that I can surrounded by new friends.

As the crowd cheered among the explosive crackle of fireworks, upbeat dance music, and cries of “Feliz Ano Novo,” a surge of gratitude coursed through my body.

It was New Year’s Eve 2024, and I was hugging and cheering with new friends I had met just hours before.

Earlier that year, I’d spent two months gallivanting around London, Berlin, Amsterdam, Rome, Florence, and Prague solo. Although I loved returning home to San Francisco, it didn’t take long for my wanderlust to set in again.

I knew my thirst for adventure could only be quenched by revisiting Europe. I missed the walkable cities, the slower lifestyle, and the abundance of fresh food.

I decided I’d spend mid-December to mid-January abroad. After doing tons of research on the best cities for solo travelers, I settled upon Lisbon as my monthlong home base.

To avoid the holiday rush and the inevitable spike in prices and crowds, I left San Francisco on December 7 and made plans to head home about a week after New Year’s Day.

Lisbon was the perfect early holiday destination — and I got to connect with other solo travelers

The first two weeks of my trip were a dream come true.

I loved spending my afternoons checking out bookstores (Livraria Bertrand is worth it), getting lost in the alleyways, taking in the vibrant art scene, and even trekking up a grueling hill to get to my local market.

Since I arrived early in the month before peak tourist season, I felt like I was experiencing Christmas markets and festivities alongside locals.

As December 31 approached, I began to crave some more companionship. So, I logged onto Facebook and searched for Girl Gone International’s Lisbon group.

An online community for women traveling solo, Girl Gone International had resources I’d utilized in the past. This was my first time scrolling through one of its Facebook groups in search of friends, though.

To my surprise, I stumbled upon tons of posts from other solo travelers, all hoping to find New Year’s companions. One in particular caught my attention: a post that said “I’m getting the girls together for a New Year’s celebration” with a link to a WhatsApp group.

She had a dog in her profile photo. What could go wrong?

That’s how I found myself eating steak and sipping Douro Valley wine at a table with eight strangers.

We all came from different countries and backgrounds: the Netherlands, Serbia, and South Africa, to name a few. We quickly bonded over our shared love of travel and the palpable energy of the night.

After dinner, a few other travelers from the Facebook group joined us. We squeezed our way into the crowds to the Praça do Comércio, the main square in Lisbon. The square was packed like sardines, and we held hands so we wouldn’t lose each other.

One of them held up a sign to make sure stragglers could see us. Amid the excitement, I witnessed the most spectacular fireworks display of my life.

My solo New Year’s celebration helped me connect with my values

After that epic night, the real magic of serendipitous connection took place.

I stayed in touch with two solo travelers and one local for the remainder of my trip. We met several other times to explore restaurants, visit parks, and even take a day trip to see castles in Sintra.

I believe that starting the year in a new country — and with new friends — softened my approach to achieving my goals. In the past, I felt pressured to set certain resolutions: Become fit, work harder, or be a certain way.

Instead of focusing on external validation or achieving rigid goals, though, I started the year with a focus on what actually brings me joy: adventure, global community, and authenticity.

I made new friends, too. Our short-lived connections empowered us to become vulnerable quickly, and I opened up in a refreshing way.

Ironically, it took leaving my country to remember that I am never truly alone.

Though this year’s New Year’s Eve will look a little different — I plan to spend the night locally with friends and family — I would happily ring in the New Year again with strangers in a foreign country.

No matter where I find myself in the world, I’m excited to continue bridging the gap between stranger and friend.

• In August, I took a 48-hour break from motherhood to see the Backstreet Boys in Las Vegas.
• Logistics and maternal guilt made planning the trip tricky, but I committed to the experience.
• The experience highlighted the importance of self-care and reclaiming joy for mothers.

When the Backstreet Boys announced their Las Vegas residency at the Sphere this past February, I was 26 weeks pregnant with my fourth kid. Within minutes, my two college friends with whom I’d spent countless days and nights belting out karaoke versions of “The Call,” dropped the news into our group chat. “When are we booking?” they asked.

They were right, of course. We had to go. Not just because it was the Backstreet Boys, though they were the soundtrack to so many of our college and post-collegiate experiences, but because it was the Sphere, a new futuristic arena that everyone was buzzing about.

Still, with shows scheduled for July and August, I knew it would be nearly impossible for me to get there. By then, my baby would be just 2 months old. Add him to my three other children, the oldest only 6, and the thought of leaving felt borderline ridiculous. Even with my mom and nanny helping, I couldn’t imagine asking my husband to manage it all alone.

To his credit, my husband was mostly okay with it. “Go,” he said when I mentioned the idea. He wasn’t exactly enthusiastic; it was more of a pragmatic “I don’t get the appeal, but don’t skip it because of us. I can handle it.” But still, he gave me the green light.

Planning the trip was a lot

The logistics were daunting. The shows were only scheduled Friday through Sunday, which clashed with my observance of Shabbat. That left Sunday night, which would mean flying out in the morning, dragging myself to the concert exhausted, and asking my nanny to work her usual day off. Add in my hesitation to commit before giving birth — part superstition, part maternal guilt — and I kept letting go of my potential plan.

Then May arrived. I gave birth and, though I started circling potential weekends, I still held back. The baby was tiny, I was breastfeeding, and I wanted to wait as long as possible to see if anything would change.

By late summer, however, it seemed the Backstreet Boys had taken over my algorithm. Clips of the show flooded my social media feeds. My friends kept sending me videos of fans in white, losing their minds at the Sphere. One meme in particular lodged itself in my brain: a mom boarding a plane to Vegas, captioned, “Me: a 40-year-old mom on my way to the Baskstreet Boys concert that I paid for with my own adult money. But I still had to ask my mom’s permission to go.” I’d never felt so seen.

I went for it

In July, I cracked. “I’m ready,” I messaged my friends. Within hours, three of us booked a round-trip ticket from New York’s JFK to Harry Reid International Airport: out Sunday morning, back on the red-eye Monday, just in time for Tuesday’s camp drop-off.

The tickets for the concert, though, were another story. Prices had surged with the show’s popularity, and I ended up paying more than $500 for my ticket. I told myself it was worth it for a memory that would last a lifetime. Still, when I clicked purchase, my hands shook.

It was 100% worth it

The trip lasted exactly 48 hours, but it felt like a pilgrimage. A millennial rite of passage that didn’t involve children but somehow connected me back to them, because the band I flew across the country to see was the same one that defined my own adolescence. For a weekend, I was not just a mother of four but the girl who once choreographed dorm-room routines to “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back).”

Two moments, in particular, crystallized everything. The first was the walk from our hotel, the Wynn, to the Sphere. The hotel had mapped out a route for the flood of fans: through the convention center, across an elevated bridge to the Venetian, then on to the Sphere. At each turn, more fans — all dressed in white, humming along to Backstreet Boys songs blaring overhead — merged into the stream. By the time we reached the glowing orb, we were a sea of white, exhausted but euphoric. That’s when it truly felt like a pilgrimage.

The second was inside, when Brian, AJ, Kevin, Nick, and Howie launched into “Get Down.” I hadn’t danced like that in so long, and neither had, apparently, the 20,000 other people around me. It was no longer a concert; it had become a giant dance party, an unforgettable experience.

Of course, the trip wouldn’t have been possible without my husband holding things down at home. But I can’t help but also think of what would happen if the roles were reversed. Before leaving, I had to write down lists and make calls to make space for my absence, plus pre-cook meals, lay out outfits, arrange carpools, pack snacks, and orchestrate all the small details of family life that are part of my everyday.

The truth is that in our household, like so many others, the invisible labor often falls on me, the mother. Which is why it felt so monumental to reclaim a weekend, even just two days, for myself.

While there were men at the concert, it was undeniably a female-led affair. It wasn’t just about boy-band nostalgia. It was about women in this stage of life reclaiming the pieces of themselves that existed before partners, careers, and children.

I left Vegas tired but renewed, reminded of the importance of joy and friendship. Because if there’s one thing I want my kids to learn from me — besides how to cook chicken cutlets in advance — it’s to seek out joy, and protect it. Sometimes that means singing your heart out in a giant blue orb in the middle of the desert.

And here’s the kicker: given the overwhelming success of their past residency shows, the Backstreet Boys will be back at the Sphere this month during Christmas and New Year’s and then again in February. This time, you’ll find me at home with my four kids, cheering on any other woman who decides to leave real life behind for a night of nostalgia-fueled, larger-than-life (see what I did there?) joy.

• AI is transforming the advertising and marketing industries.
• Startups developing tools such as AI agents and AI-generated video platforms are raising millions.
• Take a look at the pitch decks of 14 media and advertising AI startups shared with Business Insider.

AI is reshaping the media and marketing industries at warp speed.

Adtech and martech startups are raising millions of dollars from venture capital firms on the back of the AI wave.

Many of these companies are developing under-the-hood tech, such as agentic AI tools designed to streamline marketers’ workflows and boost productivity. Others are working on creative platforms that let marketers create ads and even virtual influencers using generative AI. Some are working in the new area of “generative engine optimization” (GEO), helping brands optimize their visibility in AI search results.

“We want to disrupt the traditional ad agency,” Bolbi Liu, founder of AI adtech startup AdsGency, told Business Insider. In October, AdsGency announced it raised a $12 million seed round, led by XYZ Venture Capital.

Advertising agency giants are aware that they must embrace AI or risk being left behind. Large agency groups, from UK-based WPP to French holding company Publicis and US ad giant Omnicom, have pledged to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in AI over the next few years. Publicis is hunting for AI companies to acquire.

There’s big money to be made. A Boston Consulting Group survey of 200 senior marketers, conducted this year, found that 71% of chief marketing officers plan to invest at least $10 million annually in generative AI over the next three years, up from 57% of respondents in the 2024 edition of the study.

Business Insider has interviewed the founders of startups building tools to disrupt advertising and marketing with AI. These founders shared the pitch decks they used to impress investors and raise venture capital funding.

Read 14 pitch decks advertising and marketing AI startups used to raise millions:

Series B

• Vibe, an adtech platform for buying ads on streaming TV: $50 million

Series A

• Hedra, a generative AI video startup that’s expanding its enterprise tools for marketers: $32 million

• Dig, a company that uses LLMs to help brands identify reputational risks and disinformation: $14 million
• Fluency, an adtech startup that is working on AI agents to help automate ad campaigns across Meta, Google, TikTok, and more; $40 million
• LTV.ai, a startup that uses AI to personalize text messages and emails sent to customers on behalf of brands: $5.2 million
• CreatorDB, an influencer marketing company, raised venture capital to further develop its AI tools: $4.67 million

Seed

• AdsGency, an agentic AI startup that automates advertising on platforms like Meta or Google: $12 million
• Azoma, a generative engine optimization startup that simulates how brands appear in chatbot replies and creates content optimized for AI; $4 million “pre-Series A”
• Artificial Societies, a startup that helps create AI personas for product testing and brand propositions: $5.35 million
• Eikona, a lifecycle marketing startup training AI models to help companies retain their customers; $5 million
• Epiminds, an agentic AI tool aimed at helping performance marketing agencies: $6.6 million
• Nexad, an adtech startup building native ads for AI chat apps: $6 million
• Octave, an agentic go-to-market platform that helps companies build customer profiles and decide their marketing strategies: $5.5 million
• Paramark, a startup using AI to track how ad campaigns drive sales: $6 million

• AI and social commerce are fueling millions of dollars in investments in the creator economy.
• Startups from generative AI video tools to live shopping platforms closed massive deals in 2025.
• Here are 13 creator economy startups that, combined, raised about $2 billion this year.

The creator economy is riding an AI-fueled high.

In 2025, eight startups building artificial intelligence tools to automate the content creation process each announced at least $50 million in funding — a combined $1.2 billion — from venture capital and private equity investors.

Synthesia, a generative AI video startup based in London, confirmed its $180 million funding round in January, while ElevenLabs, a text-to-voice startup, closed a $180 million Series C round. Other AI startups, like Moonvalley, Krea, and Higgsfield, also announced sizable investments this year.

While AI is dominating investor interest, the topic still carries friction within the creator economy. Some of these AI startups, which offer features such as human-like avatars, run the risk of posing a threat to content creators themselves. Influencer marketing, still the primary financial engine of the creator economy, has yet to reach a consensus on how and when AI should be utilized.

Top creators aren’t sitting by idly for AI to take over. YouTuber MrBeast and his team initially sought to raise $200 million earlier this year at a $5 billion valuation, according to investor materials viewed by Business Insider. The MrBeast team declined to comment on the fundraise.

It’s not just AI that’s attracting giant checks from VCs.

Social commerce startups building live shopping and affiliate marketing platforms are also raking in funding. Whatnot, a platform where people sell on stream in categories like fashion and collectibles, such as Pokémon Cards or Labubus, raised a total of $490 million across two later-stage rounds this year. The social shopping platform was most recently valued at $11.5 billion.

Meanwhile, ShopMy, an affiliate marketing platform, continues to gain market share in the influencer marketing space. The startup raised a total of $147.5 million in funding this year.

US social commerce sales are expected to cross $100 billion next year, according to estimates from EMARKETER, Business Insider’s sister company. The category is gaining steam in the US, fueled in part by the growth of TikTok Shop.

This year’s fundraising blitz for creator AI and social commerce startups follows similar buzz for the categories in 2024 when investors threw money at startups like Captions, Flip, and OpusClip. Several startups in those business areas, including ElevenLabs and ShopMy, raised money two years in a row.

Business Insider analyzed 2025 fundraising data from PitchBook and other industry sources to highlight the biggest creator industry investment rounds from the year. We’re highlighting 13 startups that raised $50 million or more in 2025; combined, their funding crossed $1.9 billion. We focused on companies whose products significantly impact the businesses and content creation processes of creators and their partners.

Here are 13 creator economy startups that raised some of the largest rounds in 2025, in alphabetical order:

• Animaj is an animation company that distributes on YouTube and other kid-friendly platforms, and uses generative AI to speed up production time. It announced an $85 million funding round in June led by HarbourView Equity Partners and Bpifrance Large Venture, with participation from other investors, including JP Morgan and Marquee Ventures.

• ElevenLabs is a text-to-voice AI startup that began the year with a $180 million Series C funding round. In September, it announced a $100 million employee tender offer at a valuation of $6.6 billion.

• Fixated is a talent-management firm that raised $62.8 million in a two-part round this year, according to the company.

• Higgsfield, a generative AI video startup, announced that it had raised a $50 million Series A round in September. The investment, led by GFT Ventures, will help the startup expand its enterprise offerings and accelerate its “global engineering and go-to-market momentum,” per the company.

• Krea, an AI creative tool kit for video and image editing, announced in April that it had raised $83 million to date, including its most recent Series B round from investor Bain Capital Ventures and a Series A with investment from Andreessen Horowitz.

• Manychat, which automates SMS and social media DM marketing for brands, raised a $140 million growth capital round this year led by private equity firm Summit Partners. The funding will help the social commerce and marketing startup expand its global presence and further build its agentic AI tools.

• Moonvalley is building AI video tools for Hollywood and raised an $84 million round led by General Catalyst, which included support from the industry, including talent agency CAA.

• PixVerse, an AI video creation platform, announced in September that it raised a $60 million Series B round led by Alibaba with participation from Antler.

• ShopMy, an affiliate marketing platform, announced two investment rounds this year. In January, ShopMy disclosed that it raised a $77.5 million Series B round led by Bessemer Venture Partners and Bain Capital Ventures. Later in October, the startup announced it raised an additional $70 million at a valuation of $1.5 billion, bringing the company’s total raised in 2025 to $147.5 million.

• Newsletter platform Substack raised a $100 million Series C round led by BOND and The Chernin Group. The platform was valued at $1.1 billion, minting the startup as a unicorn.

• The generative AI music platform Suno announced in November a $250 million Series C round led by Menlo Ventures, with participation from Nvidia’s NVentures and Lightspeed, among other investors.

• Synthesia, a generative AI platform that can turn text into videos and create AI avatars and voiceovers, confirmed in January that it had raised a $180 million round led by NEA, with participation from World Innovation Lab and Atlassian Ventures, among other investors. The company declined to comment on an October Forbes report that it had raised an additional $200 million.

• Whatnot, a social shopping platform that’s gained momentum as the US market warms to live shopping, raised a total of $490 million from investors this year. The company announced a $265 million Series E round in January and, by October, had closed another $225 million Series F round at a valuation of $11.5 billion — doubling its valuation from January.

• Ollie’s Bargain Outlet was a top destination for last-minute holiday shoppers this year.
• The retailer saw its foot traffic on the Saturday before Christmas rise by nearly 21%.
• Ollie’s has spent 2025 opening dozens of new stores and has more in the pipeline.

One of the top last-minute shopping destinations this holiday season wasn’t Walmart or Target but a discount retailer that describes itself as “semi-lovely” and its regulars as an “army.”

Ollie’s Bargain Outlet notched the biggest foot-traffic increase on Super Saturday, the last Saturday before Christmas, according to location data firm Placer.ai. Ollie’s saw footfall at its stores increase nearly 21% over the same day in 2024, Placer found.

Other retailers that saw big Super Saturday foot traffic were Bath & Body Works at 11%, Ross at 9%, and Dollar General at 8%, Placer.ai found.

The findings show that last-minute shoppers gravitated to retailers that market themselves as offering good value for money, particularly ones focused on low prices, such as dollar stores, as well as off-price retailers like Ollie’s, which sources excess or closeout inventory from manufacturers or other retailers to keep prices low.

“Value-based offerings like off-price retailers continue to be a favorite for shoppers looking for last-minute items,” Elizabeth LaFontaine, Director of Research at Placer.ai, said of the data.

With 645 stores, Pennsylvania-based Ollie’s isn’t the biggest name on Placer.ai’s list. But it is one of the fastest-growing names in retail.

Ollie’s opened 86 new stores in 2025, all of which were open in time for the holiday shopping season, CEO Eric van der Valk said on a company earnings call earlier this month. Some of those were locations that previously housed Big Lots stores before that chain filed for bankruptcy and shed many of its stores.

Ollie’s plans to grow its store count by at least 10% each year until it hits 1,300 stores, more than double its current footprint, van der Valk said on the earnings call.

Net sales for the retailer’s third quarter, which ended on November 1, rose almost 19%.

Ollie’s website describes its stores as “no frills, semi-lovely” stores that use a “treasure-hunt” strategy to attract customers.

That approach was on display during a visit to one Ollie’s store in Wisconsin earlier this year. Business Insider observed handwritten signs promoting deals as well as merchandise in shipping boxes on the sales floor — a strategy that other retailers, such as Aldi, use as a cost-saving measure instead of fully unpacking items onto shelves.

The chain stocks a range of goods, from toothpaste and breakfast cereal to toaster ovens.

The chain’s free loyalty program, “Ollie’s Army,” provides discounts as well as access to members-only “Ollie’s Army Night” shopping events. The retailer held one such event during the holiday shopping season that included a discount of at least 15% on everything in the store.

“Customers are looking for value, manufacturers need ways to manage their supply chain, and the retail sector is consolidating,” CEO van der Valk said on this month’s earnings call. “Ollie’s benefits from these powerful secular trends.”

Do you have a story to share about Ollie’s Bargain Outlet or another retailer? Contact Alex Bitter at abitter@businessinsider.com.

• Google is quietly rolling out a feature that lets some users change their Gmail addresses.
• The update is detailed on Google’s Hindi support page.
• Users can change their Gmail address up to three times without losing their data.

It looks like you may soon be able to change that old email address you made in high school.

Google account users have long been unable to change their email addresses without creating a whole new account, but Google seems to be quietly rolling out an option to update them. That’s according to a support page published by the company, which outlines a new process to change the email or username used to identify your account.

The update on Google’s account help page says certain account holders can now change their @gmail.com address without losing access to their data or services. The feature was first reported in the Google Pixel Hub Telegram group in a message that said the update is being gradually rolled out to users. As of Friday morning, the modified instructions were available on the Hindi version of Google’s support page.

The support page suggests this option is currently only available in some regions, including Hindi-speaking areas.

According to a translated version of the Hindi support page, the new email must end in @gmail.com, and it can only be changed up to three times. Once the address has been changed, it’s irreversible.

To make the change, you would visit your Google Account page, click “Personal Info,” and go to the “Email” section, according to the Telegram message.

It’s unclear when it will roll out more widely, and Google didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. As of Friday morning, the English support page said usernames ending in @gmail.com usually can’t be changed.

Once the change is made, the Hindi page said, your old Gmail address will be used as an alias to receive emails. You can reuse your old Google account email address at any time, but you can’t create a new Gmail address for the next 12 months.

You can sign in to Google services like Gmail, YouTube, Google Play, or Drive with your old or new email address.