Bill Gates' daughter's shopping startup caught in cookie-stuffing scheme

Internal records have revealed that Phia, a shopping startup co-founded by Phoebe Gates, 23, daughter of Microsoft founder Bill Gates, claimed commissions on online purchases it did not generate by attributing them to itself.

Bloomberg and other outlets reported Wednesday that Gates and co-founder Sofia Kiani directed employees to build the feature into the app.

The practice is known in the industry as "cookie stuffing."

In affiliate marketing, a referring company earns a commission on sales it drives, with browser cookies tracking which site referred the customer. Under standard contractual terms, a cookie is only placed when a customer clicks a referral link or uses a coupon.

Phia is a browser extension that surfaces discount coupons at checkout. After testing the app across more than 50 online stores on mobile on July 9, Bloomberg found that Phia opened a hidden background window during checkout to plant its own cookie, overwriting legitimate cookies previously set by other affiliates.

Phia said it was unaware of the issue, but an internal admin dashboard reviewed by Bloomberg showed the feature listed as "auto coupon drop enabled." It was switched on Dec. 10, 2025, and turned off on July 7 — the day Bloomberg first contacted the company.

Internal sales data reviewed by Bloomberg showed that after the feature was disabled in early July, average daily sales fell from $80,000 to between $10,000 and $28,000.

Ben Edelman, an advertising consultant who has tracked deceptive marketing practices for more than 20 years, said the feature "was designed to inflate Phia's revenue without providing any benefit to merchants."

According to Futurism, a US technology publication, corporate attorney Ariel Givner said such conduct "is typically treated as federal wire fraud in US courts" and could carry "up to 20 years in prison, along with fines and restitution."

Impact.com, the affiliate network that processes commission payments, dropped Phia after the initial report last month.

The New York Post reported that Hailey Bieber, Kris Jenner and Spanx founder Sara Blakely participated in a 2025 funding round. TechCrunch reported that total investment in the company has exceeded $40 million. Phia raised $35 million in January.

Gates — whose father's net worth stands at $108.4 billion according to Forbes — has said she wants to succeed without her parents' help.