Phoebe Gates' Phia app offers refunds after commission attribution scandal

Phia, the e-commerce platform launched in 2025 by Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni, faced a scandal after a report showed the service was taking commissions for sales it never influenced. The company’s browser extension mistakenly claimed credit for transactions from June 20 to July 29, an error the firm blamed on a software update. Impact.com, one of Phia’s affiliate partners, announced it will reprocess all un-paid actions in that period, either redirecting commissions to the proper publishers or refunding advertisers.

Rakuten Advertising has opened its own inquiry, and CJ Affiliate is issuing reconciliation payments, though it did not name Phia. As a result, Phia has been temporarily removed from Impact’s marketplace and must demonstrate compliance before reinstatement. Investors in the startup include Kleiner Perkins, Khosla Ventures and celebrity backers, and the incident has sparked worries about trust in affiliate-marketing practices. Neither Gates nor Kianni have publicly responded to the allegations.