Five retail technology funding rounds you need to know about
RTIH rounds up the retail systems ventures who have been making waves with major investments, including Veho, HURR, Kurly, and VOLY.
1. Sympl
Sympl, a buy now, pay later platform based in Egypt, has raised $6 million following its soft launch last month.
This was led by Beco Capital along with A15, and Global Ventures.
Sympl will use the cash to accelerate the growth of its merchant network to serve multiple product and service categories across online and in-store merchants as well as improving the product offering to better serve the platform customers.
Its platform is now accepted at more than 240 retail and online stores in Egypt. The plan is to reach 1,000 stores by mid of next year.
2. HURR
Fashion rental marketplace, HURR, has bagged $5.4 million in seed funding.
This was led by European VC firm, Octopus Ventures, which has backed other circular economy ventures, including peer-to-peer resale platform Depop (acquired by Etsy for $1.6 million), food sharing app OLIO, and toy subscription service Whirli.
The round also saw participation from D4 Ventures and Ascension, among others.
3. VOLY
Australian instant online grocery supermarket, VOLY, has raised AU$18 million in a seed round led by Sequoia Capital India, and with increased backing from Global Founders Capital (GFC) and Artesian Capital.
The venture, which launched in July, says the cash will enable it to continue to scale, expand its team, rapidly increase operations across key urban centres and start a national roll-out.
4. Veho
Veho, a startup that enables personalised next-day package delivery, has announced a $125 million Series A raise led by General Catalyst at a $1 billion valuation.
The cash will be used to grow its team, expand from 14 to 50 US markets by the end of 2022, and improve the consumer experience through technology advancement.
Powered by a crowdsourced driver marketplace, Veho's technology matches demand for package delivery with driver partners.
5. Kurly
Korean online grocery startup Kurly has closed $210 million in a pre-IPO round from single backer Anchor Equity Partners.
This brings its total raised to approximately $761 million and values the company at $3.3 billion.
The Seoul-based venture, which provides next-day delivery services, will use the fresh capital to advance its data infrastructure and logistics service and recruit talent.
