The retail technology year in review: August 2021
Including Square acquiring Afterpay, Walmart vs Amazon, and the booming self-checkout and buy now pay later spaces.
Good month for…
Online cannabis marketplace startup, Jane Technologies, closed a $100 million Series C funding round.
Artificial intelligence startup Peak announced a $75 million Series C funding round led by new investor SoftBank Vision Fund 2.
Momentum in the self-checkout revolution kept up in 2020, with shipments booming by 25% globally, according to research from RBR.
There are more than 20 vendors present, ranging from international suppliers to local players, as well as some retailers building their own solutions.
NCR is the world’s largest self-checkout supplier, accounting for a third of shipments in 2020.
Shares in Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com jumped 14.9% in Hong Kong on Tuesday, 24th August after the company revealed strong revenue and user growth in the second quarter.
“We are pleased to deliver another quarter of healthy growth even compared to last year’s high base,” commented Sandy Xu, Chief Financial Officer at JD.com.
“Our consistent execution and successful 618 Grand Promotion helped us to add over 32 million new users in Q2, the largest single quarter increase in our history.”
“We are also encouraged by the continued diversification of our revenue streams, reflecting our open ecosystem strategy of empowering customers and business partners through our supply chain-based technology and infrastructure.”
The New York Times reported that consumers spent $610 billion at Amazon from June 2020 to June 2021, based on estimates from financial research firm FactSet. In that same time frame, shoppers splashed out $566 billion at Walmart.
Latin American e-commerce platform, Nuvemshop, raised a $500 million Series E round of funding.
Cart.com, which provides end-to-end e-commerce services, announced a $98 million Series B round to bring its total funding to $143 million.
CEO Omair Tariq, who was previously an executive at Home Depot and COO of Blinds.com, co-founded the company in September 2020 with Jim Jacobson, former CEO at RTIC Outdoors.
Trendyol, a Turkey-based e-commerce platform, raised $1.5 billion, valuing the company at $16.5 billion.
The new financing also made it Turkey’s first decacorn. The round was co-led by General Atlantic, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Princeville Capital and sovereign wealth funds, ADQ (UAE) and Qatar Investment Authority.
E-commerce out of home delivery and returns venture, InPost, announced deployment of its 2,000th automated parcel machine - or locker unit - in the UK.
Retail marketing technology venture Bluecore closed a $125 million Series E funding round led by existing investor Georgian.
Digital experience intelligence specialist, FullStory, secured $103 million in funding, valuing it at $1.8 billion.
Suma Brands, which acquires brands selling and fulfilling their orders via Amazon, bagged $150 million in funding in a Series A round headed up by Pace Capital and Material alongside a credit facility led by i80 Group.
Bad month for…
#SilentSainsburys was trending on Twitter this month as the grocery giant came under increasing pressure to stop advertising during Nigel Farage’s new show on GB News.
Klarna’s losses increased significantly in the second quarter.
The Swedish buy now, pay later venture, most recently valued at $46 billion in an investment round led by Japan’s SoftBank, increased the volume of purchases it processed on behalf of retailers by two-thirds in the second quarter to $20 billion.
But its operating losses rose from SKr89 million ($10 million) a year earlier to SKr965 million ($111 million) as credit losses more than doubled in the second quarter.
Albinder Dhindsa, the founder of Indian startup Grofers, responded to “hate” being directed at his company.
Grofers had been facing a social media backlash, with people claiming that its rapid delivery partners were being exploited.
Also this month…
Berlin-based on-demand grocery delivery startup, Flink, said that it now had 100+ fulfilment hubs within Germany, the Netherlands, and France.
The venture, which only officially launched earlier this year, delivers items from this network in under 10 minutes.
Following the introduction of Simbe Robotics’ autonomous robot Tally in select stores, Schnuck Markets announced a multi-year, full scale roll-out at 111 locations across the US.
It said that this made it the first grocer in the world to utilise AI powered inventory management technology at scale.
Target was planning to open four new sortation centres this autumn in the Houston, Dallas, Philadelphia and Lawrenceville, Georgia markets.
Removing the sortation process from the backroom and stores and moving it to a dedicated facility would help free up space and time within retail locations, it said. The centres will get deliveries from stores and sort them for delivery partners like Shipt.
Customer reviews and insights platform, Feefo, acquired rival business Reevoo.
Ocado Group appointed former Amazon Vice President and technology entrepreneur Nadia Shouraboura to its non-executive board.
The Post Office announced a Click and Collect partnership with parcel delivery firm DPD.
Wendy’s and REEF partnered to open and operate 700 delivery kitchens over the next five years across the US, Canada and the United Kingdom.
This built upon a test of eight dark kitchens in Canada beginning in late 2020. Through this commitment, SoftBank-backed Reef became the first Wendy’s franchisee in the United Kingdom.
The pair expected to open approximately 50 delivery kitchens in 2021, with the remainder launched by 2025.
Amazon partnered with Affirm for its first ever buy now, pay later option on the e-commerce site.
The tie up lets people split purchases of $50 or more into smaller, monthly instalments.
Marks and Spencer kicked off a drive to recruit 70 software engineers over the next year as part of its digital transformation push.
Doug McMillon, President and CEO at Walmart, praised his tech and product teams as the retailer reported its Q2 earnings.
He said: “Our tech and product teams have made a lot of progress modernising our technology and way of working.”
“We’re starting to see more examples of where one idea or one tech product can benefit more of our businesses, and faster. I’m really pleased about the work our tech teams are doing to unlock value across the business.”
Zebra Technologies was set to acquire antuit.ai, a provider of artificial intelligence powered SaaS solutions specific to forecasting and merchandising for the retail and CPG industries.
Ikea’s holding company Ingka Group, through its investment arm Ingka Investments, invested $22.5 million in Jifiti, for a minority stake in the FinTech venture.
Jifiti provides white labeled Point of Sale financing solutions for banks, lenders and merchants.
Square, the payments venture founded by Twitter’s Jack Dorsey, said it would acquire Australian buy now, pay later provider Afterpay in an all-stock deal worth about $29 billion.
Best Buy was set to invest up to $10 million with Brown Venture Group, a venture capital firm that focuses exclusively on black, latinx and indigenous startups in the emerging technologies space.
Deliveroo announced the appointment of Devesh Mishra as Chief Product and Technology Officer.
He joined from Amazon, where he had spent the past 16 years.
The John Lewis Partnership inked a deal with Tesco to lease a one million sq ft distribution centre at Fenny Lock in Milton Keynes.
It said that the move would help it meet growing customer demand for online orders.
