RTIH reviews the retail technology space in February
RTIH takes a look back at an eventful month for the retail technology space, including mega funding rounds, robots on the rise and calls for regulation of the buy now, pay later space.
Good month for…
Shippo, a startup that powers shipping services for e-commerce companies, announced a $45 million investment led by D1 Capital. The new capital valued the venture at $500 million.
CNBC’s Jim Cramer argued that GameStop should convert its stores into crypto info centres
London-based last mile delivery venture, Gophr, bagged £4 million in a funding round led by Nauta Capital.
US-based autonomous checkout solution provider, Standard Cognition, announced a $150 million Series C round led by SoftBank.
This put the venture’s valuation at $1 billion+, making it tech/retail's newest unicorn.
South Korean e-commerce big hitter, Coupang, is gearing up for what is set to be the largest initial public offering by a foreign company in the US since Alibaba Group’s debut in 2014.
Coupang is reportedly eyeing a market valuation of more than $50 billion following its listing on the New York Stock Exchange.
Locus Robotics, which specialises in autonomous mobile robots for fulfilment warehouses, landed $150 million in Series E funding, bringing its valuation to $1 billion.
Online furniture retailer Made.com is looking into a stock market flotation that would value it at more than £500 million and possibly as much as £1 billion.
Buy now, pay later venture Sezzle signed a $250 million funding facility with Goldman Sachs Bank USA and Bastion Funding IV as it looks to expand in the US and Canada.
Private equity firm IW Capital completed a £800,000 investment in the latest round of a £2.9 million raise for scan, pay and go venture, Ubamarket.
Online marketplace notonthehighstreet was bought by private equity firm, Great Hill Partners, for an undisclosed sum.
The deal came after the venture – which was founded in 2006 – added nearly a million new customers and saw its community of hand-picked small business sellers rise four-fold in 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic drove an e-commerce boom.
Ocado said it would stump up £700 million for new projects for its technology clients in 2021 as group sales in the year to 29th November reached £2.3 billion.
Former Just Eat CEO David Buttress joined the board of Egypt-based food discovery and ordering platform, elmenus, and made an undisclosed investment in the company.
Customer data platform Lexer secured $25.5 million in a Series B round led by Blackbird Ventures and King River Capital.
Artificial Intelligence startup Peak announced a $21 million Series B funding round led by VC firm Oxx, with participation from existing investors MMC Ventures and Praetura Ventures, and newbie Arete.
E-commerce delivery startup Pandion emerged from stealth mode and raised $4.9 million in seed funding.
Founder and CEO Scott Ruffin was the Founder and Head of Amazon Air and most recently was VP and Head of Walmart’s E-commerce Transportation division.
Bad month for…
Primark estimated that non-essential retail closures across its global store estate cost it £1.1 billion in lost sales in the first half of its financial year.
It does, however, expect the post-coronavirus lockdown period to be “highly cash generative”.
Also this month…
Asda has increased its online delivery capacity by 90% since last March to 850,000 weekly slots and is on course to fulfil one million orders per week by the end of the year.
Buy now, pay later big hitters Klarna and Laybuy responded to the publication of The Woolard Review into the unsecured credit market.
As part of the review, interest free buy now, pay later credit agreements will be regulated by the FCA, after rapidly increasing in popularity due in no small part to the coronavirus pandemic driving shoppers online.
Asos, boohoo, Gymshark, The Hut Group, Ocado Group and AO World launched a new trade body called the UK Digital Business Association (UKDBA).
This came amid heated debate around tax and business rates and the acceleration of e-commerce across all demographics during the coronavirus outbreak.
Waitrose rolled out a new mobile application that will help it assess and understand the emotional wellbeing of its farm animals.
This has been developed by animal behavioural scientists at Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC) and licensed by the retailer for trial and development for two years.
US grocery delivery service Instacart was reportedly looking into the use of robotic warehouses to fulfil its orders.
It currently uses more than 500,000 gig workers for this.
According to a FT article, citing several people familiar with discussions, Instacart initially expressed a desire to open as many as 50 micro-fulfilment centres across the US in about a year.
Iceland Foods joined The Climate Pledge, a public commitment to “go green” launched by Amazon and Jeff Bezos in 2019.
Former Bank of England Governor Mark Carney joined the board of online payments provider Stripe.
The announcement closely followed reports that the US firm was planning a primary funding round, valuing it at more than $100 billion.
China is set to become the first country in which e-commerce surpasses 50% of retail sales, according to eMarketer.
It forecasts that 52.1% of the country’s retail will come from online in 2021, up from 44.8% last year. For almost every other country in the world, this datapoint remains far out of reach.
Sainsbury’s introduced a system which allows customers to recycle Polypropylene (PP) film found in several household plastic products.
A trial is underway in 63 of its supermarkets across the north east with full roll-out expected by the end of this year.
After deploying its first Simbe Robotics’ Tally robot in 2019, Carrefour UAE is now adding 11 more across select stores to support with stock management and control.
Frictionless shopping startup Zippin’s Japan partner, Fujitsu, has worked with Koyo Group to implement what is pitched as the world’s first checkout-free store within a hotel.
Situated in the Yokohama Techno Tower Hotel, it is also the first store in Japan open to the general public that uses biometric authentication technology to verify customers’ identities.
Amazon Founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, will transition to the role of Executive Chair in the e-commerce giant’s Q3 this year.
Amazon Web Services Chief Andy Jassy will become CEO at that time.
Bezos went out on a high note, with Amazon reporting record revenues for its core Christmas quarter, topping $100 billion for the first time.
