RTIH presents the retail technology week in numbers
Do you like numbers? Do you like retail technology? Then this is the article for you.
5…Waitrose has opened a new customer fulfilment centre in Greenford, West London.
When fully running later in the year, this will deliver 25,000 weekly e-commerce orders, helping to offer five times more online slots each week in London than before the coronavirus pandemic.
1…Amazon has opened a convenience grocery store in Ealing, West London, its first physical outlet outside of North America.
UK shoppers will for the first time be able to use the e-commerce giant’s Just Walk Out tech, which was pioneered at the Amazon Go offering in the States.
$170 million…US-based e-commerce fulfilment company, Deliverr, has raised a $170 million Series D led by Coatue with participation from Brookfield Technology Partners, Activant Capital, 8VC and GLP.
A fifth of UK shoppers have been unable to return something after losing or damaging a paper receipt, according to research from flux.
They lost an average of £54 each the last time this happened to them, with some claiming they were unable to return items worth up to £1,800.
$39 billion…US grocery delivery venture Instacart has raised $265 million from its existing investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, and D1 Capital Partners.
This values the company at $39 billion, up from $17.8 billion at the time of its previous fundraise, which closed in November last year.
$10,000…Canadian retailer Urban Barn has launched a competition to promote its use of Hullabalook's Stickers technology.
Shoppers can win $10K worth of products by designing the room of their dreams with Stickers on Urban Barn’s website.
$52 million…Berlin-based on-demand grocery delivery startup, Flink, has raised $52 million in seed financing.
300…Russian e-commerce venture, Ozon, has opened a new IT lab in St. Petersburg.
It plans to hire more than 300 developers and engineers at the facility in 2021, making it one of the largest tech employers in the city.
$230 million…Czech online grocer, Rohlik, has raised $230 million to expand in existing markets and enter new countries across Europe.
€30 million…Dutch online-only supermarket, Crisp, has raised €30 million in a Series B round led by Target Global.
43% of UK retail and hospitality businesses wanted to see the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, prioritise an extension of coronavirus business loans and grants in the Spring Budget, according to research from Epos Now.
£1 million…Bookshop.org says that it has generated over £1 million in profit for UK indie booksellers in just over four months of trading, with 410 retailers and 200k+ customers tapping into the new platform to date.
$216 million...Paris-based luxury fashion resale website Vestiaire Collective has announced a $216 million financing round backed by Gucci owner Kering and US investment firm Tiger Global Management.
This values it at over $1 billion.
£4.4 million…London-based grocery delivery startup Bother has secured £4.4 million in pre-Series A funding from the likes of Sun Hung Kai & Co and Venrex Investment Management.
The company, which launched last year, aims to replenish household essentials – such as cleaning products and store cupboard ingredients – through the use of AI technology called the Bother Brain.
1%…Buy now, pay later specialist Klarna is pledging 1% of the $1 billion capital it has raised to an initiative that focuses on key global sustainability challenges.
$1 billion…Klarna rival Sezzle has reported its fiscal 2020 results
The company saw its underlying merchant sales (UMS) total $1 billion, a 250% improvement on last year’s result.
$25.5 million….Customer data platform Lexer has bagged $25.5 million in a Series B round led by Blackbird Ventures and King River Capital.
