RTIH looks back at the retail technology space in July
RTIH reviews an eventful month for the retail systems sector, including Gopuff, Jeff Bezos, Amazon, Shopify, Instacart, Flipkart and Walmart.
Good month for…
Electronics rental platform Grover raised $1 billion in a mix of equity and asset-based financing.
The Berlin-based circular economy startup says this will allow it to increase circulations from 475,000 to date to five million by 2024.
Global contactless card transaction values will reach $2.5 trillion in 2021, from $1.7 trillion in 2020, with cards retaining the majority share of overall transaction values at 79% in 2021.
That’s according to a new report from Juniper Research, which finds that the coronavirus pandemic has significantly accelerated an existing contactless card usage trend, and these value increases will be sustained beyond 2021.
Rapid grocery delivery startup, Gopuff, raised $1 billion, valuing it at $15 billion.
Yoobic closed a $50 million Series C funding round led by Highland Europe.
The company provides an app for frontline and service workers to manage tasks, communicate with eachother and management, and also go through training, development and and other e-learning tasks.
It has raised $80 million in total since inception and works with more than 300 brands across 80 countries, including Boots, Carrefour, Lancôme, Lacoste, and Puma.
The UK ranks third in the world, behind the US and China, for its number of tech businesses valued above $10 billion, according to research from Tech Nation.
The former has doubled its number of companies (aka decacorns) at this stage in six months alone, with seven companies reaching $10 billion valuations in 2021: Revolut, Wise, Arrival, eToro, Checkout.com, Farfetch, and Ocado.
Rapid grocery delivery startup Jokr closed a $170 million Series A funding round, three months after the company started operations in the US, Latin America and Europe.
Berlin-based startup, Choco, which has built ordering software for restaurants and their suppliers, raised $100 million in Series B funding.
There was a major jump in the number of mobile payment users in 2020, powered by the coronavirus outbreak.
According to eMarketer research, last year, for the first time, total mobile payment users worldwide (those who had made a purchase at least once in the prior six months) surpassed one trillion.
Colombian on-demand delivery startup, Rappi, bagged approximately $500 million at a $5.25 billion valuation in a Series G round led by T. Rowe Price.
Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart raised $3.6 billion at a post-money valuation of $37.6 billion.
The was co-led by main owner Walmart, GIC, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) and SoftBank Vision Fund 2, and comes ahead of an initial public offering (IPO), which is set for early next year.
Yanolja, a South Korean venture that provides cloud-based booking and other systems for the hospitality and travel sector, completed a $1.7 billion investment round involving SoftBank Vision Fund 2.
It plans to use the funding to invest in the development of technologies and to expand its technology offerings in new markets.
The venture is looking to build and operate a more advanced global travel platform (GTP) by enhancing its automated solutions using artificial intelligence and personalised offerings based on Big Data.
UK-based Banking as a Service outfit Railsbank raised $70 million in a funding round led by Anthos Capital.
UK-based online marketplace OnBuy.com closed £35 million in Series A+ funding through VC and strategic technology investors.
Kurly, a startup that provides next day grocery delivery services across South Korea, closed $200 million in Series F funding, valuing the company at $2.2 billion.
Livestream shopping startup, Popshop Live, closed a Series A funding round at a valuation of $100 million.
PayPoint announced a £6.6 million investment in the Snappy Group home delivery business.
Czech online grocery startup Rohlik announced a €100 million Series C funding round, valuing it at €1 billion.
The was led by Index Ventures, which was also part of Rohlik’s $230 million Series B that it raised three months ago. Previous backers including Partech and Quadrille Capital also participated in the latest round.
Rohlik has expanded to Hungary and Austria and is working on its first launch in Germany, in Munich. Romania, Italy, France and Spain are also on its list.
Bad month for…
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past month, you’ll be aware that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has completed an 11 minute journey to space aboard his company Blue Origin's New Shepard launch vehicle.
He was accompanied by Mark Bezos, his brother, Wally Funk, an 82-year-old pioneer of the space race, and an 18-year-old student.
During a news conference, billionaire Bezos thanked “every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer because you guys paid for all of this."
Enter his many, many critics who were quick to point out that Amazon workers have complained of poor working conditions, long hours and low pay. Customers are also getting a bum deal.
Oh, and the e-commerce giant doesn’t pay its fair share of taxes.
Luxembourg’s National Commission for Data Protection (CNPD) hit Amazon with a $887 million GDPR fine over the way it uses customer data for targeted advertising purposes.
Amazon revealed this in an SEC filing in which it slammed the decision as baseless and said it would to defend itself “vigorously in this matter.”
Also this month…
Amazon denied a media report stating the e-commerce giant was looking to accept Bitcoin payments by the end of the year.
Marks & Spencer was set to become the first major UK retailer to launch same-day clothing deliveries nationwide.
The move would make M&S faster than competitors such as Asos and Next.
Shopify made it possible for eligible merchants to sell NFTs (non-fungible tokens) through their e-commerce stores. One of the first out of the traps is the NBA’s Chicago Bulls.
Instacart announced plans to offer automated fulfilment as a service to grocers in North America, and it has inked a multi-year deal with Fabric as part of the initiative.
The service will combine Fabric’s software and robotics with Instacart’s proprietary technology and gig shoppers for fulfilment inside dedicated warehouses and existing retailer locations.
Instacart plans to kick off early stage concept pilots in partnership with grocery retail partners over the coming year. This is the company’s first move beyond its legacy store-based fulfilment offering.
Morrisons is testing out a store with no checkouts or staff, known internally as Project Sarah, at its Bradford head office.
Britain's fourth largest supermarket, which is currently at the centre of a takeover battle, is teaming with US venture AiFi on the initiative.
Customers (or Morrisons staff members in the case of this trial) download an app on to their smartphone which must be scanned on entry.
Digital cameras then track where people are in the store and record which items they place in their bags.
Asos formed a joint venture with US retailer Nordstrom.
The latter will invest for a minority stake in the Topshop, Topman, Miss Selfridge and HIIT brands which Asos acquired out of bankruptcy this year.
It’s part of a move by Nordstrom to make its physical and online stores work more seamlessly together.
Asos, meanwhile, gets a physical foothold in North America.
Walmart announced a supply chain automation partnership with Symbotic.
The two will deploy robotics tech at 25 regional Walmart distribution centres, with roll-out set to take several years to complete.
This builds on a 2017 pilot that brought Symbotic’s autonomous robotics platform to Walmart’s Brooksville, Florida distribution centre in a bid to increase freight sorting, stocking and unloading.
Tony Hoggett is stepping down from the role of Tesco Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer to head up Amazon’s international stores arm.
He will move to Amazon’s HQ in Seattle, Washington and become Senior VP of Physical Stores in January 2022.
Buy now pay later big hitter Klarna acquired social shopping platform HERO.
Sainsbury’s became the first UK retailer to introduce fully electric refrigerated trailers to its delivery fleet.
New technology adds charge back into the battery by converting kinetic energy into electricity, keeping the onboard fridges cool and reducing energy consumption.
This is part of Sainsbury’s plans to invest £1 billion, over the next 20 years, into its operations, with the aim of eliminating carbon emissions and significantly reducing energy costs.
Food shoppers are starting to return to pre-pandemic habits, according to Sainsbury’s.
Online demand has fallen from peak levels as people return to stores.
However, e-commerce sales are way above pre-pandemic levels. Sainsbury's reported that 18% of its sales are online, compared with 8% in 2019-20.
Ocado Solutions teamed with Auchan Retail owned Spanish grocer Alcampo to develop the latter’s online business using the Ocado Smart Platform (OSP).
The pair will initially build a customer fulfilment centre (CFC) to serve the Madrid region from 2024, with additional CFCs to be announced at future dates.
Alcampo will also leverage Ocado’s In-Store Fulfilment (ISF) software across its hypermarkets nationwide to enable more efficient picking from stores.
Casino Group announced a digital strategy acceleration partnership with Accenture and Google Cloud.
The aim here is to enhance the retailer’s customer experience and operational capabilities through the development and implementation of data analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning based solutions.
It is also looking to support the growth of its B2B activities, in particular RelevanC, the Group's retail media property, with technological and commercial back up from the partners.
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