RTIH presents the retail technology week in numbers
Do you like numbers? Do you like retail systems news? Then this is the article for you. Including Ikea, Amazon, Peak AI, Flink and Zippin.
€6 million…arive, a new player in the booming rapid delivery space, has raised €6 million in seed funding from Balderton Capital, 468 Capital and La Famiglia VC.
The German startup delivers high end consumer products within 30 minutes.
$40 million…French delivery venture Cajoo has raised a $40 million Series A funding round from various investors including supermarket giant Carrefour, and VC firms Frst, Xange and Headline.
$30 million…US startup Zippin has raised $30 million in Series B funding from new and existing investors including OurCrowd, Maven Ventures, Evolv Ventures and SAP.
This brings the checkout free store venture’s total funding to more than $45 million.
Zippin says that the latest funding round will enable it to scale its platform and power tens of thousands of stores by 2025.
Customers include food service providers Aramark Corporation and Compass Group, Japan’s third largest convenience store chain Lawson, and Brazilian retailer Americanas.
49% and 18 million…Research from Liftoff, App Annie and Poq reveals a surge in mobile shopping apps use in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as Android’s outperformance of iOS in key marketing metrics.
Consumers flocked to mobile retail amid coronavirus restrictions, boosting a year long trend of increased adoption in the sector. Globally, mobile users spent 49% more time on these apps since January 2020, reaching nearly 18 million hours spent weekly in April 2021.
$165 million…Olsam, a company which buys and scales e-commerce businesses, has raised $165 million in a Series A round.
Founded by an ex-Amazon marketplace team, it says it will use the capital to “rapidly acquire larger brands from global entrepreneurs seeking a reliable buyer with deep operational expertise for their companies”.
The cash will also be used to expand its operations team across its core markets and to continue investing in its proprietary operating tech platform, as well as deepen its brand IP and patent protection across multiple geographies, including China.
$200 million…Heroes, which buys up third-party merchants on Amazon’s Marketplace, has picked up $200 million, money that it will mainly be using to buy more merchants. Crayhill Capital Management is providing the funding.
Heroes launched in November of last year with $65 million in funding. Other investors in the startup include 360 Capital, Fuel Ventures and Upper 90.
600,000…This week marked one year since Marks and Spencer went live on Ocado.
The move saw the latter begin to sell and deliver food from M&S rather than Waitrose, after M&S splashed out £750 million to acquire a 50% stake in Ocado’s retail business.
“With operations commencing at Ocado's latest fulfilment centre in Purfleet, capacity will soon increase to 600,000 (from around 356,000) orders a week,” M&S tweeted.
6…Digital experience analytics venture, Contentsquare, has acquired Hotjar, a product experience insights platform in the SMB market. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
This is Contentsquare’s sixth acquisition in two years, following deals to buy Upstride, Dareboost, AdaptMyWeb, Pricing Assistant and Clicktale.
$22.5 million…Ikea’s holding company Ingka Group, through its Ingka Investments arm, has 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.
$75 million…Artificial Intelligence startup Peak announced a $75 million Series C funding round led by new investor SoftBank Vision Fund 2.
10 and $240 million…Berlin-based on-demand grocery delivery startup, Flink, says that it now has 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. It recently raised $240 million to expand its business into more cities and countries.
$28 million…Social commerce startup Flip has closed a $28 million Series A round led by Streamlined Ventures.
$125,000…Gap has acquired Drapr, a startup whose technology lets customers try on clothing virtually.
Drapr was founded last year and has raised $125,000 to date from two seed funding rounds.
$50…Amazon is partnering with Affirm for its first ever buy now, pay later option on the e-commerce site.
This is now available to certain Amazon customers in the US, with a broader roll-out set for the coming months. The tie up will let people split purchases of $50 or more into smaller, monthly instalments.
11…Russian health food chain VkusVill has launched a new project offering delivery of hot meals.
The service is available via the venture’s mobile app. Eligible customers will see the addition of a new section — Sgoryacha. Prepared food will be delivered in a thermal container within two hours from when an order is placed.
Hot meals are prepared using dark kitchens. VkusVill currently operates 11 of these in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Volgograd and Cheboksary.
