The five biggest retail tech news stories of the week
It’s Friday, the week is nearly done, so let’s kick back and reflect on another eventful week for the retail systems space. Here's your briefing on the most important stories from the past five days, including Amazon and Affirm, Peak AI and Ocado/M&S.
1. Amazon makes buy now pay later move with Affirm deal
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.
2. Peak AI closes mega Series C funding round
Artificial Intelligence startup Peak has announced a $75 million Series C funding round led by new investor SoftBank Vision Fund 2.
There was also participation from all existing backers, including MMC Ventures, Oxx, Praetura Ventures, Arete and Octopus Ventures. This brings Peak’s total funding raised to date to $119 million.
The cash will fuel global expansion, with new offices opening in both the USA and India, as well as increasing R&D investment in Peak’s decision intelligence software.
As a result, it is planning to create more than 200 new jobs globally in the coming year.
3. Former Morrisons boss Dalton Philips joins Starship Technologies
Autonomous delivery services venture, Starship Technologies, has added Dalton Philips to its board.
Philips is currently CEO at daa, whose principal activities include the operation and management of Dublin and Cork Airports, global airport retailing subsidiary ARI, and international aviation consultancy daa International.
He was previously CEO at UK supermarket chain Morrisons from March 2010 to February 2015.
4. Ocado Purfleet CFC goes live as M&S celebrates one year of online deliveries
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.
The Purfleet site is Ocado’s third customer fulfilment centre (CFC) to launch this year, and up to 1,500 people could work there once it is at full capacity.
It will be the company’s second biggest CFC, behind one in Erith.
5. Checkout free stores startup Zippin bags Series B funding
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.
