Ten retail technology funding rounds you need to know about
RTIH rounds up the retail systems ventures who have been making waves with major investments, including Wayve, Checkout.com, Flipdish, Placer.ai and Exotec.
1. mmi Analytics
mmi Analytics, a provider of beauty industry insights, has raised £4.5 million from angel investors.
The funding round was led by Nigel Wray, who previously invested in Domino’s Pizza, Nutmeg Saving and Investment, and Belluscura.
Lord Stanley Fink, former CEO of Man Group, made a follow on investment in the round.
Founded in 2005, London headquartered mmi monitors media, marketing and e-commerce data for clients including Coty, Huda Beauty, L’Oréal, Revlon, Groupe L’Occitane, Unilever and Shiseido.
2. Checkout.com
Payments company Checkout.com has closed a $1 billion Series D funding round, valuing it at $40 billion.
The venture, whose customers include Farfetch, Pizza Hut, Netflix and Shein, has raised a total of $1.8 billion to date.
Primary players in the Series D round include Altimeter, Dragoneer, Franklin Templeton, GIC, Insight Partners, the Qatar Investment Authority, Tiger Global, and the Oxford Endowment Fund.
Several of the company’s existing backers also participated.
The cash will be used in three key areas: US market growth, a marketplaces solution launch, and to strengthen its position in the Web3 space.
3. Placer.ai
Placer.ai has closed a $100 million Series C funding round at a $1 billion valuation.
Noam Ben-Zvi, CEO at Placer.ai, comments: “With this funding, we will accelerate the development of our platform, adding an unprecedented range of new data sets - such as vehicle traffic, planned construction, web traffic, purchase data, and much more - as well as more advanced solutions to empower any professional with a stake in the physical world to make better decisions, faster than ever before.”
4. Flipdish
Flipdish has announced a $100 million funding round at a $1.25 billion valuation.
Founded in 2015, the venture itself as an alternative to online fast food delivery services such as Just Eat, Deliveroo and Uber Eats by helping restaurant owners bring their online ordering capability in-house.
5. Gr4vy
Cloud native payments orchestration platform Gr4vy bagged an $11.1 million Series A last year and has now bagged a further $15 million in extension funding, led by March Capital.
This takes its total Series A stage funding to $27.2 million (including previous seed funding). The US-based startup claims this has doubled its valuation to $115 million.
6. Invenda Group
Invenda Group has closed a $7.59 million funding round and expanded its board of directors.
The Switzerland-based company, which was founded in 2017, develops software and hardware for vending machines, smart kiosks and digital signage, and is active in 14 countries.
The news comes after the close of US deals with long time client Mars Wrigley and with the Houston Astros’ Minute Maid Park (other clients include Coca-Cola and Lindt & Sprüngli).
7. Exotec
Warehouse robotics specialist Exotec has secured $335 million in Series D funding at a $2 billion valuation.
Exotec has secured $477 million in funding to date.
The growth equity business within Goldman Sachs Asset Management led the Series D round with follow on investments from 83North and Dell Technologies Capital.
Exotec says it will use the funds to continue to launch large scale deployments in North America, Europe, and Asia for global brands.
It also plans to hire 500 new R&D engineers by 2025 to accelerate the development of its warehouse automation technology.
8. Wayve
London-based autonomous mobility startup Wayve has announced a $200 million Series B funding round.
This will enable it to grow its team, develop a Level 4+ AV prototype for passenger vehicles and delivery vans, scale its deployments on partner fleets to commence last mile delivery pilots, and develop the data infrastructure to improve its core autonomy platform at fleet scale.
9. Zowie
Zowie, which has developed an AI powered customer service automation tool and works with the likes of L’Oreal, and InPost, has announced a $5 million seed round co-led by Gradient Ventures (Google’s AI focused investment fund) and 10x.
There was also participation from Jack Altman (CEO at Lattice), Markus Giesswein (CEO at Giesswein), and returning investor Inovo Venture Partners.
10. Vertical Future
UK vertical farming startup Vertical Future has secured £21 million in what is pitched as Europe’s largest ever Series A raise in the sector.
The venture was founded in 2016 by husband and wife team Jamie Burrows (ex-Ernst & Young life sciences consultant and PhD health economist) and Marie-Alexandrine Burrows (health researcher) in Deptford, South East London.
The Series A round includes Pula Investments Ltd (Guernsey-based private family office), environmentalist Gregory Nasmyth (private family office), Nickleby Capital (representing various UHNW family offices), and Dyfan Investment (Luxembourg family office).
EIS fund, SFC Capital, the company’s second largest shareholder, also participated in the round.
