RTIH reviews the retail technology space in January
RTIH takes a look back at an eventful month for the retail systems sector, including the booming rapid grocery delivery space, a checkout-free stores first, and under fire buy now pay later services.
Good month for…
Rapid grocery delivery startup Zapp raised $200 million in a Series B round of funding co-led by Lightspeed, 468 Capital, and BroadLight Capital.
Atomico, Burda and Vorwerk Ventures - all previous backers - also participated, alongside Lewis Hamilton, the Formula One champion (because he drives a fast car, alright?)
UK-based Zapp, which launched in 2020, has now raised $300 million in total.
It is currently live in London, Manchester, Cambridge, Bristol, Amsterdam, Rotterdam and is running a soft launch in Paris.
London-based autonomous mobility startup Wayve 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.
Warehouse robotics specialist Exotec secured $335 million in Series D funding at a $2 billion valuation.
Refurbished electronics marketplace, Back Market, announced a Series E funding round of $510 million led by new investor Sprints Capital and also involving existing backers.
The Very Group, which operates online retailer Very.co.uk, reported a successful second peak for Skygate, its fulfilment centre in the East Midlands, UK, which opened the day the first national Covid lockdown began in March 2020.
Sessions, a startup which provides UK foodie entrepreneurs with a platform to sell their products, raised $10 million in a Series A round.
Founded by Dan Warne, formerly MD of Deliveroo, CFO Ian Banks, formerly CFO of Soho House, and leisure industry specialist Chairman, Graham Turner, Sessions has secured the cash from a syndicate of investors led by Guinness Asset Management.
The business comprises physical consumer facing locations (the Shelter Hall in Brighton being the first of several planned), delivery kitchens and an accelerator model.
3DLOOK, a startup which offers AI powered mobile body measuring and fit solutions, raised an additional $3.5 million, bringing the total funding for its Series A round to $10 million.
This involved the likes of Spidertek. Flyer One Ventures and Startup.Network
3DLOOK will use the cash to scale its virtual fitting product, YourFit. As of the end of 2021, the venture had raised a total of $14.7 million.
Payments company Checkout.com closed a $1 billion Series D funding round, valuing it at $40 billion.
US-based autonomous delivery services firm Starship Technologies agreed a €50 million quasi-equity facility agreement with the European Investment Bank (EIB), the lending arm of the European Union (EU).
The financing, which is supported by the European Fund for Strategic Investments, has been facilitated via a venture loan, and will be used for R&D, including the building of thousands more robots at Starship’s engineering and innovation facility in Tallinn, Estonia.
Deliverect, a Belgian startup that aims to simplify online food delivery, secured more than $150 million (€130 million) in a Series D funding round led by Coatue and Alkeon Capital, as well as existing investors OMERS Ventures, DST Global, Redpoint Ventures, Newion and Smartfin.
This brought Deliverect to $240 million raised to date and put the company's valuation at over $1.4 billion.
Bad month for…
Which? called for stronger safeguards to stop online shoppers from choosing buy now pay later (BNPL) services to pay for products without knowing the risks.
BNPL has soared in popularity in recent years, with the biggest provider Klarna now boasting 13 million customers in the UK.
But, according to Which? research, involving interviews with “30 typical BNPL users”, shoppers do not fully understand the risks of choosing a pay later option at the checkout.
Aldi UK ended its relationship with Deliveroo and pulled 130 stores nationwide from the food delivery platform.
“We have decided to end our trial with Deliveroo to focus on our Click and Collect service, which remains on offer at more than 200 of our stores nationwide,” an Aldi spokesperson told RTIH.
Also this month…
H&M, the world's second biggest clothing retailer, was set to double investments in 2022 to $1.1 billion as it looked to significantly grow sales by 2030.
Spending will focus on areas including technology, supply chain, renewable energy and sustainable materials.
LVMH Chief Executive Bernard Arnault said the metaverse could become a business opportunity for the luxury giant, but “we have to be wary of bubbles”.
“At this stage, we are very much in the real world, selling real products,” he said during the company’s latest earning call. “We are not interested in selling virtual sneakers for 10 euros. We’re not into that.”
The Sage Group, a specialist in accounting, financial, HR and payroll technology for SMEs, completed the acquisition of Brightpearl, a cloud native omnichannel operating system for retailers and wholesalers.
Sage already had a 17% minority stake in Brightpearl. The consideration for the other 83% is $299 million, which will be funded from the former’s existing cash and available liquidity.
Aldi UK launched its first checkout-free location during January.
The Aldi Shop&Go concept store in Greenwich, London opened for public testing, having been tested by staff members in recent months.
The system, provided by AiFi, uses specially positioned cameras.
Those people wishing to buy alcohol, or other Challenge 25 products, will be able to use facial age estimation technology, provided by Yoti, to authorise their purchase.
Chinese online retailer JD.com formed a strategic partnership with Canada-based Shopify.
The e-commerce giants are aiming to help global brands tap China’s huge appetite for imported goods, and also to aid Chinese merchants as they sell overseas.
J.C. Penney appointed two technology executives to its C-suite as it looked to boost its e-commerce and omnichannel offerings.
Sharmeelee Bala has been named Chief Information Officer (CIO).
Katie Mullen, meanwhile, becomes JCPenney’s Chief Digital and Transformation Officer (CDO).
Tesco’s one-hour delivery service Whoosh will be available from at least 600 of the grocery giant’s stores by the end of next year.
JD.com opened two automation powered ochama stores in the Netherlands.
These involve robots preparing parcels, and home delivery service.
The first two ochama pick-up shops are in Leiden and Rotterdam, with two more set to open in Amsterdam (Diemen) and Utrecht.
Last year, we reported that Tony Hoggett was stepping down from the role of Tesco Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer to head up Amazon’s international stores arm.
He was set to move to Amazon’s HQ in Seattle, Washington and become Senior VP of Physical Stores, we noted.
In a note to staff, Tesco Chief Executive Ken Murphy wrote: “Tony’s career in Tesco has spanned over 31 years, during which time he has worked in various roles, most recently as Group COO and Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer.”
“Tony has made an incredibly valuable contribution over these years, and I wish him the very best for the future.”
Hoggett started his new job this month.
Tesco is offering a new payment method to its 20 million Clubcard members.
They can now apply online following a phased Tesco Clubcard Pay+ launch which began in March 2021 with a limited number of customers and Tesco colleagues.
Shoppers can use a new debit card to pay, save and earn Clubcard points. Tesco is offering double Clubcard points for the first three months to pull people in.
American e-commerce big hitter Wayfair announced the appointment of Fiona Tan as Chief Technology Officer.
Walmart is expanding a service that delivers customers’ groceries directly to their refrigerators.
First launched in 2019, the InHome Delivery offering allows customers to place grocery orders online, then receive their deliveries by having a Walmart associate enter their home by way of a smart lock.
This is currently available to six million households across the US. Walmart now has the goal of reaching 30 million US homes by the end of the year.
To support the expansion, it plans to hire more than 3,000 associate delivery drivers this year as well as build out a fleet of 100% all electric delivery vans.
Amazon will add Stellantis’ all electric Ram ProMaster van to its delivery fleet when the vehicle launches in 2023.
The e-commerce giant will be the first commercial customer of the van as part of a broader partnership focused on software development and in-vehicle technology, which was announced at the 2022 CES trade show in Las Vegas.
This includes Stellantis selecting Amazon Web Services (AWS) as its preferred cloud provider for vehicle platforms.
