Here’s what happened in the retail technology space during April
RTIH takes a look back at an eventful month for the retail systems sector, including Retail Technology Show, Fast, Meta, Primark, Waitrose, Amazon, and Farfetch.
Good month for…
Retail Technology Show welcomed thousands of attendees over two days at London’s Olympia this month.
They were joined by 200+ technology vendors, exhibiting the latest innovations to drive the industry forwards, and over 90 speakers, who took the biggest debates and hottest topics to the conference stage.
Matt Bradley, Event Director at Retail Technology Show, commented: “We knew the appetite for the Retail Technology Show would make the event an unmissable one – after the turbulence and radical change of the past two years, the time was right for retail to reunite.”
“And Retail Technology Show proved to be the platform for reuniting the industry, setting a course for the transformational evolution needed for retail businesses to succeed in the new landscape.”
“With the outstanding innovation on display on the show floor, the brightest minds in retail on the conference stages and unlimited networking opportunities that you can only get from large format trade events, we were thrilled to have brought retail home to Olympia.”
15 minute grocery delivery service, Food Rocket, announced a $25 million Series A investment round.
This will be used to expand its offering in Chicago and other cities throughout the US, as well as reinforce its AI enabled software and enhance the team.
The lead investor is Alimentation Couche-Tard (ACT), which has more than 14,000 Circle K and Couche-Tard locations in 26 countries and territories, including 7,000+ in the US.
Fast fashion giant Shein hit a $100 billion valuation this month, making it the third most valuable startup in the world after Elon Musk’s SpaceX and ByteDance.
The Chinese firm secured between $1 billion and $2 billion from investors including General Atlantic, Tiger Global and Sequoia Capital China.
It valuation now tops the combined value of Zara owner Inditex and H&M, the two biggest clothing companies in the world.
The latest edition of the RTIH Top 100 Retail Technology Influencers List went live in April.
P2C software company, Productsup, announced a Series B funding round of more than $70 million (€65 million) led by Bregal Milestone and Nordwind Capital.
The investment will enable it to advance product development, target merger and acquisition opportunities, strengthen its partner network, and expand to new markets.
Commerce experience management commerce platform, Salsify, closed a $200 million Series F round of financing led by TPG.
Bad month for…
Fast, a startup that provided online checkout products, is no more.
This followed on from reports indicating that its 2021 revenue growth was less than impressive, its cash burn high and its fundraising options limited.
The Indian antitrust watchdog ordered an investigation into rapid food delivery firms Zomato and Swiggy over whether they are operating as “neutral” following a complaint from the National Restaurant Association of India, a body that represents over 500,000 restaurants in the country.
The Competition Commission of India acknowledged a series of allegations, including the practice of bundling delivery services with customers’ food orders, masking data from restaurant partners, operating cloud kitchens, “unfair and one sided contracts” with the outlets, delayed payment cycle and charging of exorbitant commission.
Also this month…
Ryan Breslow, founder of online checkout technology startup, Bolt, launched an extraordinary attack on Instacart investor Sequoia Capital.
In a series of Twitter posts, Breslow claimed that “Sequoia murdered Instacart’s founder Apoorva Mehta in cold blood”.
Last year, Instacart appointed Fidji Simo as its new CEO, just seven months after she joined the grocery delivery company’s board of directors.
Simo, formerly the VP and Head of the Facebook app, replaced Mehta, with Mehta transitioning to executive chairman of the board.
Breslow said on Twitter: “As far as the mob goes, Sequoia is the Don. As vicious as they come. Their violence is done in silence. Experts at pressure & power.”
Online fashion retailer Farfetch is to invest up to $200 million in Neiman Marcus Group (NMG).
The announcement comes as the latter, which filed for bankruptcy in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, looks to boost its online business.
Meta (or the company formerly known as Facebook) announced Meta Store, its first physical retail space, which will open on 9th May on its campus in Burlingame, California.
Visitors will be be able to get hands on experience with all the firm’s hardware products.
In its latest move to compete with FedEx and UPS, Amazon unveiled Buy with Prime, which extends Prime shopping to online stores beyond Amazon.com.
Buy with Prime will initially be available by invitation only for merchants using Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) and will roll-out through 2022 as merchants are allowed to take par,, including those not selling on Amazon or using FBA.
The service will allow US-based Prime members to shop directly from merchants’ online stores and take advantage of fast, free delivery, and free returns on eligible orders.
Prime members will see the Prime logo and delivery promise on eligible products in merchants’ online stores.
Fast fashion big hitter boohoo took the wraps off its first NFT collection.
Phase one of the brand’s move into this space included the launch of NFT education and community building platform @boohooverse on Twitter and Discord, which aims to onboard the female fashion community into Web3 ahead of the first drop.
boohoo ran a competition to support a second phase. This recruited artists in the NFT space to be part of what is pitched as “the biggest female led NFT collection yet”.
Ocado's within an hour grocery delivery service, Zoom by Ocado, launched a second micro site, in Canning Town, East London.
In a LinkedIn post, Kieren Johnson, Head of IT at Ocado Retail, said that the facility was “built using the OSP platform (70 odd bots doing their stuff) and stocking 10k+ items for delivery within one hour. All electric delivery fleet.”
The first site was launched in 2019 in Acton, West London.
The aforementioned range of 10,000 products compares to over 50,000 from the main Ocado Retail business.
The retailer is looking for additional sites within London's M25 orbital motorway.
Primark started to roll-out a new website, featuring thousands of products from across its ranges, as well as a fresh design, enhanced navigation and a new feature that allows customers to check stock availability in their local store.
This is launching first in the UK, before hitting Primark’s 13 other markets in the coming months.
Alongside the retailer’s in-house team, EPAM Systems has been the primary design and technology partner for the project.
