Six 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 TAGR, Rotageek, Sharebite, and Kogniz.
1. TAGR
Australia-based retail technology startup TAGR has raised $1.15 million.
Its scan and pay platform enables retailers to offer mobile checkout to their customers within a 48 hour period, with integration to their PoS system.
TAGR says that the seed round involved a number of investors, retail brands and high net worth individuals.
The capital injection will be used to build globally supported infrastructure and penetrate the US and North America markets come August/September.
Since its launch in early January, TAGR has bagged more than 10,000 users among a handful of stores.
2. Adwisely
Adwisely, formerly known as RetargetApp, an ad automation platform for e-commerce DTC brands, has announced a. $1.5 million seed round, led by TMT Investments with participation from Gaingels, Mana Ventures, Cabra VC, ICU Ventures, and a group of angel investors, including Wrike’s Andrew Filev.
The investment brings the company's total funding to $3.9 million. It plans to use the new funds to integrate with more advertising platforms with the highest potential for fast growing DTC brands, such as TikTok, Pinterest, and Twitter, before raising Series A cash later this year.
"To date, there are five million e-commerce SMBs with high potential struggling with promotion and who are unable to afford agencies - which, in addition to high price tags, often fail to deliver results. Young tech savvy generations add to the struggle as they are hard to impress with online ads,” says Lorenzo Thione, Managing Director at Gaingels.
“We have seen Adwisely help brands solve these issues and achieve incredible results, and we are looking forward to become a part of their story and contribute to their growth and success.”
3. Rotageek
Workforce scheduling company, Rotageek, has closed a £3 million funding round led by Volution, Calculus Capital, and Gresham House Ventures.
The investment will enable it to scale, following the signing of retail clients including Caffè Nero, McColl’s, White Stuff, and Charlotte Tilbury.
Rotageek’s solution uses cloud-based, AI driven technology to help multi-site businesses manage and schedule staff to meet demand, forecast footfall and optimise rotas.
4. Omi
Omi, a French startup that specialises in SaaS software for modelling and rendering 3D photo and video for brands, has raised €6 million in seed funding.
The round was led by Dawn Capital, with participation from a range of angel investors including Founders Future’s Marc Ménasé who led Omi’s previous round, Zenly cofounder Alexis Bonillo, Deezer founder Daniel Marhely and Voodoo cofounder Laurent Ritter.
There was also participation from Pareto Holdings, Financière Saint James (Veepee.com’s co-founder family office), Motier Ventures (Galeries Lafayette family office) and Famille C Venture (Clarins family office).
Omi says that its photo-realistic 3D technology enables brands and marketers to “virtualise their products and create photos and videos of their products in minutes, with no skills and at low cost”.
The funding will be used to accelerate the development of its R&D, recruit new talent, and build an international presence.
5. Sharebite
Sharebite, which partners with restaurants to deliver food to corporate clients, has bagged $39 million in a Series B round led by Prosus with participation from Fiserv, Contour Venture Partners, Reign Ventures, London Technology Club and Not Boring Fund.
Sharebite's restaurant partner network includes over 4,000+ enterprise and top-tier QSR merchants across the United States.
Corporate clients include many of the top law firms in New York City, along with various investment banks, private equity and hedge funds, tech companies, consulting firms, marketing agencies, and real estate firms across the country.
6. Kogniz
Kogniz has announced a $10 million investment led by Ulu Ventures to help bring the company's technology product suite that predicts, detects, and resolves key safety and operational problems to commercial, industrial, school, and governmental organisations.
There was also participation by super{set} Venture Studio and its CEO and Co-Founder Tom Chavez, and The Indy Fund, K20 Fund, H. Barton Asset Management, among others.
Kogniz has raised $13.5 million in total to date.
Alongside the latest investment, it has unveiled a new Gun Detection module that uses computer vision and AI to identify firearms in real-time via a client's existing camera infrastructure.
