Five retail technology funding rounds you need to know about
RTIH rounds up the retail systems ventures whose funding rounds have been making headlines, including Shopic, KatKin, CleverTap, and Ottonomy.IO.
1. Ottonomy.IO
Autonomous robotics delivery startup Ottonomy.IO has closed a seed funding round of $3.3 million, bringing its total funding to date to $4.9 million.
The round was led by Pi Ventures. Connetic Ventures and Branded Hospitality Ventures and the Founder and CEO of Addverb Technologies, Sangeet Kumar, also participated.
“Last mile delivery is the least productive, yet the most expensive part of the delivery chain. There is a strong need for automation, which Ottonomy fulfils with Ottobots,” says Roopan Aulakh, Managing Director at Pi Ventures.
“Ottobots are equipped with a sophisticated tech stack both at hardware and AI level. The founding team here brings years of multi-functional robotics experience, reflecting in the world class product that they have built and commercialised.”
2. KatKin
Fresh food pet tech platform, KatKin, has announced a $22 million Series A round to expand its offering, increase R&D, and take on the likes of Butternut Box in the pet food/D2C space.
The Series A was led by Verlinvest and Perwyn with participation from Octopus Ventures.
Brett O’Farrell, KatKin Co-founder, says: “Right now, mainstream cat food is stale – packed with cheap ingredients, hard to understand labels and fluffed up claims.”
“It’s difficult to find what’s best and customers are frustrated. In contrast, the demand is huge for KatKin – every six months we’re doubling in size and customer base.”
“We’re grateful to Lopo and Cecile at Verlinvest and Andrew at Perwyn, as well as for the continued support from Octopus and our angel investors. This support doesn’t just invest in our business but also the health and happiness of cats and cat parents.”
3. Shopic
Smart grocery shopping cart startup, Shopic, is basking in the glow of a $35 million Series B investment round led by Qualcomm Ventures, bringing its total funding raised to $56 million.
Other participating investors include Vintage Investment Partners and Clal Insurance, together with Shopic’s existing backers IBI Tech Fund, Tal Ventures and Shufersal.
4. CleverTap
CleverTap, a B2B SaaS platform for customer engagement and retention, has signed definitive agreements to raise $105 million in a Series D funding round led by CDPQ, with participation from IIFL AMC's Tech Fund, along with existing investors Tiger Global and Sequoia India.
"CleverTap has established itself as a partner of choice for its clients by helping them generate significant incremental revenue,” says Martin Laguerre, Executive Vice-President and Head of Private Equity, CDPQ.
“Its subscription-based platform offers a single and reliable source of information that allows brands to maximise the lifetime value of their existing customers by engaging them in a highly personalised way.”
"As consumer brands are increasingly focused on customer retention and prioritise tools offering tangible return on investment, we believe CleverTap is well positioned to maintain its global growth trajectory and help more businesses enhance their customer experience."
5. ReturnLogic
ReturnLogic, a specialist in returns management (SaaS) solutions for e-commerce brands and retailers, has completed a $8.5 million Series A funding from an investor group led by Mercury with participation from Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Fund, White Rose Ventures and Ben Franklin Technology Partners.
The new capital will be used to double its workforce, accelerate product development, and expand application programming interface (API) capabilities with new e-commerce platforms and ecosystems for ReturnLogic’s SaaS returns operations platform.
“Despite the explosive growth of the e-commerce sector, retailers and brands have continued to struggle with the substantial financial impacts of returns,” says Peter Sobotta, Founder and CEO at ReturnLogic.
“Our vision is to be the operating system for returns. Our comprehensive platform provides detailed data and a rigid focus on helping retailers navigate the complexities and inefficiencies of their returns tech stack, including reverse logistics workflows.”
“We are eager to build and advance our product roadmap and partner integrations to move beyond Shopify and into other growing and global e-commerce ecosystems.”
“While retailers have largely mastered forward logistics to get products into customer’s hands, the returns process remains an under-addressed, resource-draining problem that eats away at brands’ profits,” says Blair Garrou, Managing Director at Mercury.
“ReturnLogic is something entirely new to this market and uniquely built on Peter Sobotta’s deep operational experience in reverse logistics and supply chain management.”
“While serving in the US Navy, Peter specialised in reverse logistics and gained extensive expertise in e-commerce operations.”
“With Peter at the helm, ReturnLogic’s innovative API first returns solution is well positioned to tackle the ever-growing operational returns problem facing retailers. We are excited to partner with him and his team as they continue to solve this massive problem for online retailers.”
