Winning the innovation game: RTIH serves up its most read retail technology articles from last week
These are the articles on this here website that caught your fancy last week, including Carrefour BuyBye, On, Nedap, Airwallex, Woo, Myth.AI, LEGO Fortnite, Currys, and the 2023 RTIH Innovation Awards.
Carrefour Belgium works with retail technology startup Reckon AI on BuyBye autonomous micro store
Carrefour Belgium has opened its smallest store in Belgium, measuring just 18 sqm.
Carrefour BuyBye is located at the retailer’s Belgian headquarters in Zaventem (near Brussels).
The autonomous store consists of a series of refrigerated vending machines where customers can purchase lunch, snacks, cold drinks and fruit.
Shoppers need to download the Carrefour Buybye app, create an account and add a payment method before they can use the app to open the machines, take out products and check-out.
Initially, this will be open Monday to Friday from 7am to 10pm to start with, but from January it will be available seven days a week.
It is the result of a collaboration with startup Reckon AI, which specialises in micro-stores equipped with artificial intelligence.
Plans are afoot to roll-out the concept to Carrefour Belgium’s existing physical stores.
2023 RTIH Innovation Awards winners announced during glittering ceremony in central London
Last month, we announced the winning submissions for the 2023 RTIH Innovation Awards, sponsored by PMC, FreedomPay, Worldpay from FIS, CADS, 3D Cloud by Marxent, Goodays, and Vista Technology Support.
Our winners were revealed during an event which took place on 29th November at the Barbican Centre in central London and included a drinks reception in the stunning Conservatory, followed by a Christmas themed three course meal, and awards presentation in the Garden Room.
Scott Thompson, Founder and Editor, RTIH, says: “Since we launched the awards in 2019, they have gone from strength to strength and holding them at the Barbican Centre, a much loved, internationally acclaimed venue, is going to be a tough one to top.”
“Thanks to all those who entered the 2023 awards, many of whom were at our event last night. We received a record number of submissions this year and many fantastic examples of the continued resilience and dynamism of the retail space during hugely challenging times.”
“Congratulations to our 2023 winners and highly commended submissions.”
“To quote a member of our judging panel: “What a year, these awards are really going from strength to strength. There were many categories in there that were so difficult to call. Very worthy entries and winners.”
Further information on all our 2023 entries can be found here.
Aria bags €15 million as it looks to bring the digital payment experience to all businesses
French FinTech startup Aria has announced a €15 million funding round to expand its deferred payment infrastructure across the platform economy and B2B marketplaces.
This was led by 13books Capital with participation from Adevinta Ventures, Ankaa Ventures, Otium Capital and angel investors including Laurent Ritter (Purple), Mark Ransford and Guillaume Princen (former Stripe exec).
Aria enables any merchant, B2B marketplace or vertical SaaS company that sells goods and services online and offline to offer their sellers a wide array of payment methods and terms, and get paid instantly — all in a single platform.
It is able to connect with B2B marketplaces, transactional SaaS platforms and ERP systems to distribute early payment of supplier invoices and offers deferred payment options for end-clients via its API.
Swiss sportswear brand On selects Nedap technology for source to consumer RFID project
Nedap has been selected by sportswear brand, On, to deploy its iD Cloud platform in factories, warehouses, distributors and stores worldwide.
This enables On to track and trace every single item from source to consumer.
Utilising radio waves, RFID technology enables wireless identification and tracking of objects, providing efficient data capture and real-time monitoring, especially beneficial in use cases such as supply chain management.
On was already familiar with the technology and benefits of RFID, and decided to run a pilot programme in cooperation with Nedap to test iD Cloud.
LEGO Fortnite goes live as part of long-term digital partnership between Epic Games and LEGO Group
LEGO Fortnite is now live. This is the first play experience to come from a long-term partnership between Epic Games and the LEGO Group to develop fun and safe digital spaces for children and families.
New world building, gameplay features, and more LEGO Style Outfits will be arriving in updates starting early 2024. Fortnite is available to play for free on PlayStation4, PlayStation5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, PC on Epic Games Store and cloud-based gaming streaming services.
LEGO Fortnite is built inside Fortnite and powered by Unreal Engine 5, taking advantage of features such as Chaos physics and destruction to give players the ability to place, connect and break apart bricks just like they would in the real world.
The game utilises World Partition to stream all 95 square kilometres of playable space (that’s 19x the size of the Fortnite Battle Royale Island!), and uses the Procedural Content Generation (PCG) framework to dynamically create detailed environments.
Airwallex and Woo agree partnership to power cross-border commerce for global merchants
Airwallex, a payments and financial platform, has announced a partnership with Woo, the open source e-commerce platform built on WordPress, to become an official payment extension.
This integration enables Woo merchants to accept cross-border payments within minutes by leveraging global cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay and 60+ local payment methods at checkout, thereby opening up the potential to access shoppers from millions of Woo stores, without the sting of high FX conversion fees.
Myth.AI, a Turkish startup behind an AI driven pattern design tool, closes $1.3 million funding round
Myth.AI has closed a $1.3 million funding round to help drive operations in the UK and explore new markets.
Founded in Turkey, the startup was originally created to help the founder’s own high-end fashion line Women & Women, but now offers a generative AI solution that uses visual or text prompts to streamline the design of new and unique patterns for brands across Europe.
The company claims that its technology drastically reduces the time is takes to create bespoke designs, along with helping to create a more sustainable design and production process through reducing the need for swatch samples, which ultimately end up in landfill.
Brands in the textile design industry such as Ratti (Italy), Telater (Spain), Sun Textile, Elyaf Textile, Gama Textile, Zorlu Textile, Halmer Fabric (Turkey) are deploying the technology, along with ceramic industry firm Vitra.
Samsung, Acer, Hisense onboard as Currys Connected Media unveiled by UK technology retailer
Currys has unveiled the first suite of products available via its retail media network, Currys Connected Media.
This allows partnered brands to understand, reach and engage millions of customers online and in-store.
Brands such as Samsung, Acer and Hisense are harnessing the offering, which is built on solutions from partners including Circana, Epsilon and Criteo.
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