Featuring Nosto and Spreetail: Five retail technology funding rounds you need to know about
RTIH rounds up the retail systems ventures who have recently wrapped notable funding rounds, including Hexa, Hectare, and ZIPZERO.
1. Nosto
E-commerce tech startup, Nosto, has announced the closure of a $16 million funding round, from Mandatum Asset Management’s Growth Equity team (MAM GE).
Since its founding in 2011, Nosto’s technology has been tapped by over 2,500 brands such as Paul Smith, Kylie Cosmetics, Muji, Dermalogica, Centric Brands, and Princess Polly.
“Merchants using Nosto are growing quickly, and merchants using Nosto on the Shopify platform are growing quicker still,” says Jim Lofgren, CEO, Nosto.
“This investment will help us continue scaling our Commerce Experience Platform, supporting brands in their own growth ambitions. This fundraise represents a shared vision for the opportunities that lie ahead in the e-commerce space for both Nosto and our merchants.”
He adds: “Since launching site search natively within our platform, we’re uniquely positioned to disrupt the product discovery space. Not only are we leveraging recent developments in semantic search and natural language processing, but we’re also unlocking valuable search data that is often siloed within point solutions.”
“Giving brands the power to take search data and use it to inform their personalisation and merchandising strategies across the rest of the online experience, and vice versa, all within a single platform, means that data can be harnessed from anywhere and actioned everywhere. This creates a completely personalised experience for shoppers and a high-performing online store for brands.”
Upon closing the aforementioned transaction, Nosto has named MAM GE’s Rami Salonen as a board member.
2. Spreetail
Spreetail, a specialist in e-commerce logistics and channel management, has closed a funding round bringing in $208 million.
The round was supported by McCarthy Capital, internal management, and other investors. The cash will be used to help the company enhance technology efficiencies and support brand partner growth.
Founded in 2006, Spreetail operates seven fulfilment centres across the US and expanded internationally in 2018.
It serves over 500 brands, enabling them to accelerate their e-commerce sales across marketplaces such as Amazon, Target.com, Wayfair, Walmart.com, and eBay.
3. ZIPZERO
ZIPZERO has raised over £1 million in seed funding.
The startup has developed an app that allows users to receive cash rewards by sharing receipts from their everyday purchases, which are then used to pay household utility bills.
It raised the cash from a angel investors, one of which includes serial FinTech investor and founder of Global Processing Services, Craig Dewar.
ZIPZERO, which lays claim to more than 100,000 users in the UK, will use the funding for the likes of growing its platform, and securing new partnerships with retailers and brands.
It says that more than 30,000 new users signed up to use the app in January alone, with consumers searching for ways to combat record high energy bills and double digit inflation.
4. Hectare
Hectare says that it has raised $20 million in Series A funding.
The round was led by existing and private investors.
The investment will be used to support Hectare’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) inventory, trading, logistics and market insights product development, and expansion into new international markets.
Since its launch in 2015, the startup has facilitated over $1 billion in commodities trading through its technologies, which generate insights – from animal health to market price benchmarking – so agri businesses can make better informed decisions while increasing their sustainability, productivity and profitability.
More than 130,000 farm businesses now use Hectare’s solutions. By directly connecting everyone in the supply chain through its digital solutions, the firm says it is solving the invisible inefficiencies in the farm to factory gate supply chain.
In 2022, its technology enabled farm businesses to optimise the trading of livestock, improving animal welfare and reducing the carbon footprint of the beef and sheep supply chain by 2.5m livestock miles.
5. Hexa
Israel-based Hexa, a 3D asset visualisation and management platform specialist whose customers include Amazon, Macy's, Logitech, and Crate and Barrel, has announced a $20.5 million Series A funding round, bringing total funding to date to $27.2 million.
The funding came from Point72 Ventures, Samurai Incubate, Sarona Partners, and HTC.
Founded in 2018, Hexa’s proprietary tech stack digitises products like furniture and fashion using existing 2D images and AI, creating a new 3D model, a digital twin of the physical object.
This can then be deployed on websites, social media and in AR applications.
Consumers control the model with their cursor, allowing them to inspect the asset from any angle. Hexa provides storage, management, distribution, and analysis of the models its customers create.
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