Growth ambitions and positive impacts: RTIH presents five retail technology funding rounds you need to know about
RTIH rounds up five retail systems ventures who have recently wrapped notable funding rounds, including Cosmose AI, Floodlight, and Evermile.
1. Floodlight
Floodlight, which is pitched as a smart business account for e-commerce firms, has raised a $6.4 million seed funding round.
This was led by Aleph, and 83 North, with contributions from former Shutterfly CEO and Amazon UK Managing Director, Yuval Samet, CEO of RiseUp and former CPO of Klarna, and Juan Lobato, Founder and CEO of Ebury.
Floodlight allows e-commerce SMEs to connect a plethora of financial platforms to one dashboard to effectively manage their finances and grow their businesses.
Users can connect the likes of their Shopify store, bank accounts, PayPal, etc. to tap into relevant data that strengthens their personalised insights.
Beyond tech, Floodlight clients have 24/7 access to human support, including financial coaching.
Customers can also utilise Floodlight Debit Mastercards with unlimited 1% cash back.
2. Rally
Rally, a composable checkout platform for e-commerce merchants, has announced a $12 million Series A investment, led by March Capital, with additional participation from Felix Capital, Commerce Ventures, Afore Capital, Alumni Ventures, and Kraken Ventures.
This follows a $6 million seed funding round in 2021.
The cash will help Rally strengthen its team, penetrate enterprise and international markets, and expand integrations beyond Swell and BigCommerce with other commerce platforms such as Salesforce Commerce Cloud and commercetools and payment methods such as Affirm and AfterPay.
3. Evermile
Evermile, a local delivery platform built for small businesses, has raised $6 million in a seed funding round led by 10D with participation from Mensch Capital Partners and various angel investors, including Fred Destin (Ex-Board Member at Deliveroo), and Ziv Paz (Co-Founder of Melio).
Evermile is currently partnered with over 300 local merchants across the UK including a variety of pharmacies, flower shops, wine stores, and local bakeries. The funding will be used to expand to new markets globally.
"Local delivery has become essential to almost every small business, yet current delivery options are complex to manage and prevent growth,” says Omer Goldschmidt, CEO and Co-Founder at Evermile.
“Before Evermile, a local merchant faced two challenging scenarios: manage external delivery vendors themselves or build their own in-house delivery fleet - both are expensive, complex, and time-consuming.”
“We offer a third route; access to a single delivery platform that can power all their delivery needs in a simple, flexible, customisable and cost-effective manner. We’re proud to leverage mobility grade optimisation, aggregation techniques and AI to unite local merchants to deliver together.”
“Through Evermile, we’re dramatically changing the unit economics of local delivery and slashing delivery costs for these businesses and the millions of customers who want to continue buying locally.”
“The time is ripe for the logistics which underpin small businesses to fundamentally change,” says Paz.
“From my own experience working with thousands of small businesses, I have seen how protracted, expensive and limited delivery options for SMBs result in a loss of customers and a significant hit to their revenues and bottom lines.”
“I was excited to join the Evermile journey as they are not just another last mile solution, they are incorporating advanced mobility tech in a novel way that prioritises business collaboration and equips independent retailers with the edge they need to thrive in a highly competitive marketplace.”
4. It’s Fresh!
It’s Fresh! has secured a £6.7 million investment led by BGF and Zintinus, alongside existing investor Praesidium.
Founded in 2011 and headquartered in the UK, the firm’s technology controls the impact of ethylene emitted by fresh produce, and ultimately controls the rate of ripening, and the eating quality of that produce.
It slows the rate of ripening and can be applied across the supply chain from harvest through to transit, to in-store fruit containers.
The investment will be used to support It’s Fresh’s global growth strategy and expansion into new markets, as well as the development of new solutions such as using the company’s technology within modified air packaging bags.
Rob Ward, CEO at It’s Fresh!, says: “Our groundbreaking technology rises to the challenge of reducing food waste across the supply chain. We not only deliver shelf life extension, which reduces waste, but at the same time enable our customers to deliver optimal quality to consumers.”
“We’ve already generated significant traction across our core markets in USA, South America, and Southern Africa, so this latest investment round comes at a pivotal time for the business, setting us up to scale rapidly and fulfil our potential as global leaders in innovative solutions tailored to fresh produce.”
BGF’s Rowan Bird says: “It’s Fresh! is an excellent example of a technology business that’s addressing a critical climate challenge with innovative solutions that benefit the entire fresh produce supply chain.”
“The business has outlined an impressive growth strategy to capitalise on the market opportunity that’s reinforced by strong technical validation and early commercial success.”
“We look forward to working in partnership with the team and its existing investment partners to achieve our combined growth ambitions while supporting a business that’s making a positive climate impact.”
5. Cosmose AI
Cosmose AI, which has developed a platform that uses AI analytics to track in-store foot traffic and engage with shoppers online, has announced an undisclosed investment from NEAR Foundation, the non-profit arm of blockchain protocol NEAR, valuing the company at $500 million.
Founded in 2014, Cosmose AI works with the likes of LVMH, Richemont, L’Oréal and Estée Lauder.
With the new investment, it will focus on the Web3 ecosystem with the aim of creating seamless experiences for shoppers and increasing sales for retailers.
The pair are building a payment system that allows users to shop with crypto at low transaction fees.
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