Including Basket and Atoa: Five retail technology company investments you need to know about
RTIH rounds up five retail systems ventures who have recently secured significant investments in their businesses, including A2Z Smart Technologies Corp., EdgeTier, and Wayflyer.
1. Atoa
UK payments startup Atoa has concluded a seed funding round of $6.5 million.
The company says the it offers small- to medium-sized retail businesses on the UK high street “a faster, cheaper and more secure alternative to accepting Visa and Mastercard card payments, using account-to-account payments”.
The round of funding was led by Valar Ventures, a US fund backed by the co-founder of PayPal, Peter Thiel.
Previous investors, including Monzo and Tide backer Passion Capital, and Singapore based Leo Capital also participated.
This takes the total raised by Atoa to $8.6 million.
2. EdgeTier
EdgeTier, which helps contact centres improve the customer experience using AI, has raised €6 million in Series A funding in a round led by Smedvig Capital, with participation from Episode 1 and Act Venture Capital.
EdgeTier was founded in 2015 by Dr. Shane Lynn, Dr. Bart Lehane, and Ciarán Tobin, whose vision was to build “user-friendly, machine learning infused applications that move contact centres from data rich but information poor environments into a new era of efficiency and performance”.
The company operates in more than 20 countries across Europe and the Americas, processing billions of messages through its systems for the likes of Abercrombie & Fitch, LoveHolidays, Holiday Extras, CarTrawler, RyanAir, TUI Travel, Electric Ireland, Tipico, and Betclic.
3. Basket
E-commerce platform, Basket, has secured undisclosed funding from James Watt, founder of BrewDog.
This comes after Basket took part in Watt’s The Next Unicorn project, where he teamed up with Crowdcube to invest in UK startups that could become the next British unicorn.
This investment model will also let members of the public invest, on the same terms as Watt, into the shortlisted businesses.
4. A2Z Smart Technologies Corp.
5. Wayflyer
Wayflyer, a revenue-based financing and growth platform for e-commerce businesses, has announced a renewed funding line from J.P. Morgan.
Since being founded in 2019, the FinTech has deployed over $2 billion to over 3,000 e-commerce businesses globally.
The facility renewal comes a year after Wayflyer secured a $300 million funding line led by J.P. Morgan.
Aidan Corbett, Wayflyer Xo-founder and CEO, comments: “Now more than ever, ambitious e-commerce businesses need the support of trusted partners to fulfil their growth potential.”
“Despite the global macroeconomic headwinds of the last 12 months, there is still a huge market opportunity for online merchants, with revenues for US online retail hitting $1 trillion for the first time in 2022.”
“This renewed vote of confidence from one of the world’s largest and foremost financial institutions will allow us to help even more e-commerce businesses seize this opportunity, and gives us a huge boost in a market where other providers are losing their access to credit.”
James Fraser, J.P. Morgan Payments, says: “Our Trade & Working Capital Group remain committed to providing an e-commerce finance solution for our clients, to support the working capital needs of their online merchants.”
“Particularly in today’s environment, with the liquidity gap for SMEs estimated to have grown to over $2 trillion, continuity of funding from trusted and reliable providers is key. We look forward to helping serve our clients with our continued support for Wayflyer.”
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