Including Placer.ai and Gcore: RTIH rounds up five retail technology funding rounds you need to know about

RTIH rounds up five retail systems ventures who have recently secured significant investments in their businesses, including Exoticca, WorkJam, Placer.ai, and Evolve Business Group.

1. Gcore

Gcore, a global edge AI, cloud, network, and security solutions provider, has secured $60 million in Series A funding from institutional and strategic investors.

Led by Wargaming, and with participation from Constructor Capital and Han River (HRZ), this marks the company’s first external capital raise since its inception more than ten years ago.

The funds will be invested in Gcore’s technology and platform, including AI servers powered by NVIDIA GPUs.

"Gcore has been our partner for over ten years, helping us deliver games to hundreds of millions of players worldwide. We are excited to support the company on this journey and look forward to helping them become uniquely positioned to lead high-speed AI model training and inference anywhere in the world," says Sean Lee, Chief Corporate Development Officer at Wargaming.

2. Exoticca

Exoticca, a traveltech platform for multi-day tour packages, has closed a €60 million Series D round led by Quadrille Capital, with participation from new investors including All Iron and ICF and existing backers 14W, Mangrove, Bonsai Partners, Sabadell and Aldea.

Multi-day tour packages, a sector worth over €100 billion, is one of the last segments of the travel industry still dominated by traditional tour operators with very low levels of digitisation, the company says.

This prevents travel agencies from offering real-time pricing and availability for complex packages and, as a result, customers experience a cumbersome and time-consuming purchasing process.

Exoticca’s bespoke technology connects all the different services (flights, hotels, meals, transfers, transportation and activities) required to book multi-day tours, connecting local companies at destination  with travel agencies and other online players and therefore provides the broadest scope for tour package distribution.

By digitising all parts of the booking process, Exoticca claims to have cut the process of booking complex long-haul trips down to just minutes and can guarantee its customers the best prices, bringing costs down by around 30% compared to competitors.

3. Placer.ai

Placer.ai has raised $75 million at an expanded valuation of approximately $1.5 billion.

It declined to name any of its investors, except to say that they were all existing backers.

The company provides location-based analytics to companies in verticals like retail, events and entertainment, CPG, real estate, financial services and healthcare.

4. WorkJam

Montreal-based WorkJam has received a $20 million investment from Export Development Canada (EDC).

The company will use the new funding to accelerate growth in the EMEA region, where it has recently added Marks & Spencer (M&S) and Metro Digital to its client roster.

“With labour dynamics shifting across the globe, particularly in the UK and European markets, many companies in these regions are looking to equip their hourly employees with digital tools that ensure compliance while also driving productivity, retention and overall workplace satisfaction,” says Steven Kramer, CEO at WorkJam.

“This new investment will enable us to continue on our strong growth trajectory in the EMEA region and we’re extremely grateful for EDC’s confidence and support as we fulfil our mission to empower frontline workers globally.”

5. Evolve Business Group

Evolve Business Group, a specialist in end-to-end managed network and IT solutions, has bagged an undisclosed (said to be in the multi-million pound range) investment from BGF.

Founded in 2005, the UK-based company works across a variety of sectors, including retail, hospitality, food-to-go (FTG) and petroleum franchises.

The funding will allow Evolve to implement UK and international expansion plans, with a particular focus on growth in the US, where it currently operates over 1,000 sites across multiple states, mainly in the fuel forecourt industry.

The aim is to expand into the quick service restaurant (QSR) sector.

In addition, Evolve aims to improve its infrastructure, with the creation of a new warehouse in Wigan, and target further acquisitions to accelerate growth, as well as increase its national and international headcount by 40% over the next three years.

The company has grown its workforce from 23 to 117 since 2020.