Including Cavela, Torq, and Flink: eight retail technology funding rounds you need to know about

RTIH rounds up eight retail systems ventures who have recently secured significant investments in their businesses, including DELLI, PriceShape, e6data, and TeamBridge.

1. DELLI

DELLI, an online platform for independent food and drink founded by Depop alumni Marie Petrovicka and Simon Beckerman, has announced a $6 million seed extension fronted by Balderton and HV Capital.

Petrovicka says: “We see a mega trend in the way food is consumed. Buyers are stepping away from overprocessed, mass produced food to small batch, independently made products. They want to discover new food with a story behind it.”

“With DELLI, we are excited to continue giving space to these makers and building a platform that will give buyers easy access to the new generation of unique and independent sellers, making shopping for food inspiring and fun.”

“On the seller side, we are developing tools that allow the small batch producers to start and grow their business and connect with buyers in an easy way, helping overcome some of the big roadblocks they face in the current system dominated by supermarkets. We can’t wait to bring more real food to more people all across the UK.”

The idea behind DELLI is based on the belief that "food is the new fashion”.

Food has surpassed fashion in popularity on social media. Fashion brands are taking note, and looking at this space more than ever - with collaborations such as Off White with Evian, Supreme with Barbera Oil, and Momo Kombucha with Ganni.

DELLI says it is leveraging strategies such as exclusive drops and influencer collaborations to reinvent the way food is sold. In the past months, it has partnered with the likes of Ravneet Gill, Ben Lippett, Jackson Boxer, James Cochrane, and Sam Grainger.

2. Cavela

Cavela has officially launched and also announced a $2 million funding round led by XYZ Venture Capital, with additional support from Propel Ventures and Go Global Ventures.

For several months, the startup has been building an AI platform to connect product makers (e-commerce, boutique brands, startups) with the right supplier to manufacture physical products at the best price

“Creating custom products is difficult, but with recent developments in AI, it doesn’t have to be,” says Anthony Sardain, CEO at Cavela.

“Large enterprises have dedicated teams to manage the complex process of product sourcing, but small and midsized businesses don’t have that luxury. We’re levelling the playing field, making it easier and more affordable for anyone to create custom products.”

Cavela says that its team is uniquely positioned to tackle these challenges, drawing on their extensive experience in both procurement and AI technology.

The core team has backgrounds at Stripe, Google, Amazon, and Disney.

They also have manufacturing and procurement expertise from Primark and DS Smith, have run e-commerce brands, and are broadly international with strong connections to supplier hubs in Asia and Latin America.

3. PriceShape

Private equity firm, Copilot Capital, has made an undisclosed investment in PriceShape, which specialises in pricing intelligence and competitor monitoring.

PriceShape, a bootstrapped Danish startup founded in 2018, is developing a software tool and price robot that enable retailers to customise pricing in real-time.

"We were incredibly impressed by PriceShape’s trajectory and the way they have run their business," says John Messer, Managing Partner at Copilot Capital.

"The founders have built an exceptional system that turns raw data into valuable, actionable insights. It’s not just about scraping millions of websites - what makes them stand out is how they enable their clients to act on the data easily. We truly believe in their vision and want to go on this journey with them."

4. TeamBridge

TeamBridge, a workforce operating system specialist, has raised $28 million in a Series B round led by Mayfield, with participation from existing investors General Catalyst and Abstract Ventures.

The case will be used to accelerate the company’s product and AI roadmap, enhance client services, and continue to scale its infrastructure.

“Most tech companies are building for each other,” says Arjun Vora, Co-Founder and Co-CEO at TeamBridge.

“We're building technology for the forgotten demographic: the hourly workforce. That's 60-70% of the world’s workforce. We’re bringing the technology revolution to those businesses, giving them a workforce OS to deploy their secret sauce at scale.”

The company has grown across sectors from medical staffing and homecare to warehouse staffing and hospitality since it launched in late 2022. It was founded by former Uber product and design leaders Arjun Vora and Tito Goldstein.

“TeamBridge supercharges businesses with hourly workforces by providing them with the first composable operating system to create customisable workflows to manage and empower this important but neglected demographic of the economy," says Sri Pangulur, Partner at Mayfield.

“Businesses are able to optimise their bottom line, and front-line workers are offered more flexibility and income opportunities through TeamBridge’s software. We are thrilled to be leading TeamBridge’s Series B to partner with them to build the operating system of record for the hourly workforce."

5. Flink

Quick commerce startup Flink has raised $150 million at a valuation of approximately $1 billion.

BOND, Mubadala, Northzone, and supermarket giant REWE are all backing the company, along with two unnamed investors.

“This investment will enable us to further expand our footprint, improve operational efficiency, and continue delivering the fast, reliable service that our customers rely on,” says Oliver Merkel, Founder and Managing Director at Flink.

6. Triyit

Glasgow-based marketing technology platform Triyit has secured an £850,000 investment, from the Investment Fund for Scotland (IFS), managed by Maven Capital Partners and delivered by the British Business Bank, as part of a £1.1 million funding round.

Triyit connects FMCG brands with target consumers through its performance sampling and research campaigns.

With over one million organic sign ups to the consumer facing “product discovery” side of the platform, it offers brands a way to hyper-target and engage the right audience, with built-in campaign mechanics delivering consumer insights, user-generated content and earned media influence as part of each activity.

Triyit works with a variety of brands, across all FMCG categories, from startups and challenger brands to market leading, global enterprise organisations like AB InBev, Costa, Arla, Mars and Kellogg’s.

The investment will support further development of the company’s data science function, bespoke technology platform, and the planned expansion of the wider service offering in the UK and international markets.

7. e6data

e6data has secured a $10 million Series A funding round as it aims to half the bill of businesses seeking to analyse their own data. This was led by Accel Partners with participation from Beenext and others. 

Data intelligence platforms allow enterprises to get insights from their own data to make business decisions and serve workloads including data engineering, analytics, machine learning, and now generative AI.

With the growing volume of data and the need to extract maximum value from it, enterprises will be looking at a sizeable bill to utilise this data. The total addressable market (TAM) for data and AI solutions is slated to touch $230 billion in 2025, with 60% of CXOs planning to increase their spending over the next year.

Vishnu Vasanth, Co-founder and CEO, says: “This rapid increase has made data intelligence platforms the second largest IT spending category – behind only cloud spend for operational systems and application infrastructure.”

“It’s fuellng the meteoric rise of data warehouse and data lakehouse companies such as Snowflake and Databricks, and the rapid growth of corresponding offerings from AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud.”

“Legitimate ROI concerns stand in the way of enterprises realising the full potential of data and AI.”

“Moreover, organisations cannot freely move lakehouse table formats, data catalogues, compute providers, and cloud providers without adverse price performance impacts, the need for data movement, and cumbersome application migrations. We aim to address this through our work at e6data” adds Vasanth.

8. Torq

Israeli cybersecurity startup Torq reports the closing of a $70 million Series C funding round, led by Evolution Equity Partners, with Bessemer Venture Partners, Notable Capital, Greenfield Partners, and Strait Capital participating.

Combined with an expanded Series B in January, Torq has raised a total of $112 million in 2024, bringing the company’s funding since its 2020 inception to $192 million.

It will use the new round to increase expansion across EMEA and APAC, hire additional engineering, R&D, and sales talent, and double down on devoting more resources to deliver generative AI enhancements.

Torq’s customer base includes Abnormal Security, Armis, Blackstone, Carvana, Check Point Security, Chipotle, Deepwatch, Lemonade, Lennar, Nubank, Rivian, SentinelOne, Telefonica, Wiz, and ZoomInfo, as well as Fortune 100 consumer packaged goods, fashion, financial, hospitality, and sports apparel companies.

“Our Series C round underlines the fact that Torq customers, partners, and employees have combined into one of the most powerful, influential, and fastest growing ecosystems in all of cybersecurity,” says Ofer Smadari, CEO and Co-founder, Torq.

“We’ve rewritten the rules of the industry with Torq Hyperautomation and Torq HyperSOC, and our momentum reflects that shift. We have blown past all the frustrating, manual limitations of legacy SOAR that leave significant holes in the security perimeter. Torq plugs all those holes by delivering a new layer of AI driven protection, all while making all of security operations more productive than ever.”

“The incredible growth, customer traction, and industry momentum Torq Hyperautomation and Torq HyperSOC are experiencing showcases how Torq is dramatically transforming cybersecurity for the better,” says Richard Seewald, Founder and Managing Partner, Evolution Equity Partners.

“Evolution is incredibly proud to back Torq as it continues to deliver such deep value for security operations teams worldwide. It’s now no longer a question of if, but when every enterprise will adopt AI driven hyperautomation.”