Including Agency 72 and ShopAi: RTIH presents 12 retail technology startups to watch out for in 2025
Ones to watch in 2025. Specialising in the likes of generative AI, self-service solutions, social shopping, automated stores, workforce management, and 3D tech, these innovative startups should be on your radars over the next 12 months.
1. i love it
Ella d’Amato, the former interim CEO of online marketplace Notonthehighstreet, has co-founded i love it, which is aiming to ‘rewrite commerce for good’, by tapping AI to create a recommendation led video and image shopping app that rewards users for their genuine product endorsements.
d’Amato comments: “92% of shoppers trust word-of-mouth more than ads. Be it your friend who knows everything about skincare and running, or that one who knows every restaurant - think about how many times you buy off a friend's recommendation versus an ad.”
“At the same time, brands are telling us that word of mouth is more effective than traditional marketing and the cost of marketing today is making it hard for brands to trade effectively online. Clearly, the most valuable thing for all is genuine endorsement.”
“The issue is, those people tend to get nothing in return. We believe that brands would much rather pay a loyal customer than the likes of Meta and Google. And people would much rather shop from someone they trust.”
Currently in beta mode, i love it is focusing on the fitness space, allowing users to shop, share recommendations, and earn. The platform currently lays claim to over 10,000 products, with plans to expand into other areas in the future.
The company picked up the Most Promising Innovation gong at the 2024 RTIH Innovation Awards.
2. Ecomtent
Ecomtent, a generative AI startup focused on helping sellers and retailers with AI powered search, recently landed $1.4 million in funding.
The round was led by MaRS IAF, and included Twinpath, Techstars x eBay Ventures, and C-suite angels from retailers and the tech industry.
Founded in 2022 by Max Sinclair, a former Amazon executive who led key initiatives such as the launch of Amazon in Singapore and Amazon Grocery across the EU, and Timur Luguev, a PhD and Postdoctoral Researcher in machine learning, Ecomtent's platform generates visual and written content optimised for AI powered search, such as Amazon’s RUFUS.
"The way people shop online is undergoing a profound transformation," says Sinclair. "And therefore also how sellers and retailers optimise for discoverability and conversion is changing. Longtail keyword matching is dead. The future lies in aligning with customer intent, across both written and visual assets."
3. Augmodo
RTIH recently got the lowdown on Augmodo, which has developed a real-time inventory and task tracker using wearable SmartBadges to create live 3D store maps.
The startup has raised $5.3 million in seed funding led by Lerer Hippeau, with participation from Dunnhumby Ventures, NewFare Partners and Simple Food Ventures.
4. ShopAi
"I have worked in the marketing services sectors for over 30 years evolving skills, solutions, and products over time from analogue to digital across multiple platforms," he told us. "Throughout my career I have always looked to embrace new products and services which utilise the most innovative technology to deliver value at pace.”
"At ShopAi I have taken a different approach to engage with end users and moved away from graphic user interfaces for interactions, instead we use speech to simply ask as the primary interface.
We blend multiple LLMs and third-party private data using Ai and articulate this through natural language processing in real-time."
"Our SaaS platform is bespoke and can be deployed via any digital channel or APP and in each case allows humans to access refined and tailored data and insights from any integrated database to include manufacturing, operations, marketing, sales and training to name a just a few."
5. Michael Gabay's new venture
Michael Gabay, Co-founder and President at autonomous stores specialist Trigo, has taken to social media to tease a new venture.
He stepped down from the CEO role at Trigo last year to pursue this, with his brother and co-founder Daniel now leading the company into a loss prevention focus.
In a LinkedIn post, he said: "I’m excited to welcome 2025 with news of a new amazing venture, new team, exciting collaborations, and dreams of building a new disruptive, advanced, category leader company."
He added: "We're under the radar currently, I'd just say technology has the power to empower us to work smarter and innovate faster in ways we’ve only just begun to imagine.”
“A big thank you to all my friends - my partners Dor Israeli (Director of Technology at Quantum Machines), Elon Hait (CEO at Artemis Defense Solutions) and Jason Busch (Managing Director and Co-founder at MetailMiner), our design partners, tech partners, and investors, for your support, friendship and inspiration. I’m thrilled for what lies ahead. Stay tuned!!"
RTIH will bring you further information on the new venture as soon as we receive it.
6. Agency 72
In 2024, Steven Koch and Chris Minas launched a new London-based digital agency.
Agency 72 aims to enhance connections between brands and consumers, merge the digital and physical world and help brands to engage with customers via immersive, innovative and meaningful experiences, using the most recent technologies.
Clients who have so far signed up include Nestle, Haribo and TKMaxx.
Since 1998, Minas lays claim to many UK and global first solutions for startuup and global brands. Winning over 60+ industry awards including a Cannes Lion award, as founder of Nimbletank, a mobile agency, he has 20+ years of technology innovation experience as a CTO.
In addition, Koch has over 15+ years of experience in consumer retail marketing, as the founder and CEO of Play Retail, a customer experience agency specialising in creating holistic customer journeys from in-store to online, in both the domestic and travel retail sectors.
7. Boxbar Tech
This took place at Parklife 2024 in the UK, and resulted in a win at the 2024 RTIH Innovation Awards.
Boxbar Tech commented: “It’s no secret that the festival industry is going through tough times with costs spiralling out of control.”
“Bar queues and waiting times present a major problem for festivals, burning vital potential revenue and creating a poor customer experience. By bringing in Boxbar for 2024, Parklife were able to speed up service, slash queue times significantly and bring smiles to the faces of their fans.”
“This was the largest ever deployment of its kind and we’d like to take this opportunity to thank Daniel Pirie (Head of Bars, Parklife) for leading the charge, as well as the rest of the team at Parklife and owner Live Nation for being incredible to work alongside these past months.”
It concluded: “Replacing an entire main bar location with self-service technology at a festival of this scale takes a lot of trust in a shared vision. We understand that and can’t wait to see the partnership grow.”
8. Legion Technologies
Highly commended at the 2024 RTIH Innovation Awards, Legion Technologies, a specialist in workforce management, has received $50 million in financing from Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), a division of First Citizens Bank. The raise, which brings Legion’s total funding to $195 million, follows a $50 million growth round led by Riverwood Capital earlier this year.
“From the beginning, we have been on a mission to improve hourly jobs and the capital we’ve received from investors this year demonstrates the enduring value of that mission,” says Sanish Mondkar, Founder and CEO at Legion Technologies.
“Our tremendous growth stems from the accelerating need for effective workforce management solutions, and this latest financing from SVB further proves that our intelligently automated, employee centric platform is the best choice for today’s hourly employees.”
“There is increased demand for AI native workforce management solutions that can improve both labour operations and the employee experience,” says Marisa Phan, Managing Director at Silicon Valley Bank.
“Legion has successfully been working to transform the hourly work experience to meet the needs of the modern employee. With this latest financing, we are proud to support Legion as it enables intelligent automation to shape a new future of work.”
9. Fixtuur
UK-based visual commerce platform provider Fixtuur last year secured an undisclosed (said to be multi-million-pound) investment round led by Maven Capital Partners.
It also appointed Steve Klin as its Chairman and Charlie Sharland, as a Non-Executive to the board.
David Thomson, CEO at Fixtuur, says: “We are thrilled to receive this backing from Maven Capital Partners. Their continued support validates our significant progress in scaling Fixtuur and demonstrates their trust in our vision for the future.”
“Having Steve Klin and Charlie Sharland onboard adds unparalleled expertise to our leadership team. Their knowledge and experience will be invaluable as we continue to scale globally and enhance the impact of our platform.”
Fixtuur won out in the Editor's Choice category at the 2024 RTIH Innovation Awards.
10. Autonomo Technologies
Autonomo Technologies recently announced the appointment of Rehman Mohammed as Global Vice President.
He joins from AiFi where he was the GM for UKI, Nordics, Baltics and Middle East. Rehman is highly experienced in the frictionless technology space having helped grow AiFi from its first UKI customer in 2020 to pan European contracts today.
His achievements include launching the largest ever computer vision only store with Aldi, the first frictionless store in the UK Premier League at Leicester City FC, followed quickly by Aston Villa FC, Brighton & Hove Albion FC and FC Copenhagen. He launched the first frictionless store in Ireland as well as a number of new locations in the Nordics and Middle East.
Autonomo Technologies aims to simplify shopping for customers and retailers using AI. It is used by retailers where there is a lack of staff, to eliminate queues and to grow bricks and mortar retail profitably into smaller footprint locations. Autonomo works with Edeka, Migros, NHS, petrol stations, convenience stores, stadiums and grab and go stores.
James Sutherland, CEO at Autonomo, says: “Rehman completes a powerful team of world class retail and AI technology experts. We are consistently growing 10% month on month, similar to other ground breaking companies in their early stages and Rehmans experience provides sales management to accelerate growth.”
Mohammed comments: “This is a tight team who act fast, delivering real value to retailers everyday. Autonomo solve the biggest problems retail CEO’s have in 2025 and I’m here to make the difference for their business.”
11. Wayvee Analytics
Wayvee Analytics last year emerged from stealth with $5 million in pre-seed funding led by Tetrad.vc.
By uniting radio frequency (RF) waves with proprietary AI algorithms, Wayvee’s technology anonymously analyses emotional responses based on physiological signals in real-time, evaluating customer satisfaction score and key performance metrics for retailers.
Check out our interview with Co-founder Alex Ovcharov here.
12. Doji
A new startup Doji is enabling online fashion fans to create their AI likeness, try on real products and shop their favourite looks.
In a LinkedIn post, CEO and Co-founder Dorian Dargan (formerly of Meta, Apple and YouNow), said: "Until now, it’s never been possible to try-on clothes when shopping online - making it hard to know what looks good on you. My co-founder Jim Winkens and I needed a creative tool to explore new looks and products - so we decided to build it for ourselves."
He added: "As fashion lovers with deep AI and consumer expertise, we’re uniquely equipped to build this. Jim is an ex-Google DeepMind researcher and AI engineer, and I designed frontier consumer products at Apple, Meta and YouNow. Doji feels like the perfect culmination of our interests and skills."
The venture is in private beta and accepting testers for its iOS app, with select spots available. You can join the waitlist here.
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