Including HyperFinity, Centra, and IXI: 12 retail technology funding rounds you need to know about

RTIH rounds up 12 retail systems ventures who have recently secured significant investments in their businesses, including specialists in data analytics and AI, e-commerce software platforms, and inventory optimisation and execution solutions.

1. HyperFinity

HyperFinity, which specialises in data analytics and AI for the retail sector, has secured an undisclosed investment from Finance Yorkshire.

This will enable the Leeds-based company to build its sales and marketing function as well as support product development.

Co-investor River Capital has made an investment in HyperFinity from its fund:AI. Finance Yorkshire and River Capital join existing backer, Snowflake, a specialist in data and AI technology, completing a seven figure investment round.

HyperFinity was founded in 2019 by Pete Denby, Adam Barrowcliff, Damon Bryan and Tom Hill who have grown the business’s client base to include Asda, Costa Coffee, Card Factory and Toolstation.

Denby says: “HyperFinity helps retailers make the most of their data using analytics and AI. We’re already helping some of the best known retailers make profitable loyalty and pricing decisions through a combination of powerful software and expert services. We’re delighted to be working with Finance Yorkshire and River Capital whose investments will enable us to accelerate our growth plans.”

Finance Yorkshire CEO Alex McWhirter says: “The team at HyperFinity has established the business as a recognised decision intelligence company for the retail sector. We are pleased to invest in HyperFinity and support its aspirations to be the go-to company that delivers transformational growth in retail using data and AI.”

2. Spur

Spur, which provides e-commerce retailers and travel booking platforms with AI powered quality testing that emulates real consumer shopping behaviour, has raised $4.5 million from investors including First Round, Pear VC, Neo, Conviction, Liquid2Ventures, and Predictive Venture Partners.

Other notable angel investors in the round include Mihika Kapoor, Director of Product @Figma, Shyamal Anadkat, Applied AI – OpenAI, Ayush Sood, Director of Eng at Figma, Matt MacInnis, Chief Operating Officer, Rippling, Arash Ferdowsi, Dropbox CEO, Kulveer Taggar, CEO at Zeus Living, and Sachith Gullapalli, Director of Engineering at Rippling.

Spur will use the cash to continue to build out its AI QA Engineer and hire for roles in applied AI, business ops and GTM.

“QA testing is the bane of existence for every single company,” says Sneha Sivakumar, Co-founder and CEO at Spur. “QA tools have never lived up to expectations, but Spur is leveraging AI fully to really make a big swing in the space.”

“We are already seeing massive success and ROI today with our clients - putting QA on complete autopilot, 10Xing release cycles and catching business critical bugs before hitting production, saving our customers millions of dollars. We are thrilled to work with this set of investors who have deep expertise in AI and QA and really understand and support our mission.”

3. Centra

Centra has announced an investment from H&M Group. The exact amount involved, which gives H&M Group a minority stake in Centra, was not disclosed in a press release, although media reports put it at SEK 50 million.

The cash will be used for research and development, as well as to scale up in Europe and the US.

Centra was founded in 2016 and operates as an e-commerce platform for fashion companies that want to sell directly to consumers. It has partnered with several H&M brands, including COS, ARKET, & Other Stories and Weekday, which all transitioned to the firm’s platform in 2024.

"We started Centra with the simple idea that there’s a better way to run a global fashion brand. Our approach is different from the rest of the market - we focus on providing fashion specific solutions that help brands scale and innovate in ways others can’t,” says Martin Jensen, CEO at Centra.

“The results we’ve seen with H&M's portfolio brands show how effective this approach is, and the investment from H&M Group is a strong vote of confidence in the value we’ve built together. We’re excited to continue driving innovation and proving that there’s a better way for fashion brands to thrive in today’s fast changing commerce landscape."

"We’ve been truly impressed by Centra’s journey so far. Their ability to combine deep industry insights with technical innovation is helping fashion brands solve real challenges in e-commerce. That’s why we’re proud to strengthen our partnership through this investment, supporting Centra’s continued growth and the next phase of their exciting journey ahead,” says Nanna Andersen, Chief of New Growth & Ventures at H&M Group.

4. Manychat

Manychat, a specialist in conversational AI and automation across social and messaging platforms, has announced a $140 million growth capital raise led by Summit Partners.

This brings its total funding to $163.3 million since its founding in 2015, including its first institutional investment of $18 million in 2019 by Bessemer Venture Partners.

Manychat says that it powers billions of messages annually on Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and other platforms, helping more than a million businesses in 170+ countries automate customer interactions, maximise engagement, and unlock monetisation potential. 

"Manychat was founded with a mission to help businesses grow by building meaningful customer relationships,” says Mike Yan, Co-founder and CEO at Manychat. “We also take pride in our ability to package and simplify new foundational technologies for the benefit of our customers.”

“The more useful and effective our technology becomes, the more our customers can focus on delivering exceptional value in their space. This new funding, along with Summit Partners’ guidance and expertise, will support our continued innovation in the realm of agentic AI and intelligent automation, helping our team and our products deliver true value for businesses and creators around the world."

Manychat, which claims to be a profitable company, will use the funding to accelerate its global expansion, invest further in R&D, enhance marketing and customer support capabilities, and advance AI agent features across new and existing channels.

5. Neurolabs

Neurolabs has raised $7.8 million in Series A funding, led by Nauta and joined by existing investors LAUNCHub, Lunar Ventures, and Techstart Ventures.

"We started Neurolabs to build the most comprehensive visual AI system for real-world challenges in retail and CPG. From warehouse picking to shelf monitoring in supermarkets, our AI is built to handle it all - accurately, reliably, and at scale," says Paul Pop, Co-founder and CEO.

"As the world is running out of data to train AI on, we’ve built the largest 3D model library of CPG products. This allows us to train our AI entirely in simulation, outperforming traditional computer vision approaches in the field."

He adds: "With this funding, we’re expanding across the UK, Europe, and the US, building toward full coverage of the retail shelf - over one million CPG products, end to end."

6. Cloud Retail

Cloud Retail, an e-commerce software platform formerly known as Jiffy, a London-based 15-minute delivery company, has secured $3 million in seed funding.

The round was led by Somersault Ventures with participation from Pre-Seed to Succeed, backed by AltaIR Capital, Yellow Rocks, Smart Partnership Capital, and I2BF Venture Capital, as well as AddVenture and business angels.

“Founders who dare to visualise their product’s global expansion and set realistic milestones ahead are a gem for investors. It was a dealmaker in the case of Cloud Retail,” says Igor Ryabenkiy, Co-founder at Pre-Seed to Succeed, Founder and Managing Partner at AltaIR Capital.

Cloud Retail transitioned from its q-commerce origins in 2022, when it operated 21 London stores and delivered over 4,500 orders daily, to focus on developing e-commerce solutions. Since then, it has developed a software stack to cater to a wider range of industries, including electronics, beauty, fashion, and pharmaceuticals.

Today, it is an all in one e-commerce platform, including customer web and mobile development, building headless e-commerce platforms, warehouse management system (WMS), demand forecasting and replenishment (S&OP), 3PL and delivery management, and business analytics platforms. Cloud Retail has also developed a proprietary AI solution that helps launch a retail business from scratch. 

7. IXI

Finnish startup IXI has raised $36.5 million in Series A funding to launch what is pitched as the world’s first autofocus glasses that reimagine specs not as a medical device, but as a tech enhanced lifestyle accessory fit for modern consumers.

The investment was led by London-based investment fund Plural, with participation from Finnish investment companies Tesi, Heartcore, FOV Ventures, and byFounders; French private equity firm Eurazeo; and German investment company Tiny Supercomputer.

XI’s existing backers, which include Amazon Alexa Fund, Maki.vc and First Fellow, firstminute capital, David Helgason, Ilkka Paananen, John Lindfors and Bragiel Brothers also participated in the round.

The cash will enable the product development of IXI Adaptive Eyewear; kicking off commercial operations and putting the product in the hands of consumers.

8. Solda.AI

Solda.AI has raised a $4 million seed funding round to improve the phone sales process with multimodal AI voice agents that can close deals autonomously.

The round was led by Accel, with participation from AltaIR Capital. The funding will be used to develop Solda.AI’s AI agents, and partner with more enterprises worldwide.

Solda.AI was founded in 2023 by Sergey Shalaev, an AI and ML entrepreneur with more than 12 years experience and expertise in recommendation services, advertising technologies, and MedTech.

A remote first company, the team is based across Amsterdam, Berlin, London and Munich. It now provides AI voice sales agents for enterprises in sectors from finance and retail, to transport and telecoms, including tbi bank, Treatwell, InDrive, Plata Bank and Vivid Money.  

Sergey Shalaev, Co-founder and CEO at Solda.AI, says: “We believe that the future of telesales is AI. Our vision is for voice agent powered sales that generate revenue and provide real ROI, and we believe that we’re the first and only company to deliver this.”

“We have already seamlessly integrated our agents into 20 partners’ sales channels, and are delighted to announce this seed funding led by Accel to help us collaborate with more businesses and take phone sales into the age of AI.”

9. Onebeat

Onebeat, an inventory optimisation and execution platform, has announced its official US market launch backed by $15 million in funding led by Schooner Capital.

This brings the Israel-based company’s total funding to date to $30 million.

Founded in 2018 and built on the principles of the Theory of Constraints, Onebeat was developed by global supply chain specialists from the Goldratt Group. It works with the likes of Calvin Klein, Panasonic, and Aramis.

“Retailers today don’t need more data - they need intelligent AI driven execution,” says Dr. Yishai Ashlag, CEO and Co-founder at Onebeat.

“That’s why we built Onebeat as a new kind of AI powered retail operating system - one that translates data into real-time, revenue driving execution.”

“This investment from Schooner Capital is more than capital - it’s a powerful vote of confidence in our global impact and our vision. With their support, we’re ready to scale our momentum and bring agile, intelligent retail to the US market.”

10. BirBir

BirBir, an Uzbekistan-based peer-to-peer (P2P) classifieds platform, has bagged $10 million in funding. The investment will be used to accelerate the company’s growth, allowing it to enhance its product offering, including AI driven features, scale its engineering team, and expand its presence in Uzbekistan and beyond.

Founded in 2023 by FinTech entrepreneur Alexander Pekin and EdTech strategist Alexander Bayzarov, BirBir was created to solve a gap in Uzbekistan’s e-commerce landscape: the need for a convenient, mobile first platform that simplifies buying, selling, and trading goods. It is currently attracting over 500,000 active monthly users and facilitating three million monthly sessions.

The platform supports local languages and enables users to buy, sell, or rent a wide variety of goods, from electronics and household items to vehicles and real estate.

11. 7Learnings

7Learnings, a provider of AI powered retail optimisation technology, has secured over €10 million in Series B funding to scale its solutions, with a strong focus on North America. The round was led by Acton Capital, known for backing companies like Etsy, mytheresa, and Clio, with continued support from High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF).

“We’ve built a profitable business by delivering measurable results for our customers,” says Felix Hoffmann, CEO and Co-Founder at 7Learnings, which was founded in Berlin during 2019. “Amid trade uncertainties, inflation, and supply chain challenges, better decision intelligence is now business-critical. This investment enables us to bring our technology to more retailers worldwide, especially in North America.”

“With the continued pressure from inflation and shifting consumer behaviour, plus the renewed impact of US tariffs, 7Learnings has been instrumental in helping us adapt,” says Timo Bethlehem, Managing Director at meinemarkenmode.de.

The fashion retailer, a 7Learnings client for five years, reports a 13% revenue increase thanks to predictive pricing.

12. SpreeAI

SpreeAI, a specialist in photorealistic try-on products and sizing technology, is laying claim to a $1.5 billion valuation after an undisclosed funding round led by The Davidson Group.

"It's inspiring to be part of SpreeAI's transformative journey under John's (Imah, Co-founder and CEO) visionary leadership," says Naomi Campbell, British fashion model and SpreeAI board member.

"I've always believed in pushing boundaries and embracing innovation, and seeing John's passion and determination firsthand makes me even more excited about the future we're creating together. SpreeAI represents the powerful fusion of fashion, technology, and inclusivity - and I'm thrilled to be on this groundbreaking path."