Including i-Genie, Reveni, and Gain: five retail technology funding rounds you need to know about

RTIH rounds up five retail tech ventures who have recently secured significant investments in their businesses, including companies specialising in AI powered consumer insights platforms and autonomous workforce layers that manage end-to-end procurement and operational workflows.

1. Alloy

Alloy, which helps robotics teams organise, search and analyse across various types of multimodal robot data in one platform using natural language, has emerged from stealth and secured a $4.5 million pre-seed funding round.

In a LinkedIn post, Founder and CEO Joe Harris, said: “I'm excited to announce Alloy, and our $4.5 million pre-seed round led by Blackbird with support from Airtree, Xtal, Skip Capital and an incredible group of angels, leaders and founders of Tesla, Waymo, Carbon Robotics, Halter, Reach Robotics, Relevance AI and more.”

He claimed that this is “one of the strongest pre-seed rounds ever done in Australia” and added that it was “a testament to the calibre of the team and magnitude of the opportunity”.

“We are building the system for robotics companies to reduce time spent on processing data by up to 90%, enabling 10x faster iteration. Instead of leaving behind 99% of their data in cold storage, teams can continuously improve performance,” he commented.

“This is one of the most pressing problems in robotics: robotics teams are drowning in terabytes of data they can't efficiently search or analyse, forcing every company to build expensive custom infrastructure from scratch. And the problem only gets worse as you scale. When your robot encounters an issue, has it occurred before? How frequently? Will you know if it happens again? You’re often left with more questions than answers, and hundreds of hours of log files to scrub through.”

2. Swish

Swish reports a seed round led by BD Ventures and featuring a group of retail tech and shopper marketing investors. It did not disclose the amount of cash raised.

Swish was founded on the idea of delivering consumers full size, in-stock CPG products as samples directly through their regular grocery shopping.

Powered by proprietary AI, the platform uses real transactional data to determine relevancy and personalise each shopper’s experience, adding free products into first-party grocery orders, whether for pickup or delivery.

“Ultimately, brands want customers to try and then buy their products,” says Adam Stave, CEO and Co-founder at Swish. “Demos and mailers are expensive and hard to measure, while digital media continues to fall short. Swish treats the product itself as media - placed directly into baskets, at the right time, for the right people. We offer a massive unlock for retailers and brands looking for measurable performance in product trial.”

3. i-Genie

i-Genie, an AI powered consumer insights platform founded by former Unilever EVP Stan Sthanunathan, and Paul van Gendt, who ran the People Data Centre at Unilever, has raised $7.5 million in Series A funding.

The round was led by Mudita Ventures and Silicon Road Ventures, with participation from retail and marketing tech investors Deborah Weinswig, Todd E. Benson and Vine Stone Ventures.

“i-Genie is democratising access to actionable insights across our organisation in 30 countries. It has enabled our Category and Customer Teams to go beyond “following” trending consumer pulse into LEADING insight generation  by delivering  complex analysis in a simple, streamlined and powerful platform immediately” says Analia De la Fuente, Global Chief Insights and Analytics Officer at Bayer. 

“This level of speed and precision transforms how we innovate and compete globally.”

4. Gain

Gain, a startup providing AI employees for hire, has emerged from stealth, announcing a $12 million seed funding round led by The Garage. Other investors include BlueRed Partners and Bazan Group.

Gain, which was previously known as Velon and was launched by Michael Gabay, who co-founded and was President at autonomous stores specialist Trigo, has created an autonomous workforce layer that manages end-to-end procurement and operational workflows - from category and merchandising strategy, sourcing and negotiations to contract execution, transaction processing and exception management, all integrated with ERP, productivity, collaboration and procurement technologies.

“We’ve gained unique experience supporting customer and vendor facing agentic solutions that drive revenue, and we see Gain as a key standout in this space,” says Eyal Radler, Managing Partner at The Garage.

“Alongside its groundbreaking R&D work, Gain is disrupting the traditional SaaS pay-per-seat model with its pay-per-outcome approach to encourage early adoption. The team has a unique advantage in its unparalleled access to customers, which today is often the most significant moat.”

“In addition, they are creating proprietary data sets that further strengthen their position and build a durable long-term edge. We’re very excited to be working with the team and look forward to ushering in our new AI workforce.”

5. Reveni

Madrid-based e-commerce technology startup Reveni has closed a €7.5 million Series A. The company centralises global sales, returns, and logistics in one dashboard, integrating with e-commerce platforms to optimise purchase and post-purchase flows.

The funding will help strengthen its presence in the UK and the EU, while also enabling it to boost its product and grow its team.

“We believe the next wave of global commerce won’t be built on legacy systems but on platforms that give brands the power to operate seamlessly across borders. Our goal is to build technology that adapts to an increasingly complex and unpredictable trade environment, helping brands stay resilient where many struggle,” says Fernando Pedraz, Co-Founder and CEO at Reveni. 

“This investment round gives us the resources to continue launching solutions the market has never seen before, as we did with instant refunds and instant exchanges, and accelerate our international expansion across Europe.”

“Our ambition is clear: to give every brand, no matter its size, the same capabilities as the world’s largest retailers. It’s another step towards building the global operating system that allows e-commerce to truly scale without borders.”