Check out our most clicked retail technology articles from last week, including Azoma, Westfield Rise, Lionsgate, Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, Foot Locker, Stylitics, Co-op, Five Below, poq, Firstwork, and the 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards.

Agentic commerce platform Azoma raises $11.2 million in Series A round led by Puma Growth Partners

AI shopping agents startup, Azoma, has announced a $11.2 million Series A funding round led by Puma Growth Partners, with participation from dunnhumby, Twin Path, MaRS IAF, Rank Ventures and Ignite Ventures and Angels from Google DeepMind and Legora.

The round will fund the expansion of Azoma's platform across the AI personal assistants space such as ChatGPT Dots and Meta Muse; as well as the build out of its optimisation and attribution capabilities for enterprise consumer brands utilising dunnhumby data.

The cash will also support team growth with a particular focus on recruiting AI talent. Azoma works with consumer brands including L'Oréal, Unilever, Mars, Beiersdorf and Reckitt. The round follows a $4 million seed announced in December 2025.

Azoma was founded in 2022 by Max Sinclair, a former Amazon executive; and Timur Luguev, a PhD and Postdoctoral Researcher in machine learning. Sinclair comments: "Three hundred and fifty million people used Alexa for Shopping last year. Walmart customers who use their AI shopping assistant Sparky spend 40% more than those who don’t."

"Instinct, the personal AI Assistant that launched in August with zero marketing budget, already accounts for $1 billion in transactions, and is growing at a rate of 10% day over day. Agent-to-agent commerce has arrived faster than anyone expected. For our customers, this will be more transformational than the internet. Agentic commerce will be on a par with how electrification birthed or transformed these enterprise consumer brands."

John Lewis, Asda, Morrisons, H&M, Dunelm, and Waitrose among 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards finalists

We're hugely pleased to present the finalists and shortlists for the 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards, sponsored by 3D Cloud, Business France, and Retail Technology Show 2027. We received a record number of entries this year and many fantastic examples of technology excellence driving transformative change across the global retail sector

Congratulations to all those who made it through the initial submission process! It’s now over to our star studded judging panel who will decide the winners to be announced at the 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards Ceremony, taking place at The HAC in Central London.

The event will be held on Wednesday, 4th November and consist of a drinks reception, three course meal, awards ceremony presided over by award winning stand-up comedian, presenter, actor and broadcaster, Aurie Styla, and after party until 1am.

Click here to book your place at the 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards Ceremony on Wednesday, 4th November.

Westfield Rise and Lionsgate launch Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping immersive experience in London

Westfield Rise, the in-house retail media agency of Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield (URW), has partnered with Lionsgate to launch The Hunger Games: The Capitol Experience, an exclusive immersive activation at Westfield London. Running from 30th October to 23rd November, the free ticketed experience will give fans the chance to step into the world of Panem ahead of the release of the movie.

Located in The Atrium at Westfield London, it will feature a Cornucopia installation, interactive moments inspired by the film, exclusive collectibles and a world exclusive film clip available only to visitors attending the activation. The activation forms part of Lionsgate’s wider campaign for The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, which the studio has described as its largest above the line campaign of 2026, spanning TV, VOD, outdoor, social, digital, radio, PR, influencer and brand partnership activity.

Westfield will support the campaign through its owned marketing channels, including social media, CRM, digital platforms, editorial content, in-centre media and ticketing communications. The partnership also extends across URW's Northern European portfolio. 

Supporting activity at Westfield Täby Centrum and Westfield Mall of the Netherlands will help amplify the campaign through local marketing, social content and customer communications. Additional campaign activity will also take place at Westfield Chodov in Prague.

Co-op and Devon & Cornwall Police double retail crime cases solves with new reporting system roll-out

The number of retail crime cases solved has almost doubled during a new crime reporting trial between Co-op and Devon and Cornwall Police in the UK.

The partnership, according to those involved, delivers significantly faster justice for offences carried out, with data from Devon & Cornwall Police showing crimes reported through the platform - which is called SentrySIS - achieving a solve rate of almost 60%, which is approaching double the force’s average solve rate for retail crime versus retail crime being reported by those using traditional channels.

Data from Devon & Cornwall Police also revealed that 90% of identified shop theft offenders are repeat offenders, with just 50 individuals responsible for around a quarter of all shop theft offences in the Devon and Cornwall force area, often with more than 100 known offences each.

The new system enables stronger intelligence sharing; improved tracking of repeat offenders - connecting multiple offences committed by the same individual and building stronger cases against prolific offenders and, closer collaboration with police both at a local and central level. 

Store colleagues upload incident details, CCTV, photos and impact statement enabling police to record and allocate the crime in as little 30 minutes - a process that could take police up to seven days. 

Furthermore, it removes the need for investigating officers to then approach the retailer for evidence, saving time for retailers and resulting in the average time taken for investigations to be completed and assigned an outcome being slashed by more than a third to 35 days.

The success of the pilot has seen the SentrySIS system, which links to Co-op’s wider partnership working with UK Partners Against Crime (UKPAC), now activated across all Co-op stores in Devon and Cornwall, with discussions now underway with additional police forces. Co-op’s own retail crime levels are falling with the retailer expected to see its lowest levels since the pandemic.

Foot Locker teams with Stylitics as retailer taps AI technology to launch app-based closet builder solution

Foot Locker has developed, in partnership with Stylitics, a new AI powered closet builder, Fits, within its mobile app. In a LinkedIn post, 

Michael Cera, Interim Head of Product Management and Design at Foot Locker, said: “AI is everywhere. But, at Foot Locker, we challenged ourselves to think about how to improve and make positive change to our customers shopping experience through the use of AI.”

He added: “We engaged with customers, really listened, and in partnership with Stylitics, developed a key new closet builder within the Foot Locker app - let me introduce you to Fits! Start with something you own. Discover personalised outfits built around it. See those looks come to life on a virtual model.”

Customers can upload or take a photo of something they own, discover complete outfits built around it, and visualise those looks on a virtual model. Paired with a cart addition from the model view, the aim is to make purchasing a whole outfit styled around your own products that much easier.

Cera concluded: “This was a collaborative effort across Experience Design, Product Management, E-comm, Brand, and Stylitics, and came to life exactly as we all set out to do. Download or open your Foot Locker app today and give it a try!”

Ikea stumps up £31.5 million as it looks to make UK fulfilment more efficient and reduce packaging waste

Ikea UK is investing £31.5 million across its Peterborough and Doncaster customer distribution centres (CDC) as the retailer aims to make online fulfilment more efficient and sustainable.

In Peterborough, new technology is packaging customer orders to size and reducing material usage by up to 30%, by preventing waste from oversized boxes and filling paper. In Doncaster, Ikea is trialling a new regional fulfilment capability, serving customers in the north and Scotland from a closer location to them.

The investments will strengthen Ikea’s UK fulfilment network as online sales account for 43.3% of total UK sales in financial year 2026. It is investing £30 million in new technology for its Peterborough CDC, with the upgrades taking place over a two-year period. As part of this, it has launched new PackSize technology to prevent waste from oversized cardboard boxes and filling materials by packaging customer orders to size. On average, the technology reduces material usage by up to 30% and void fill by up to 60%.

The technology is expected to increase the share of parcels processed through automation at the Peterborough CDC from 47% today to 75% in 2027, helping the fulfilment team prepare orders for delivery more efficiently. These additional orders would otherwise have been packaged by manually creating a packing carton which includes having to measure the article then creating the cartons to fit the order. Three drones and nests were introduced at the site in January to support inventory management. They scan each aisle in short cycles, helping Ikea to keep stock in the right place and meet customer demand.

Ikea is investing £1.5 million in trialling a new fulfilment capability at its Doncaster CDC. The site now fulfils orders for customers in the Gateshead, Edinburgh and Glasgow areas, with plans for Sheffield to follow. By fulfilling these orders from Doncaster rather than Peterborough, Ikea expects to reduce emissions from delivery journeys by an estimated 280 tonnes of CO2 annually. The new capability has created an additional 80 jobs at the Doncaster site.

US retailer Five Below taps poq platform for launch of new native iOS and Android mobile apps

poq has announced the launch of new native iOS and Android mobile apps for Five Below. Tiffany D’Amato, Vice President of Digital, Five Below, comments: “Our customers live on their phones, and these apps give them a faster, more engaging way to experience everything they love about Five Below.”

“Partnering with poq allowed us to bring that vision to life quickly and effectively, with a truly native experience built for our shoppers. We’re confident these apps will drive stronger customer engagement and long-term growth for the brand.”

Helen Slaven, Chief Revenue Officer at poq, says: “Five Below is exactly the kind of brand app commerce was made for, with a huge, engaged customer base and a shopping experience built on discovery. We are thrilled to partner with them to turn mobile into an owned channel that retains customers, grows lifetime value and scales with the business.”

A built-in price scanner lets shoppers scan an item in store and check its price and details on the spot, while personalised search helps customers explore the various products Five Below has to offer. Store aware features surface the nearest store and stock availability and push notifications, keep customers close to new arrivals and seasonal drops. The apps are built on poq’s platform and integrated with the Five Below commercetools commerce stack.

Firstwork secures $15 million Series A as startup looks to scale applied AI for frontline workforce ops

Firstwork, an AI platform for frontline workforce operations, has announced a $15 million Series A led by Earlybird Venture Capital, with participation from Legion VC, Deel Ventures and existing investors Gradient and Y Combinator. The round brings its total funding to date to $20 million.

Firstwork was founded in 2024 by Vardhan Kapoor and Shubham Choudhary. Kapoor previously led APAC at Remitly and strategy at Deliveroo Singapore, while Choudhary was a Director of Engineering at Deel after helping build Rippling’s global employment infrastructure.

More than 150,000 frontline workers now start work through Firstwork each month. Customers including Deel, Job&Talent, Relay, Wonolo and BGSF have cut the time workers and HR teams spend on each new hire by up to 90%, according to the company. 

“The systems employers rely on were built to record what happened, not to actually do the work,” says Kapoor. “That leaves HR and operations teams spending enormous amounts of time chasing documents, coordinating across systems and supporting workers through processes that extend well beyond day one. Applied AI changes what is possible."

"We can now give every frontline worker the kind of support that used to be reserved for the top of the labour market, from the moment they apply through every stage of their employment.”