last week’s most essential retail technology articles — Retail Technology Innovation Hub
Westfield London hosts Williams Racing F1 pop-up
Westfield London hosted an immersive pop-up experience from Formula One team Williams Racing ahead of the British Grand Prix.
Taking place from Monday 27th June to Sunday 3rd July, this was open from 10am to 9pm.
Adwisely secures $1.5m seed round led by TMT Investments
Adwisely, formerly known as RetargetApp, an ad automation platform for e-commerce DTC brands, has secured a $1.5 million seed round, led by TMT Investments.
There was also participation from Gaingels, Mana Ventures, Cabra VC, ICU Ventures, and a group of angel investors, including Wrike’s Andrew Filev.
The investment brings the company's total funding to $3.9 million.
It plans to use the new funds to integrate with more advertising platforms that have the highest potential for fast growing DTC brands, such as TikTok, Pinterest, and Twitter, before raising Series A cash later this year.
Kogniz closes $10m funding round, launches Gun Detection module
Kogniz has announced a $10 million investment led by Ulu Ventures to help bring the company's technology product suite that predicts, detects, and resolves key safety and operational problems to commercial, industrial, school, and governmental organisations.
There was also participation by super{set} Venture Studio and its CEO and Co-Founder Tom Chavez, and The Indy Fund, K20 Fund, H. Barton Asset Management, among others.
Kogniz has raised $13.5 million in total to date.
Alongside the latest investment, it has unveiled a new Gun Detection module that uses computer vision and AI to identify firearms in real-time via a client's existing camera infrastructure.
Walmart takes stake in automation technology firm Symbotic
Walmart has taken a stake in Symbotic, amounting to 11.1% of the company’s total common stock and 4.3% of its voting power, according to a securities filing.
The disclosure closely follows Walmart announcing that it will bring Symbotic’s automation technology to all 42 of its regional distribution centres over the next eight years, an expansion of a previous partnership.
Deliveroo teams with Criteo for new advertising platform
Deliveroo has announced the launch of a new advertising platform, Deliveroo Media and E-commerce.
The rapid delivery firm is working on this offering with Criteo who are supplying the advertising technology and media sales services.
Brands will be able to advertise to Deliveroo customers with relevant offers across its app, on the company’s website and as part of social media, email and push notification campaigns.
For the first time, advertising is planned for Deliveroo’s order tracker page, with new formats to launch over the coming months, alongside sponsored search listings.
The venture’s network of delivery only ‘Editions’ kitchens and rapid grocery delivery ‘HOP’ stores are also part of the new advertising proposition.
H&M Group taps Google Cloud tech for CX and supply chain push
Google Cloud has announced a new partnership with H&M Group which will see the Swedish multinational leverage its data analytics capabilities and sustainable global infrastructure to enhance its customer experience and supply chain enablement.
The pair will collaborate to develop an enterprise data backbone including a core data platform, data product, and advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities.
This will also include the establishment of a new data mesh to further make all types of data and events accessible from multiple sources including in-store, online, its brands ecosystem and suppliers.
Five retail technology questions for Martin Schofield of Retail247
RTIH asks major players in the retail technology space for their thoughts on the sector, and throws in a random question to keep them on their toes. This time around, our five questions go to Martin Schofield, CEO at Retail247.
Omi raises €6 million in seed funding for 3D modelling tech
Omi, a French startup that specialises in SaaS software for modelling and rendering 3D photo and video for brands, has raised €6 million in seed funding.
The round was led by Dawn Capital, with participation from a range of angel investors including Founders Future’s Marc Ménasé who led Omi’s previous round, Zenly cofounder Alexis Bonillo, Deezer founder Daniel Marhely and Voodoo cofounder Laurent Ritter.
There was also participation from Pareto Holdings, Financière Saint James (Veepee.com’s co-founder family office), Motier Ventures (Galeries Lafayette family office) and Famille C Venture (Clarins family office).
Omi says that its photo-realistic 3D technology enables brands and marketers to “virtualise their products and create photos and videos of their products in minutes, with no skills and at low cost”.
The funding will be used to accelerate the development of its R&D, recruit new talent, and build an international presence.
Gloss