Retail tech Swiftly achieves unicorn status after successful US$100m series C round

USA- Swiftly, a retail technology platform and provider of omnichannel tools for retailers, has announced a US$100 m Series C funding, bringing the company’s total valuation to more than US$1 billion.

BRV Capital Management (BRV Capital) led this Series C round of funding, which will be used to continue Swiftly’s rapid growth and expand its product offerings into new geographies.

Swiftly doubled their investment to US$210 million in less than six months as they continued to give brick-and-mortar stores the tools they need to forge solid digital consumer interactions and create a best-in-class retail media network.

Its innovative solutions allow retailers to compete against retail giants that have deployed custom-built advanced tools in the retail market, long out of reach of most retailers.

“Our mission is to empower brick-and-mortar retailers to move from analog to algorithms, as winners in this new era of commerce will be determined by how fast they can reinvent their business to capture shoppers digitally and monetize those digital relationships,” said Henry Kim, co-founder and CEO of Swiftly.

“We are grateful to BRV Capital for their support that will enable us to turn today’s brick-and-mortar retailers into tomorrow’s omnichannel leaders.”

Brian Lee, Partner at BRV Capital stated that they are delighted to partner with Swiftly on their mission to help retailers compete with retail giants globally.

Instacart, a major delivery service, and a Swiftly rival unveiled Connected Stores, a collection of tools to ” help grocers build a unified, seamless, personalized experience both online and in-store.”

Founded in 2018, Swiftly has now seized about 10% of the market for grocery stores across the country according to Sean Turner, the company’s CTO, Swiftly.

The 150-person startup provides services to 22,500 outlets run by businesses with yearly revenues of US$1 billion or more.

Swiftly-powered applications employ the information they gather to offer carefully crafted advertisements to food companies competing for consumers’ attention.

According to Turner, it also gives those traditional brick-and-mortar grocery stores an advantage over e-commerce behemoths like Amazon and Walmart, which are making significant investments in their own grocery-related goods and services.

Instacart, a major delivery service, and a Swiftly rival unveiled Connected Stores, a collection of tools to ” help grocers build a unified, seamless, personalized experience both online and in-store.”

Other businesses are creating products for conventional supermarkets, including the Seattle-based Veeve, which recently unveiled an upgrade to its smart shopping cart technology.

A portion of the additional investment will be used by Swiftly to diversify its clientele beyond the supermarket industry.

The company is interested in physical stores that sell clothing, sporting goods, electronics, home goods, and other items.

For the time being, the business is still primarily focused on the grocery industry and provides a variety of technologies that, in addition to powering consumer phone apps, employs AI to study consumer patterns and check inventory.

Liked this article? Subscribe to Food Business Africa News, our regular email newsletters with the latest news insights from Africa and the World’s food and agro industry. SUBSCRIBE HERE