Talya Vaish
June 20, 2023
In the bustling world of retail, technological advancements continue to reshape the landscape, revolutionizing the way consumers shop and businesses operate. Amidst this dynamic environment, Israel still stands as a hotbed for innovation, delivering cutting-edge solutions that push the boundaries of retail technology. As we delve into the past month’s developments, we uncover some updates that highlight Israel’s prowess in revolutionizing the retail sector. And Re-tech is closely following the ups and downs of the retail tech ecosystem in Israel.
We all looked in worry as April was one of the lowest fundraising months in Israel since 2018. The good news is that (according to Geektime) in May we saw some better numbers. According to Geektime, 27 deals signed (vs. 15 last month) worth about 606 million dollars.
French retailer Carrefour (which is also now active in Israel via its collaboration with Yenot Bitan) was reported to order 50,000 A2Z’s Cust2Mate smart carts in order to ‘revolutionize shopping and checkout experience’. A2Z Smart Technologies Corp. Cust2Mate’s parent organization also recently worked with Morton Williams, a retailer with 17 stores in the New York Metropolitan area to create a seamless shopping experience.
Hexa announced they are the first company to support immersive commerce on Amazon.com, providing 3D/AR/MR and synthetic data to sellers and brands across 100+ countries.
Hexa was founded in 2018 by Yehiel Atias, Ran Buchnik and Jonathan Clark, and uses AI to turn existing 2d images into 3d models. These interactive models can than be used in websites, social media and AR applications.
On March 2023 Hexa announced raising 20.5 million dollars in round A with Samurai incubate and Sarona Partners, Point 72 Ventures and HTC (as well as 1.2 and 5.5 million dollars in pre-seed and seed respectively). The Israeli company currently employs over 100 employees worldwide.
Another success story is 8fig who recently raised 40 million dollars. This startup helps smaller sellers on Amazon marketplace increase their revenue by developing an e-commerce platform, using AI models that help fund and manage income streams and provide a growth plan.
8fig was founded in 2020 by Yaron Shapira, Assaf Dagan and Roei Yellin and has offices in Tel Aviv and in Austin, Texas. Over the past two years the startup has funded its customers over 500 million dollars and increased its own revenue by 800%. In may they announced completing a 40 million dollar round B with Koch Disruptive Technologies, Battery, Localglobe, Hetz, Silicon Valley Bank and First Citizen Bank. It has previously raised 50 million dollars. In addition to this money they also raised 100 million dollars of credit for their customers.
In addition to the core platform, they are now working on developing new tools that help online store owners manage their store from mobile, a service that helps pay suppliers directly and to manage shipment through fig8. And they are working on even more new tools!
Unity SCM also just raised an 8 Million dollars A round led by Vertex Ventures and UpWest. The startup helps people in operations and supply chain management receive all the information they need in order to make and execute crucial decisions.
Unity SCM was founded in 2020 and has offices in Israel and the US and has raised 13.2 million dollars thus far. It collects data from all ends of the supply chain and organizes it in a way that is intuitive to people in operations and provides out of the box solutions to common supply problems
cooperation with suppliers and partners, tracking shipments, stock management etc.)
Another successful raise for Onebeat, who help retailers predict daily demand and optimize stock management. The company recently raised 10 million dollars in B round with Magenta Venture Partners.
Onebeat was founded in 2018 by Dr. Yishai Ashlag and Avihai Shnabel . They now operate in 26 countries around the world and their customers include large retailers like Tata, Crocs, Calvin Klein, American Eagle and more.
No doubt that Israeli retail tech is as strong as ever. Stay tuned for more updates about this sector coming up.
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