News
Moneybox, a savings and investment app, has raised £14 million in a Series B funding round that was led by Eight Roads, the proprietary investment arm of Fidelity International.
Existing investors, including Oxford Capital Partners and Samos Investments, also participated in the round, which brings the total amount raised to £21.3 million.
The company, which launched in 2016 and claims it has over 100,000 users, lets users save through a combination of card transaction round ups, weekly deposits, payday boosts and one-offs. Customers can choose from three simple starting options - cautious, balanced and adventurous - which invest in tracker funds run by Vanguard, Henderson and BlackRock. Their aim is to make investing clear, simple and easy to achieve.
The new funding will be used to increase the workforce and build new products.
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As JD.com pushes into Western markets, with drones, robots and luxury brands, it's time for Amazon to sit up and pay attention.
JD, short for Jingdong, was founded by Richard Liu in 1998 and started as a small brick-and-mortar store in Beijing. Then in 2004, Liu moved it online and JD.com was born. The firm is now worth more than $55 billion.
The drone programme is made up of a team of 200 people and since March 2016 their drones have clocked up over 300,000 minutes of flight time delivering products across China. Whilst for Amazon, despite Jeff Bezos announcing back in 2013 that future deliveries would be done by drones, is yet to deliver on that promise. Delivery isn't the only focus for JD's drones; they are developing bigger ones that will be able to carry up to 5 tonnes and can be used to transfer inventory between warehouses.
The e-commerce giant's revenue is growing 40% a year and it is now focused on expanding its market reach. It currently serves China, Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam. In January, it opened its first European office, in Paris, and it plans to open another one in Milan.
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Jarvish, a Taiwanese startup, has unveiled its second generation helmet that combines Alexa and an AR display. The X-AR helmet builds on the connected features of its previous model, the X helmet, but has added a HUD display based on optical waveguide technology that shows information including traffic and weather conditions and smartwatch features such as music controls and call notifications.
Jarvish has also added a 2K HD rear-facing camera, which can be activated by the onboard mic and speakers that offer voice control support including access to Alexa.
Other features include 16GB of built-in storage, which is expandable with 256GB memory cards, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity. It has about four hours of battery life and will work with both Android and iOS smartphones.
To read more, click here.
Snapchat debuted a native commerce feature that allows influencers to earn money from products that are sold through their posts. As part of the product's launch reality TV star Kylie Jenner partnered with Snapchat and posted a video promoting her Kyshadow makeup.
Snapchat have focused on facilitating the shopping process for its users, with the e-commerce transactions being powered by Shopify. In order to purchase products users can swipe up on the post and this takes them through to an online checkout. They can also save their credit card details and shipping information on the platform.
To read more, click here.
Paysend, a FinTech company, has raised $20m in a round led by MARCorp Financial.
The company was launched early 2017 and has offices in Fife (Scotland) and London. It has created a global card-to-card payment infrastructure in an attempt to simplify global remittances.
Paysend will use the funds to launch new services and to boost its global expansion plans.
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Online apparel sales accounted for 27.4% of overall US apparel sales last year, up from 23.5% in 2016 and 20.7% in 2015, according to the most recent Internet Retailer Online Apparel Report published last week.
American Eagle, Abercrombie & Fitch and other apparel brands are investing in digital sales. Gap and Target have even introduced subscription models for children.
Fashion retailers dominated Internet Retailer’s 2018 Top 1000 list with 266 (more than any other category) making the list. That doesn’t include mass-merchant giants like Amazon (number one on that list) and Walmart (number three).
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Amazon has announced plans to acquire PillPack, an online pharmacy that sorts patients’ medications into personalized packets and delivers them directly to their door.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Amazon referred to the deal as a “definitive merger agreement.”
PillPack was founded in 2013 and has raised more than $120m in funding from investors including TechStars, Menlo Ventures and Accel.
This announcement follows one previously in the year where Amazon entered U.S. employee healthcare via a partnership with Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan. This will be Amazon's first foray into the lucrative pharmaceutical market.
To read more, click here.
Alibaba, the Chinese multinational e-commerce, retail, Internet, AI and technology conglomerate that delivers more packages than Amazon, is expanding its focus from primarily digital to brick-and-mortar stores.
As part of the move they are implementing what is being termed "New Retail" technologies to Chinese hypermarket chain RT-Mart and has so far completed transforming about 100 of its 400 stores. According to Peter Huang, CEO of RT-Mart, "New Retail has introduced a new way of thinking. By digitizing the store’s operation, the online and offline business merge into one".
For the one-hour delivery of orders placed through RT-Mart’s mobile app, in-store inventory is picked, then put on conveyor belts that carry shopping bags above the shop floor to where they are packed and readied for delivery.
Additionally, in-store shoppers can use the Mobile Taobao app to scan bar codes and place products in a virtual shopping cart. The transaction is completed with Alipay, the parent company of which Alibaba has a 33% stake in, and delivered to a residence in as quickly as 60 minutes.
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Unicorn, a term that denotes a young company which successfully reaches a $1bn valuation, was originally coined in 2013 by Aileen Lee, founder of VC house Cowboy Ventures. The term was made in reference to the fact so few companies achieve this mythical standing.
Having said that, Revolut is the latest startup to join the British unicorn club, following its $1.7bn (£1.2bn) valuation in May.
Unicorns are most common in the US, China and the UK.
As well as the initial valuation of over $1bn, the other criteria startups need to meet - albeit some of this is debatable - is:
- to be privately held (if a company has floated on a public market it is likely to have been valued over $1bn for quite some time.)
- to be independent (due to the fact a subsidiary of large companies have a much easier route to a $1bn valuation)
- to have not been acquired (see above point).
Of the British companies that have incorporated since 2010 seven have qualified for unicorn status: OakNorth, Revolut, BenevolentAI, Deliveroo, Funding Circle, Improbable and TransferWise.
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Monzo, the FinTech startup, has partnered up with TransferWise, the money transfer service, to offer international payments to its customers.
The UK challenger bank was founded in February 2015 and has grown exponentially since. It now has more than 300 employees and claims its 750,000 customers have spent over £2bn with their cards.
TransferWise launched in 2011 and, according to their stats, has more than 3 million users who transfer over £2bn every month across the 50 currencies that they offer.
Together they want to bring fairness and transparency to the banking sector.
Monzo will integrate with TransferWise’s API, to help customers send money in 16 currencies via their Monzo app.
To read more, click here.