Do you like numbers? Do you like retail tech news? Then this is the article for you. Including Mendo, Amazon, Snapchat, VenHub Global, Veho, Bambuser, Best Buy, Zalando, Shoptalk Europe 2026, ShopAgentic, Wing, Walmart, Popeyes, Veloq, Tesco, and Snappy Shopper. €12 million... Mendo , a French startup focused on generative and agentic AI adoption, has announced a €12 million Series A. This follows a €3.5 million seed round in October 2024 and was led by Ventech and Educapital, joined by Tomcat and OVNI. “With agentics, AI changes status: it is no longer a tool that saves you a few hours a week, it becomes the layer that orchestrates and governs all of a company’s operations. It is this shift that makes Mendo’s positioning even more strategic today. No company will pull off this transition without bringing its people along and changing the way it is organised. They are the ones who work with it day to day, who spot the right use cases, who keep the agents running on the ground. That is exactly what we see among clients such as Groupe Rocher, PwC and Edenred. Our role is to make that adoption possible at scale, without leaving anyone behind,” says Quentin Amaudry, CEO and Co-founder at Mendo. “The real problem with AI in the enterprise isn’t budget. It’s adoption. Tools left idle, teams using them only at the margins, and management that doesn’t know where to start in fully embedding AI into their processes. Mendo solves exactly that: from mapping the uses that already exist, through upskilling teams, to deploying in-house AI agents. With five offices in Europe (Paris, Berlin, Munich, Helsinki and Stockholm) and investments in players such as Speexx, 365 Talents and amber, Ventech has long backed companies that bring together AI and training. Mendo really is the missing piece at European scale. That is exactly the kind of company Ventech sets out to invest in,” says Audrey Soussan, General Partner at Ventech. €30 million... Veloq , an AI native grocery fulfillment platform that was spun out from Rohlik Group , has announced €30 million in additional scale-up financing from the European Investment Bank (EIB). This will be used for commercial expansion across Europe and the United States. In a LinkedIn post, the company said: "Grocery automation has a proof problem. Most of the field is hardware vendors and robotics companies extending up the stack, selling automation without ever having owned a P&L on a basket. The handful of platforms built by operators are 5× more expensive and were architected for a different era." It added: "Rohlik Group took a different bet a decade ago by building Veloq around a running grocery business, shipping orders, owning the unit economics, and letting the platform learn from every basket that leaves the door. The numbers show it worked. 2.1 million orders a month across five markets. NPS consistently above 90. 97% on-time delivery. ~30% YoY growth to $2 billion in revenue. Veloq is the operating platform designed to run same-day e-grocery profitably across any market and any brand, across Europe and the US." EIB Vice President Marek Mora said: "With this investment, we are supporting Rohlik in the next stage of its journey, turning proven, AI driven fulfillment solutions into Veloq." Tomáš Čupr, CEO at Rohlik Group: "Customers want fresh, full basket groceries delivered on their schedule. The EIB's continued backing helps put it into the hands of other grocers through Veloq." Three in four fans are likely to reach for their phone during scheduled breaks in play at this summer’s FIFA World Cup , according to research released by Snapchat. The findings reveal a major shift in how younger audiences experience live sport, with the “second screen” increasingly becoming central to fandom rather than simply a distraction from the match. The research, conducted by OnePoll among 1,000 UK Gen Z ahead of the tournament, suggests modern fandom is increasingly built around participation, chat and shared reaction as much as passive viewing. Rather than watching matches in isolation, fans are simultaneously messaging friends, reacting in group chats and capturing emotional moments in real-time - creating new opportunities for brands. The tournament’s scheduled 22nd-minute water breaks are expected to become a major new behavioural moment during live games, creating synchronised windows where millions of viewers are likely to turn to their phones at the same time. During natural breaks in play, 46% check their phones and 20% do so even while play is ongoing, while fans also check their phones almost ten times on average during games, but increasingly part of the match experience itself. €1.9 million... ShopAgentic has announced the close of a €1.9 million pre-seed round, led by May Ventures and Greenfield Capital. “Discovery is moving into millions of personal assistants. Transactions are moving between agents. The entire front door of e-commerce is being rebuilt, and ShopAgentic is the system on the other side of it,” says Alexander Ringsdorff, CEO and Co-founder at ShopAgentic . ShopAgentic is a native agentic commerce system: a coordinated squad of specialised AI agents, each owning one commerce function end-to-end. From catalogue management and dynamic pricing to customer service and fulfillment orchestration, every agent has a defined job, a clear scope of ownership, and the autonomy to execute, while the merchant keeps full control over strategy and outcomes. ShopAgentic works alongside existing infrastructure or as a standalone solution, with a low entry threshold. The company says that matters most for the roughly half of global e-commerce running on proprietary, custom built systems - merchants who can’t simply migrate to a standard platform but can no longer afford to sit out agentic commerce. The pre-seed capital will be used to accelerate product development, deepen integrations across the commerce ecosystem, and grow the team ahead of a broader market launch. 52%... Veho , a last mile delivery platform built for e-commerce, has expanded across Oakland, San Francisco, Sacramento, and San Jose, bringing its network to 78 markets and 52% of the US population. It says that, for the first time, one in two Americans can now receive a package through its service. Over the last year, Veho has added 28 markets, a 56% increase in its national footprint. Recent additions include Minneapolis, MN; Norfolk, VA; Memphis, TN; Birmingham, AL; Fort Myers, FL; Kansas City, MO. "Great delivery shouldn't depend on your zip code," says Albert Silva, Senior Vice President of Commercial Logistics and Expansion at Veho, which works with such companies as Macy's, Sephora, Lululemon, Stitch Fix, and HelloFresh. "Crossing half the US population means millions more shoppers get the same standard, no matter where they live." 600... ICE has announced a partnership with Tesco, launching a roll-out of autonomous cleaning robots across 600 Express stores. The pair are laying claim to the first deployment of this scale in the UK convenience sector. The machines are designed as "co-bots" to work alongside Tesco colleagues. By taking over routine floor cleaning, they free up time for the store teams to focus on serving customers. The technology promises a highly consistent, premium clean every single day, backed by data tracking and reporting. Mark Bresnihan, CEO at ICE, says: "As long standing pioneers in cleaning technologies, ICE is delighted to partner with Tesco on this project. We are providing not just our industry-leading autonomous machines, but also the comprehensive training and service support required to make this a success. Together, we are showing how data driven automation can work hand-in-hand with retail teams to improve cleaning standards." £1 billion... Amazon has opened a new fulfilment centre in Northampton and announced plans for a second major site in nearby Kettering, taking its investment in a single county to more than £1 billion and creating over 4,000 jobs. The developments come one year after it committed to stump up £40 billion in the UK from 2025 to 2027 - the largest investment in the company's history outside the US - with more than £15 billion thus far delivered. Amazon’s Northampton fulfilment centre is pitched as one of the most advanced logistics operations in the country, with thousands of robots working alongside employees on three floors. The Kettering site will be the UK’s largest cross-dock facility, sorting and routing customer items across the country. Amazon has also expanded its London headquarters in Shoreditch with the opening of a third building, bringing around 6,000 employees together on a single campus. The 900,000-square-foot Kettering site will process around 20 million items each week, creating more than 2,000 permanent jobs and hundreds of seasonal roles. Recruitment is under way for engineers, HR and IT professionals, finance specialists, and operations teams. The announcement comes as customer deliveries begin at Amazon's new £500 million fulfilment centre in Northampton, where a further 2,000 jobs will be created. John Boumphrey, Amazon UK Country Manager, says: “A year ago we said we planned to invest £40 billion in the UK. Today you can see what that means - from 4,000 jobs in Northamptonshire and 2,000 in Hull, to drone deliveries from Darlington, a new tech HQ in Swansea. We said we'd deliver and we have. And we're only a year in.” 1... VenHub Global , a US-based specialist in autonomous smart store technology, has announced its expansion into the Florida market through a new commercial deployment with a local operator. The initial roll-out will target the Tampa Bay region, representing VenHub’s first technology presence in the state. “Florida represents one of the most compelling markets in the country for autonomous retail, driven by its scale, rapid population growth, and persistent labour challenges,” says Shahan Ohanessian, CEO at VenHub Global . “Our expansion into the state reflects accelerating demand for a smarter, more resilient retail model. We’re excited to bring a solution that delivers both operational efficiency and a fundamentally better experience for today’s consumer.” VenHub expects to deploy its initial Florida locations in 2026, with a multi-unit roll-out planned across the Tampa Bay region for multiple stores in Q4/early 2027. Site selection is currently underway, focused on high foot traffic environments underserved by traditional staffed retail formats. €1.8 million... Merchantee , an agentic marketplace intelligence company for e-commerce sellers, has announced a €1.8 million round led by Reflex Capital, with support from Czech Founders VC and Lighthouse Ventures. The combined pre-seed round and extension will fund product development, new marketplace integrations, and a European growth plan extending from Poland to the Netherlands. Merchantee is used by sellers and the digital sales teams of brands like Philips, Lindt, SodaStream, and Vilgain. Jakub Vraspír, Founder and CEO at Merchantee, says: “Most sellers are stuck in the same place. Their marketplace channel works at some level, but scaling it means thousands of decisions a day across pricing, campaigns, and promotions that no team can manage manually. Larger companies with more resources win, every time. Merchantee’s agentic intelligence levels the playing field, working as a marketplace expert across thousands of products at once. Merchantee’s team are the first to build natively for European marketplaces, executing the full loop and giving sellers the kind of opportunity that used to be available only to the largest players.” Ondřej Fryc, Managing Partner at Reflex Capital, says: “Jakub spent years inside the European marketplace world. He helped launch Mall.cz, the first marketplace in Czechia and Slovakia, now owned by the Allegro Group. Few founders in this category have such extensive operational depth, and even fewer have turned it into infrastructure that brands like Philips, Lindt , and SodaStream now rely on every day.” 7... Wing and Walmart have confirmed seven new metro areas that will join what is pitched as the USA’s largest drone delivery network: Memphis, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Diego, San Francisco Bay Area and Salt Lake City. This will bring their total service footprint to nearly 20 US markets across the country. "Our work with Walmart has shown that drone delivery isn’t just a novelty, it’s a service many customers count on multiple times per week," says Heather Rivera, Wing’s Chief Business Officer. "We’re already working with many communities in the seven new markets, as we accelerate our progress to bring ultra-fast delivery to 40 million residents throughout the US." Wing’s drones fly at speeds up to 60 mph and use a tether to lower packages directly to a customer’s yard or driveway in as fast as 30 minutes. “Customers expect their orders on their terms, delivered with speed and ease,” says Greg Cathey, Senior Vice President of eCommerce Fulfillment Transformation, Walmart U.S. “Expanding into new markets with Wing allows us to provide an innovative delivery option for customers, utilising our vast store network to make everyday shopping and fulfilling last-minute needs just a little bit easier.” The latest phase builds upon previous announcements in Orlando, Tampa, Charlotte, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Los Angeles and Miami. 200... Pudu Robotics , in collaboration with its authorised regional distributor Robobee, has announced a partnership with Denner, a Swiss discount supermarket chain and a subsidiary of Migros Group. This will see the deployment of 200 PUDU CC1 4-in-1 cleaning robots across Denner's store network. The initiative forms part of Denner's broader modernisation programme, recently highlighted by CEO Torsten Friedrich, aimed at improving operational efficiency and enhancing the in-store customer experience. "We are honoured that Denner selected PUDU CC1 to help address a critical operational challenge," says Felix Zhang, Founder and CEO at Pudu Robotics. "This deployment stems from a clear need: to maintain impeccable hygiene standards amid expanding fresh produce offerings, while alleviating the daily cleaning burden on store teams . The success of the initial pilot proved that robotics can be a reliable, safe, and integral part of the daily retail environment." He adds: "Seeing the project scale from four pilot stores to a deployment of this size is a strong validation of both the technology and the operational value it delivers. It reflects a shared commitment to practical innovation and measurable day-to-day efficiency." $200 million and $1 billion... Standard Bots has announced a $200 million Series C funding round at a $1 billion valuation, led by RoboStrategy Advisors and existing backers including General Catalyst. The company, whose customers include Amazon, says that it is now America’s largest manufacturer of AI n

Source: Retail Technology Innovation Hub

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