News
Marks & Spencer has launched a photo search feature to help online shoppers easily find similar products and filter through thousands of menswear and womenswear items.
The ‘Style Finder’, powered by artificial intelligence, is part of the British retailer’s digital-first strategy and underlines the growing role of mobile commerce for the company, as it is available only on mobile devices.
Users can take a photo of an outfit or style they like on social media, a magazine or in a store and use the app to search for similar items available at M&S.
This forms part of the Marks & Spencer's strategy to digitise its operations with the aim of achieving a third of all its clothing revenue from online sales by 2022.
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MarketInvoice, an online invoice financing platform, has successfully raised £26 million in a Series B funding round led by Barclays and Santander InnoVentures. Other investors include Northzone and Israeli technology credit fund Viola Credit, which will also provide MarketInvoice a debt facility of up to £30 million.
Since 2011 the London-based tech firm has funded invoices and business loans to UK companies worth more than £2 billion, making it Europe’s largest online invoice finance platform.
MarketInvoice's co-founder and CEO Anil Stocker has said the new capital will be used to boost its business in the UK, through investing in technology and data, increasing the size of the team and forging more partnerships with banks.
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SimplyCook, a recipe kit service, has managed to reach £4.5 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Octopus Investments.
The company differentiates from its competitors, such as Mindful Chef and HelloFresh, by not delivering all the ingredients needed to create the meal but only the key flavour components. This provides the subscription service provider with better margins whilst also allowing them to charge lower prices per delivery and endearing them to a broader market base.
The funding will be used by SimplyCook to invest in technology and sales & marketing, with the focus on driving continued growth across the UK as well as expanding into new markets abroad.
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Nike, the major sports retailer, is set to offer its first yoga-tailored sportswear line later this month. Although they have previously offered yoga-related products, this is their first true foray into the area.
Unlike Lululemon, which already dominates this niche area of sports fashion, Nike is taking an entirely different approach. They are highlighting yoga as a supplement to other workouts and thereby emphasising how it can help professional athletes from different sports compete better in their respective areas, and simultaneously focusing on men and women's attire.
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Monzo, the unicorn UK challenger bank, has secretly begun work on expanding into the US.
Growing at a strong rate in the UK, with more than a million customers and a second round of funding of £20million completed in December 2018, the fintech company has now set its sights on North America and is potentially planning to launch a "lite" version, where customers can use a pre-paid dedit card. This would be a similar strategy to the one Monzo used when in launched in the UK in 2015.
Although Monzo will need to partner with a US bank whilst it works towards the necessary regulatory licenses to operate without a partner, this could see its customer base grow rapidly as it strives to expand globally and reach a billion customers.
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BLEND Network, the peer-to-peer property lending platform, has completed £10m of late-seed round financing.
The platform launched earlier this year to make the property market more efficient while saying it would deliver double-digit return to investors.
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Farfetch has teamed up with Syte, a visual AI startup, to help customers search through its products using a screenshot or a photo and offer a more cohesive shopping experience.
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Investment firm Scottish Equity Partners (SEP) has reached an agreement with fellow investor Elliott Advisors (UK) to provide £29 million in funding for fintech specialists TotallyMoney.
The huge sum follows a stellar 12 months for TotallyMoney which has reached one million customers since launching its Free Credit Report (FCR) in 2017.
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Lightfoot, the creator of car technology that rewards better drivers, has raised £3.2m from BGF.
Lightfoot’s in-car technology rewards good drivers by allowing them to monetise their smooth driving with prizes, discounts and rewards.
The company, which was launched in 2013 by entrepreneur Mark Roberts, claims to have more than 20,000 drivers using its tech.
The funding will be used to drive growth in Lightfoot’s fleet business, for expansion into the consumer market and to increase its workforce.
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Mercaux, a SaaS retail technology platform that powers digital in-store experiences for offline retailers, has successfully raised £3.5M in Series A funding. The round was led by Nauta Capital.
The London-based company was founded in 2013 and is used more than 100,000 times per day and deployed in more than 250+ stores around the world. Clients include French Connection, United Colors of Benetton, Nike, Under Armour and Karen Millen.
The company intends to use the funds to increase its commercial international growth and develop its technology.
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