We’ve been digging around in Crunchbase - as well as our own ecosystem - to identify the top funded retail technology B2B start-ups in Europe.
Our top 25 includes companies from eight countries and has raised just over $1bn, but is dominated by three players who have raised between them $750m. Some of these fund raises have been accumulated over a few years, but nevertheless the list paints an interesting picture of focus, geographical density and investor appetite.
While Klarna from Sweden comes out top with almost $300m raised, the UK - with 13 out of the top 25 - and a total of almost $500m. Payments is the biggest area of focus with three companies and over half the money raised. Across the 25 companies there is a wide range of applications, demonstrating the breadth of innovation and potential for disruption in this market.
There is a very wide spread of investors with only ten investors appearing twice in this group: Balderton, Eden Ventures, General Atlantic, Index Ventures, Frog Capital, MMC Ventures, Notion Capital, Octopus Investments and XAnge. N.B. If you think we've missed any companies please let us know in the comments and we will update the list.
- Klarna has raised $282.1 million in 6 rounds from 8 investors: Institutional Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital, General Atlantic, Atomico, QED Investors, DST Global, Investment AB Öresund and Jane Walerud. Klarna provides e-commerce payment solutions for merchants and shoppers by allowing consumers to receive goods first and pay afterwards. Based in Stockholm, Klarna was founded in 2005.
- Adyen has raised $266 million in 2 rounds from 3 investors: Temasek Holdings, General Atlantic and Felicis Venture. Adyen is a multichannel payment company that provides businesses a single global platform to accept payments anywhere in the world by outsourcing payment services to international merchants. Adyen was founded in 2006 in Amsterdam.
- Powa has raised $177 million in 3 rounds from 2 investors: Wellington Management and Bay Pond Partners. Powa is an international commerce specialist that creates technologies to seamlessly integrate the physical and digital world. Powa is based in London and was founded by Dan Wagner in 2007.
- Order Dynamics (formerly eCommera) raised $51m in three rounds from seven investors including West Coast Capital, Frog Capital, ePlanet Capital, WPP and Dawn Capital. Most recent fund raising event was for $41m in February 2014. Order Dynamics provided cloud-based ecommerce platform, intelligence and services providers to leading brands and retailers and was established in 2007 by Andrew McGregor and Michael Ross. The ecommerce platform and services arm was acquired by Dentsu Aegis in June 2015, but Order Dynamics will continue focusing on trading intelligence.
- Qubit has raised $34.9 million in 3 rounds from 6 investors: Accel Partners, Salesforce Ventures, Balderton Capital, Dan Cobley, R Ventures and Westminster Growth Capital. Qubit gives marketers the tools to understand their visitors, and personalize their online presence to drive conversions in real time by integrating analytics, segmentation, A/B testing, and web personalization. Qubit was founded in 2010 in London.
- Metapack has raised $30.8 million in 2 rounds from 3 investors: One of the earliest investors was William Currie Group, followed by Index Ventures, Brainspark and Cross Atlantic Capital Partners. Metapack provides delivery management solutions that enables retailers to increase sales conversion, improve delivery margins, reduce costs & improve customer service. Metapack is headquartered in London and was founded in 1999, making it the oldest of all the companies in this list.
- Brightpearl has raised $24.5 million in 4 rounds from 4 investors: Quayle Munro, Notion Capital, Eden Ventures and MMC Ventures. Most recent fund raising event was $10m in April 2014. Brightpearl is a cloud-based retail management system that exists to help small and medium sized retailers to accelerate their growth and profits by managing orders, inventory, customer data, accounting and reporting. Brightpearl was founded in 2007 in Bristol.
- Amplience has raised $20.2 million in 4 rounds from 3 investors: Silicon Valley Bank, Northstar Ventures and Octopus Investments. Amplience is a SaaS-based platform that enables non-technical marketing teams to produce digital campaign and product media by bringing together marketing and e-commerce teams. Based in London, Amplience was founded in 2008 by Rory Dennis and James Brooke.
- Metail has raised $19.5 million in 3 rounds from 3 investors: John Gleasure, TAL Group and New World Private Equity. Metail is a fashion technology company for retailers that allows consumers to try on clothes online, see how they fit and create and share their looks on their own 3D body model. Headquartered in London, Metail was founded in 2008 by Tom Adeyoola.
- Kiosked has raised $16.9 million in 3 rounds from 7 investors: Dutch L’Arche BV, MOOR, Tero Ojanperä, Andreas Rosenlew, Kaj Hed, John Lindfors and Kevin Wall. Kiosked is an in-content advertising platform that drives viewability and relevancy of ads. Kiosked was founded in 2010 in Finland.
- PrestaShop has raised $14.8 million in 4 round from 13 investors: Serena Capital, Seventure Partners, XAnge Private Equity, Patrick Robin, Raphaël Loucheux, Basile Schlumberger, Anne-Sophie Pastel, Cyril Vermeulen, Gilles Vanel, Jerome Camblain, Stanislas Brossollet, Patrice Magnard and Igor Schlumberger. PrestaShop is an open-source ecommerce software that allows users to create and sustain an e-business by by providing more than 310 advanced features that can be customized to fit the needs of every online business. PrestaShop was founded in Paris in 2007.
- Fits.me has raised $14.3 million in 3 rounds from 6 investors: Entrepreneurs Fund, SmartCap AS, James B Gambrell, Fostergate Holdings, Conor Venture Partners and Estonion Development Fund. Fits.me develops virtual fitting room solutions that enable online clothes shoppers to try on garments virtually. Fits.me was founded in Estonia in 2010.
- Sparkow has raised $13.2 million in 3 rounds from 4 investors: I Source-Gestion, XAnge Private Equity, BPI France and Capital Aria. Sparkow provides an expert merchandising platform to some of France’s biggest retailers and brands. Based in Lille, Sparkow (formerly known as Compario) was founded in 2004.
- Tictail has raised $10.6 million in 4 rounds from 9 investors: Creandum, Balderton Capital, Thrive Capital, Red Swan Ventures, Project A Ventures, Klaus Hommels, Gustav Söderström, Fredrik Nylander and Gustaf Alstromer. Tictail is an e-commerce platform that helps anyone who has a great product, to easily sell online by allowing individuals and retailers to set up their own virtual store. TicTail was founded in Stockholm in 2012.
- Anatwine is estimated to have raised $10 million. While the full amount raised has not been released Sir Terry Leay is on the board and Supergroup announced a £400k investment in their annual report. The round was led by William Currie Group. Zalanado acquired a 20% stake in the business in May 2015. Anatwine is a retail merchandising platform that connects brand and retailer networks to create a profitable revenue and stock share model. Founded in 2013, Anatwine is based in Gloucestershire, UK.
- Nosto has raised $8.3 million in 2 rounds from 4 investors: SanomaVentures, Tekes, Open Ocean and Wellington Partners. Nosto brings solutions for online marketing automation for the global e-commerce industry by providing product recommendations based on individual behavioral data and a performance based revenue model. Headquartered in Helsinki, Nosto was founded in 2011.
- Ecrebo has raised $8.2 million in 2 rounds from 1 investor: Octopus Investments. Ecrebo is a customer engagement platform that allows retailers to deliver personalized customer-engagements across all channels by connecting transaction data to individual customers without the need for personal data capture. Based in Stockholm, Ecrebo was founded in 2010 by David Vernon and Hassan Hajji.
- Reevoo has raised $6.5 million in 3 rounds from 4 investors: Talis Capital, Banexi Ventures, Eden Ventures, MMC Ventures. Reevoo is an independent and impartial ratings and reviews provider for multichannel brands, retailers, manufacturers, automotive and travel companies. Established in 2005, Reevoo was founded by Ben Griffiths and Richard Anson in London.
- Ensygnia has raised $8 million in several rounds from 9 investors: Telefonica, Wayra, Jesus College Cambridge and a number of HNW, including the founders. Ensygnia provides a mobile app that allows users to make secure transactions on their mobile phones by scanning a validation code, enabling any connected device with a camera to interact and transact with any connected device with a screen. Ensygnia is based in London and was established in 2012 by Richard Harris and Matt Deacon.
- Editd has raised $6 million in 1 round from 3 investors: Index Ventures, Frog Capital and Seedcamp. EDITD is a trading intelligence tool for fashion buyers, merchandisers and designers to quantify commercial trends by analyzing retail, product and social data. Editd is headquartered in London and was founded in 2009 by Geoff Watts and Julia Fowler.
- Scandit has raised $5.5 million in 1 round from 1 investor: Ariel Luedi. Scandit transforms consumer engagement and operational efficiency for today’s forward-looking enterprises by providing in mobile barcode scanning solutions for smartphones, tablets and wearable devices. Headquartered in Zürich, Scandit was founded in 2009.
- Atosho has raised $5.5 million in 2 rounds from 2 investors: ERMAK group and Supremum Capital. Atosho offers a platform for distributed e-commerce that enables consumers to buy a product directly out of a publisher’s editorial content, enabling digital Publishers to tap into e-commerce revenue and sell products without users ever leaving the site. Atosho was founded in Copenhagen in 2011.
- Volo Commerce (formerly eSeller Pro) has raised $4.8 million in 2 rounds from Notion Capital. Volo Commerce is an ecommerce management system that integrates online sales processes automating inventory management and product listing. Volo Commerce was established in 2005 in Cheltenham, UK.
- Walkbase has raised $4.2 million in 2 rounds from 5 investors: SBT Venture Capital, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, Jan Blomquist, Leonid Gluzman and Leonid Volkov. Walkbase provides a retail analytics solution for measuring and improving in-store marketing and personalising in-store shopping experience. Headquartered in Finland, Walkbase was founded in 2010.
- Shopitize has raised $3.2 million in 2 rounds from private investors. Shopitize improves brands’ ROI by enabling brands and manufacturers to close the loop between engagement and off-line purchase. Shopitize was founded in 2010 in London by Alexey Andriyanenko, Irina Pafomova and Hon. Alan Griffiths.
Post produced in partnership with Stephen Millard, CEO at Eccomplished.