The Retail Times is a weekly newsletter covering retail tech news from Canada and around the globe.
Subscribe to R|T using the form at the bottom of this page to ensure you don’t miss out on the most important retail tech news every week!
After two quarters of sluggish growth, Shopify increases revenues in Q3 2022, but eyes future quarters for road to recovery (BETAKIT)
“Looking ahead, the flexibility of our platform, breadth of solutions, pace of innovation, and disciplined investment approach position Shopify well to realize the enormous opportunity ahead,” declared Amy Shapero, Shopify’s CFO.
Solving Shopify’s misery: How Canada’s tech saviour lost its swagger — and why investors remain so scared (THE GLOBE AND MAIL)
For all the hype, explosive e-commerce growth has stalled out, and the market is now much more competitive. Shopify has also morphed into such a giant that it’s starting to clash with Amazon a little too often. Instead of sticking to his lane, Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke’s gone all in on assembling a delivery, fulfillment and logistics business, just like the incumbent heavyweight.
RenoRun lays off 43 percent of staff to extend runway as inflation rises and consumer confidence falls (BETAKIT)
The latest cuts impact 43 percent of RenoRun’s 484-person team. These layoffs impacted employees across the organization and RenoRun’s geographic footprint, as well as several company executives.
The layoffs come shortly after BetaKit reported in August that RenoRun had cut 12 percent of its team and put geographic expansion plans on hold.
The Fantasy of Instant Delivery Is Imploding (BLOOMBERG)
Gopuff was supposed to crack Silicon Valley’s longtime obsession with one-hour delivery. Instead, the startup valued at $15 billion risks becoming the next Kozmo.com-size flameout.
Lightspeed promotes CRO JD St-Martin to president as leadership overhaul continues (BETAKIT)
JD St-Martin’s appointment represents the latest major leadership change triggered by the departure of its founding CEO Dax Dasilva. In February of this year, Dasilva stepped down to become executive chair, while JP Chauvet, who had been Lightspeed’s president since 2016, was tapped to become CEO
Brutal week for Big Tech with nearly $800bn wiped off valuations (FINANCIAL TIMES)
The news extended a surprisingly weak earnings season from the huge US digital groups, ending a surge in growth during the coronavirus pandemic and putting paid to hopes that they would withstand the inflation and weakening growth that are hitting the wider economy.
Why Potloc founder Rodolphe Barrere tries to fire himself every six months (BETAKIT)
Not all startup founders go on to become growth CEOs, and Barrere said he’s had multiple opportunities to exit Potloc, either selling the company entirely or bringing on a professional CEO. However, he always decided against it.
Walmart will boost Flipkart with $3bn to challenge rivals (MINT)
Flipkart, the e-commerce platform controlled by Walmart Inc., is considering raising $2-3 billion at a valuation of more than $40 billion to expand its product range in India and challenge rivals, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said.
Say goodbye to the notch? OTI raises $55M for technology to remove screen obstructions (TECHCRUNCH)
The money will be used both to take its technology into production with a number of partners and to develop a secondary line of operations that was borne out of the first: OTI credits the breakthrough that it had with its own work on display materials to a “quantum and AI-driven computational platform” that it built itself, and so the plan will be to productize that as well to help other technologists and engineers solve their own thorny material science conundrums.
Nolk raises $30 million, acquires home goods brands Ergonofis, Opposite Wall (BETAKIT)
The all-equity round, which closed in July, was led by the Fonds de solidarité FTQ, with participation from Fondaction, Export Development Canada, Panache Ventures, and a number of undisclosed private investors.
IPO Returns Show Fashion Startups Were Not Runway Ready (CRUNCHBASE)
A Crunchbase survey of six venture-backed companies in the clothing and accessories industry that went public last year shows an average post-IPO decline of 74%.
Subscribe to The Retail Times
Don’t forget to subscribe to The Retail Times using the form below to make sure it hits your email inbox every week!