News English — Venture Capital

Fabric cuts 40% of staff Fabric recently announced it was laying off 40% of its staff and changing its business model (source). STIQ has tracked Fabric for a few years and this is our view of the announced changes: FABRIC: Website | LinkedIn | Crunchbase | YouTube | WarehouseAutomation Fabric was founded in Israel in 2015 under the name "Commonsense Robotics". In 2019, the company changed its name to Fabric (source).   (formerly known as) The original business model appeared to target grocery customers with fulfilment equipment with Fabric operating as a vendor of material handling equipment. A lack of traction among grocery customers may have...

Amazon $1bn Industrial Innovation Fund announcement

A review of Noah Conference London, Oct 30-31, 2018. A list of retail technology companies looking for funding. Some of which may be looking at an IPO in 2019 (Farfetch presented at the conference in 2017 and IPO'd in 2018!).

Boozt.com, the PE- & industry-backed Swedish fashion etailer, listed on Nasdaq Nordic on 31 May 2017 at the higher end of its offer price of SEK 62 per share (offer range SEK 54-63). The listing valued the company at about SEK 3.4bn (~£300m). The share traded at SEK 79 on June 7, 2017 representing a close to 30% lift in its offer price. However, only 2% up from its starting day price of SEK 77.50.   Boozt attempted to sell mono-brand stores and was successful with signing up both Ecco and Day Birger Mikkelsen (Ecco was also an investor). However,...

TechPitch 4.5 is monthly pitch platform for tech startups. Thomas Andersson of Styleintelligence was invited to sit on the judges panel for the Luxe, Retail and Fashion edition held in Irwin Mitchell's offices just off Chancery Lane. Eight startups got 3 minutes to pitch their businesses. This elevator-pitch style events are popular in London and get quite a bit of traction. What the judges thought: Optimonk Wearisma Genostyle What the Audience thought: Wearisma Genostyle It should be noted that out of all the eight companies Optimonk was the only company with close to $1m revenue, established customers on two continents...