Welcome to Forge Retail Pulse
A biweekly, fresh-take newsletter on the retail innovation ecosystem
Hello Forge Retail community,
Welcome to Pulse! Every two weeks, we will provide updates about leading trends and start-ups in the retail market. We will feature three sections:
Startup Deals: highlighting the latest startup funding and corporate startup partnerships/acquisitions
Theme Exploration: presenting new themes and spotlighting relevant startups seeking to disrupt retail
Essential Industry Reads: focusing on insights from leading venture capital firms and, industry experts as well as key reports you should be reading
In this Pulse, we cover beauty tech, payments, community-driven commerce, and personalization. Enjoy!
Startup Deals
Beauty Tech - Covid-19 accelerated the need for immersive virtual shopping that can replicate the in-store experience, particularly in hard-hit industries such as beauty. We too miss going into stores and trying on lipsticks until we find that perfect shade. Perfect Corp. tackled this problem with its virtual beauty AR & AI solution, enabling users to virtually test products, diagnose skin conditions, receive personalized recommendations, and discover new products. Perfect Corp. raised a $50M Series C led by Goldman Sachs to improve its AI tools across multichannel retail and expand its global footprint. With more than 900 million downloads globally including 40 to 50 million makeup artists, it's no wonder 300 brands are partnering with them, including Ulta Beauty and Alibaba.
Payments - Virtual payment and fraud infrastructure are being tested at scale as more-and-more revenue shifts online. This is the problem that digital transaction processor Checkout.com, on the heels of a $450M Series C led by Tiger Global Management, is trying to solve. Checkout.com’s platform makes it easier for businesses to process and take payments over the web (e.g., transactions, fraud detection, reporting and analytics). Checkout.com has some impressive 2020 numbers, onboarding 500+ new merchants, tripling its payment processing volume, and expanding its team by more than 500 people with its acquisitions of both Process-Out and Pin Payments.
Community-driven Commerce - Community-driven retail is starting to gain a foothold in the US. Enter exclusive sneaker community start-up SoleSavy, providing members with the tools and resources they need to purchase sought-after products and connect with other sneaker enthusiasts. By creating passionate consumer networks, brands can leverage them as new channels to engage with consumers. Late last year, GOAT proved its community model with a focus on the end-to-end customer experience, successful after reaching a whopping $1.75B valuation. Fresh off a $2M funding, SoleSavy is looking to take on the sneaker market by growing its Slack-based community, which has already established a lengthy waitlist of customers.
Theme Exploration: Personalization
2020 illuminated the clear benefits of personalization, as customers switched to online touchpoints and demanded a relevant experience each time. Retail leaders have seen strong results from personalizing high-impact touchpoints—realizing two to three times higher conversion rates, delivering 5% to 10% uplift in sales, and increasing net promoter scores by more than 20 points. As a result, retailers are increasing their personalization budgets and scaling up personalized solutions across touchpoints.
Startups that can kickstart your personalization journey:
Digital Experience - Bloomreach drives higher customer engagement by providing a personalized e-commerce experience at every touchpoint — from search to content to leveraging data and AI to helping businesses optimize and personalize their digital channels. By leveraging Bloomreach, brands can create a better customer experience by making their e-commerce sites more relevant and aware of the context in a scalable way. Bloomreach powers more than $200B in digital commerce experiences, representing 25% of retail e-commerce in US and UK markets.
Retail marketing - Bluecore's platform uses data gained from direct marketing (e.g., email, social media, site activity) rather than third-party cookies to make better predictions on who might want to buy what among its customers. Bluecore creates multi-channel personalization solutions based on three unique insights: 1) consumer identify, 2) shopper behavior, and 3) real-time changes to retailers' product catalogs. Bluecore can auto-generate completely personalized email campaigns by curating products, content, and offers specific to each customer. Bluecore manages nearly 500 million shopper IDs and a customer base of more than 400 brands, including Nike, Sephora, Tommy Hilfiger and CVS Pharmacy.
Essential Industry Reads
Lightspeed Venture Partners’ Nicole Quinn did a terrific job sharing her thoughts on 10 key trends emerging in 2021. No surprise that social shopping clocks in as the number two trend. Lightspeed China invested in Pinduoduo, the social shopping app, five years ago, and now it's valued at more than $93B!
Connie Chan, a consumer tech-focused general partner at a16z wrote two great pieces around how video shapes consumer tech's future. The first piece highlights the future of video—starting with its evolution and how it's become the new platform for various verticals—and features video-first case studies. The second piece showcases how, starting from China, video e-commerce is booming as consumers now perceive video shopping as a form of entertainment.
We are just getting started and look forward to new innovations in 2021, consistently bringing you the latest themes and startup news. Please do share with relevant peers and colleagues. Subscribe below to make sure you receive an invitation to our first Showcase, our monthly event series with luminaries and curated startups. Mark your calendars for February 11 on Social Selling.
See you in two weeks!
Forge Retail Team