Retail tech startup behind Tesco and Argos valued at almost £70m, after scoring additional funding | City A.M.

Virtualstock, a London tech startup which provides cloud-based inventory solutions for retailers like Tesco, Argos and John Lewis, today announced a further £3.4m in funding which has valued the business at almost £70m.

Rene Schuster, the former chief executive of telecoms giant Telefonica in Germany, is also joining the firm as its chairman.

The funds, raised through the Enterprise Investment Scheme, will be used to prepare the firm for international expansion, after Virtualstock’s headcount increased from 20 to 116 over the last two years.

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Virtualstock, which also provides solutions to a number of NHS trusts, was previously valued at £66m following a £4.5m investment led by Notion Capital in 2017.

Its tech product allows retailers to “Amazon-proof” their businesses by connecting them to extended product ranges without the need to hold extra stock in their inventory.

The news comes at a difficult time for several bricks-and-mortar retailers, forced to close down if they are unable to scale sufficiently in the face of competition from online rivals.

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