RetailTechNews rounds up some of the biggest stories in the European retail technology space. In this week’s edition: JLAB Retail Tech Incubator Extends Programme; Series C Funding Round for Amplience; and Ocado Teams up with ICA Gruppen.

JLAB Retail Tech Incubator Extends Programme

Established in 2014, the retail tech innovation arm of retailer John Lewis has just announced the expansion of their programme for 2018. JLAB has been offering their innovation programme in the shape of 12 week courses in the past. This year, JLAB will run over the course of the whole year.

John Vary, Futurologist, John Lewis Partnership: “We wanted to take the programme to the next level by launching more events but with a focus on themes we feel are most significant to our customers as well as the future of retail. We’re excited to see the market challenging ideas businesses will put forward.”

The incubator programme is aimed at start-ups in the retail sector. The JLAB programme is not only supported by food retailer Waitrose who joined JLAB last year, but will run in conjunction with retail equity specialists, True.

However, it is supermarket chain Waitrose who are setting the theme of the programme: Applicants with customer-facing, digital tech ideas, aimed at providing customers with advice for healthier lifestyles are competing for access to experts and mentorship from John Lewis and Waitrose, as well as product validation from retail experts and customers, ultimately receiving investment from the JLAB fund.

Series C Funding Round for Amplience

SaaS provider Amplience has raised USD$ 37m (£27M) to push their growth. Aiming at more sales across EMEA, APAC and the North and South American markets, Appliance wants to invest their new funding into further development of their retail engagement platform.

James Brooke, Founder and CEO, Amplience, says: “We would like to thank our customers, partners and investors for the confidence they have placed in us. 2017 was an amazing year in terms of growth and innovation.” Indeed, in 2017 Amplience expanded their offering with new features, scaling their platform traffic and supporting up to 154,000 requests at peak times, the company says.

The third funding round comes on the back of their recent launch of ‘Dynamic Content’, their content production, management and delivery solution which integrates with retail systems. The Dynamic Content system is part of the Retail Engagement Platform which integrates brand marketing and eCommerce for digital content management.

The funding is supplied by funding Octopus Ventures, with participation from Columbia Lake Partners.

Ocado Teams up with ICA Gruppen

British online grocer Ocado has just announced a cooperation with the Swedish retail group ICA. The partnership of the two companies will include the use of Ocado’s e-commerce platform and technology as well as reorganising ICA’s storage and fulfillment in an automated warehouse with robots and last-mile routing systems in Stockholm.

The agreement is a major deal for Ocado, considering that ICA operates 1,300 stores in Sweden and generating £8.8bn in sales per year. At the same time, ICA is to benefit from Ocado’s tech expertise and make a major push towards improving ICA's online offering.

While Ocado is planning to get ICA’s eCommerce capability into shape by 2020 - including an overhaul of ICA’s website and introducing new mobile apps, ICA is planning to invest £50m in Ocado’s fully automated e-commerce solution which was developed specifically for food products.

In light of Amazon’s move into food retailing, Ocado's foray into making grocery retail profitable should prove popular with many grocery retailers who feel under threat of the US retail giant.