World retail tech funding skyrocketed to file ranges in 2021. That’s in accordance with analysis agency CB Insights in its new “State of Retail Tech 2021” report (PDF), which supplies information and evaluation on worldwide dealmaking, funding, and exits in private-market retail tech firms.

CB Insights defines “retail tech” as any expertise firm that helps or permits the promoting of merchandise (excluding occasions, journey, gasoline) to customers.

Final month I charted total world retail tech funding in 2021 in accordance with CB Insights. That funding surpassed $100 billion for the primary time, greater than twice the 2020 quantity. Offers elevated by 25%.

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Ecommerce funding elevated by 184% 12 months over 12 months, reaching a brand new excessive of $54 billion for roughly 50% of the worldwide retail tech complete.

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In accordance with the CB Insights report, Asia accounted for essentially the most ecommerce offers in 2021.

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Yr-over-year funding for bodily, in-store retail expertise elevated by roughly 150% in 2021 to roughly $10.7 billion. The variety of offers grew by 18%.

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Amid the funding rush by traders, Bazaarvoice, a rating-and-reviews platform, surveyed in 2021 over “8,000 customers from the U.S., U.Okay., France, Germany, Australia, and Canada, and over 500 staff who work in [physical] retail from the identical international locations, to know how individuals from each side of the trade consider retail ought to exist sooner or later.”

Bazaarvoice launched the survey outcomes earlier this 12 months, discovering that customers and staff of bodily retail shops are most concerned with implementing QR codes and digital shows and interactions.