Carrefour have oined forces with European venture capital firm daphni to launch Dastore, a dedicated venture capital fund aimed at investing in early stage startups which are addressing the digital retail space.
80 million euros will be invested into high potential emerging startups in France and globally to allow the Group to stay close to innovations and emerging technologies.
Launching this venture capital vehicle is a huge milestone in our innovation strategy and illustrates our willingness to further develop the links we have with the startup ecosystem. Investing in startups is an opportunity for Carrefour to speed up its own digital transformation, while at the same time helping early stage companies to grow faster. We have therefore opted for an unprecedented investment fund model in the retail space and are delighted to start this adventure alongside seasoned and well-known investors such as daphni.
– Elodie Perthuisot, Executive Director of E-Commerce, Data and Digital Transformation, Carrefour Group
With Dastore, Carrefour is adding another asset to its innovation ecosystem in order to better anticipate market disruption and identify future leaders and winning models. A dedicated team will be set up for Dastore, made up of experts from both Daphne and Carrefour. In addition to Dastore’s financial investment, Carrefour will be able to provide the startups with business acceleration, operational support as well as easier access to clients, international markets and data insights that they can use to help them grow.
The investment thesis will be focused on business areas related to Carrefour’s digital strategy priorities: new e-commerce businesses, data and digital tools for operations and financial services in retail as well as logistics and supply chain new capabilities.
