The Week’s Biggest E-commerce Funding Rounds: Levanta takes home $20M and Appcharge raises $26M

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This is a weekly feature that runs down the week’s top e-commerce deals. Check out the rest of this week's e-commerce news here.

This week in e-commerce, the industry buzzes with exciting developments as startups secure major seed funding, trailblazers gear up for IPOs, and big-name acquisitions reshape the landscape.

1. Levanta, an affiliate network that runs on top of Amazon (and also one of our News Partners), raised $20M in a round led by Volition Capital. Since launching in 2023, Levanta has generated close to $286M in GMV for sellers. The company will use the funding to expand its team, advance its product development, and strengthen its market position. Congrats guys!
2. xAI, Elon Musk's artificial intelligence startup, raised $5B in a round participated in by Qatar Investment Authority, Valor Equity Partners, Sequoia Capital, and Andreessen Horowitz, bringing its total amount raised to $11B this year. The new funding brings its post-investment value to $50B, exceeding the $44B price Musk paid for Twitter in 2022. xAI was valued at $24B when it raised $6B earlier this year.
3. Anthropic, a San Francisco-based AI platform started by former OpenAI members, raised an additional $4B from Amazon, and has agreed to train its flagship generative AI models primarily on Trainium, a machine learning accelerator developed by Amazon Web Services. The cash infusion brings Amazon's total investment in Anthropic to $8B. To date, the company has raised $13.7B in venture capital.
4. Appcharge, a Tel Aviv-based startup platform for publishers to build their own sites for selling gaming currencies and other virtual goods, raised $26M in round led by Creandum, at a $100M valuation. Appcharge provides technology to help link gaming accounts between apps with the stores run by the publishers themselves, while acting as the “merchant of record” for the publishers, a role that Apple and Google typically plays for mobile game publishers.
5. Taito.ai, a Helsinki-based platform designed to enhance employee performance and development by enabling employees to set and track personal goals that align with their personal and company objectives, raised $2.7M in a round led by Accel. The company is in a closed beta phase with clients including Faculty and Supermetrics and plans to launch publicly in 2025.
6. ariika, an Egyptian furniture e-commerce platform that partners with artisans around the world, raised $3M in a Series A extension led by Belton Venture Capital. The company will use the funds to fuel its local market expansion while strengthening its presence in Saudi and Iraq, its two biggest markets.
7. Locad, an e-commerce logistics startup that provides order fulfillment, warehousing, and inventory management, raised $9M in a pre-Series B round co-led by Global Ventures and Reefknot Investments. The company did not disclose the valuation at which the fundraising was made, but Reuters sources said it was around $60M. The company will use the funds to “double down” on building its logistics engine, which is its cloud-based software platform that integrates with Shopify, Shopee, Amazon, and TikTok Shop.
8. T.D. Jakes Enterprises, a social impact holding company whose mission it is to create high-impact content and opportunities that disrupt convention, acquired Castiron, an e-commerce technology startup that develops solutions tailored for artisans and small-scale producers. The acquisition enables the launch of Nourysh, an all-in-one e-commerce platform designed to empower underrepresented and under-resourced entrepreneurs nationwide that offers lower pricing than many leading platforms.
9. Moglix, an India-based B2B e-commerce company specializing in procurement of industrial supplies, acquired Khatema Fibres, a packaging solutions provider that specializes in the production of eco-friendly paper products, for $10.6M. The acquisition is expected to strengthen Moglix's market presence and also aligns with the company's recent initiative of launching Next Day Delivery across 12 cities in India.
10. Centerfield, a Los Angeles-based customer acquisition company that leverages data-driven insights to create personalized consumer experiences, acquired Brainjolt, a digital publishing company that specializes in creating shareable content such as quizzes and other forms of interactive media, for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition will add social commerce capabilities to Centerfield's platform, enabling it to drive additional purchases at scale for its clients.
11. Kintsugi, a San Francisco-based startup that connects to a company's billing and payment systems, figures out which states they are liable to pay sales tax, registers the company in those states, and then automatically calculates and remits what the company owes, raised an additional $4M in a Series A extension led by Airwallex, doubling its valuation to $80M since its Series A round in April. The company launched in 2022 and has since grown its customer base to more than 1,100 users and earned $1M in revenue. It plans to use the funds to expand its tech and to expand into Canada and Europe.
12. Addi, a Bogota-based fintech for integrated payments, shopping, and banking, secured a $100M credit facility from Victory Park Capital, which the company intends to allocate to supports its financing and BNPL solutions. The company reached profitability this past year, obtained regulatory approval to become a bank, and launched its marketplace platform, which it has since added over 500 merchants.
13. Zepto, an India-based quick commerce grocery delivery service, raised an additional $350M in its third round of financing in six months, as the company strengthens its position against its competitors Blinkit, Instamart, and BigBasket, ahead of its planned IPO next year. Zepto, which has now raised over $1.35B since June, serves more than 7M orders in over 17 cities daily and is on track to record annualized sales of $2B. 

Stay Tuned!

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