PwC Scale | Retail has unveiled this year’s cohort of exciting scale-ups who are rapidly transforming the Retail and Consumer industry

The Retail programme, now in its 5th year,  is delivered in collaboration with GrowthBuilders and brings together established Retail and Consumer industry leaders and high-growth technology scale-up disruptors to work more closely and drive innovation in the market.

How does it work?

The programme is delivered over 10 weeks and curates partnerships, co-creation and collaboration between scale-ups and large Retail and Consumer organisations keen to tap into new ways of achieving profitability, growth and innovation.

PwC Scale’s offering of three core components is proven to accelerate growth by:

1) Tapping into PwC’s corporate network that stretches around the globe

2) Exploring opportunities with PwC leaders who work with the biggest Retail and Consumer organisations.

3) Upskilling and developing scale-up teams through a world-class business growth curriculum

Lisa Hooker, Scale | Retail Programme Sponsor, said:

“The Covid-19 Pandemic accelerated many preexisting trends and increased the need for agility, innovation and better customer engagement to capture a greater share of the consumers' wallet. The Scale programme gives retail and consumer businesses the opportunity to partner with innovative, modern and relevant growth businesses who can help drive better customer experiences, new revenue opportunities and streamlined operations.

“These scale-up solutions really get to the heart of what is important for consumers and our clients are increasingly engaging with scale-ups to drive better performance in their own businesses.”

The programme will connect industry leaders to emerging firms to help boost innovation at a critical time for the sector. Key to this will be addressing changes to consumer behaviour and the new operational challenges and opportunities resulting from the pandemic. As part of the programme, firms will explore the heightened focus on ESG, Diversity and Inclusion and customer experience.

PwC is proud to present the Scale | Retail 2021 cohort:

Shepper uses their fast and flexible network of ‘Shepherds’ to take photos and collect information, using a smartphone app, on the things that matter to their clients. This enables Shepper to provide instant digital reports on physical assets, allowing clients to maximise their results. (UK, Europe)

OpenInsights is an AI driven customer Analytics & Predictive Insights Platform. Built for retail, wholesale and CPG, OpenInsights supports the entire organization with 'Ready to Monetize" continuous predictive insights and machine learning. (US)

Justsnap GmbH uses an innovative machine learning-powered receipt processing platform to enable campaign management, user engagement and data analytics, resulting in high ROI shopper activations in any offline or online sales channel. (Berlin, Bucharest, Amsterdam, Istanbul)

Material Exchange provides software solutions that connect footwear and apparel brands with their material suppliers. They have defined standardised material data models that allow brands to work with existing or prospect suppliers to source and manage materials. (Sweden, Serbia, Armenia)

CB4 uses AI to find unique in-store opportunities where taking a few minutes to make a simple in-store adjustment can lead to a big boost in sales and make it easy for shoppers to find and purchase what they want.(US, UK & IL).

Prisma is a SaaS platform that provides retailers with a proven process to optimize prices, promotions, inventory, assortment and space planning within the same platform. Prisma generates suggestions that help retailers make better decisions that increase profitability. (Latin America, North America, Europe)

MESH/diversity uses their Diversity Intelligence™ platform to provide real, science based metrics on safety, belonging and inclusion. With full interactive metrics, rich dashboards and actionable insights they enable inclusive growth at the team, individual and organization level. (Canada)

Go instore provides video powered retail for customers. Their solution sits on e-commerce websites and allows customers to instantly connect to an in-store expert for a live assisted sale and consultation, helping businesses boost their conversion rates and order values. (UK, US)

Compare Ethics verifies responsible products using technology powered by peer reviewed patent pending algorithms, in line with industry best practice and academic data. This verified product data helps to build trust with existing and future customers and saves teams 1000+ hours in complying with new greenwashing regulations. (UK, EU)

The PwC Scale team has already run 45 Scale programmes in the UK working with 438 scale-ups across sectors such as FinTech, InsuranceTech, GovTech and Retail. The model brings real-time value to all parties, as the cohort itself is curated around PwC’s large client challenges, bringing through highly relevant solutions to drive opportunities for both.