SIR TOM Hunter’s West Coast Capital has, along with Accenture, led a $15 million funding round for US data analytics company DynamicAction.
DynamicAction, which counts Tesco’s non-food business and Scottish Equity-backed fashion brand Matches among its UK customers, has entered into an alliance agreement with Accenture, which will become a reseller and service provider for DynamicAction’s solution.
Having been backed by West Coast Capital since its 2006 launch, the funding comes in a period of rapid growth for DynamicAction, with the Silicon Valley company increasing revenue by 172 per cent year on year.
“We’re delighted to bring Accenture on board,” said Sir Tom. “They work with the world’s biggest and best retailers and for them to be able to offer our software as part of a solution is pretty significant stuff.".
"In terms of growth we’re very excited. We’ll wait and see what the next 12-18 months will bring. We’re hopeful we can really go places.”
Combining Accenture’s retail consulting capabilities with DynamicAction’s cloud-based analytics, the partnership aims to creates a best-in-class retail industry analytics proposition for profit optimisation.
DynamicAction’s software works by crunching data to see where businesses can drive more full price sales ahead of marked down lines and how they can be more efficient. It then ranks actions by profit opportunity, which are acted upon by users.
“It’s fascinating for me as an old fashioned retailer to look at the pace of change and how retail is evolving,” said Sir Tom. “When you look at the ascent of Amazon, it’s been led by data – how they analyse it and what they learn from it.
“This deal will give other retailers the chance to compete with Amazon. Any retailer who doesn’t think Amazon affects their business is wrong. Amazon is number one at this and we want to give everyone else a fighting chance."
He added: “Data is everything. It used to be gut feel, now we can analyse petabytes of data. It doesn’t lie, go off sick, or have a bad day. That’s powerful stuff.”
West Coast Capital has developed a theme of investing in data analytics business, and in addition to the 40 per cent stake it holds in DynamicAction, it also has a stake in Onzo, a company that provides data on energy use.
Sir Tom added that the West Coast was monitoring the investment landscape in the wake of the Brexit
“Is it all bad news? It’s too early to tell. It will be what we make of it, and we don’t know what to make of it yet because we don’t know what it is, but we’ll let people above my pay scale worry about that and we’ll make the most of it, whatever it is.”
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