LocalExpress, the AI-native unified commerce platform serving hundreds of grocery and food retailers across the U.S., Canada and Latin America, has secured $6.2 million in venture funding led by OXZ Capital.
This funding enables LocalExpress to pivot its advanced AI data capabilities beyond internal operations, positioning the company to become the grocery industry's premier data syndication platform while continuing to strengthen its core unified commerce solutions, according to a news release.
As an AI-native unified commerce platform, LocalExpress says it has built comprehensive AI-powered systems that harmonize and process millions of transactions and inventory updates across hundreds of retailers. The company is now serving as a data syndication source to a variety of grocery tech giants and will continue investing heavily in its AI product capabilities while significantly increasing data syndication projects across the industry, the release says.
“From day one of launching LocalExpress, we have been helping independents with structuring, harmonizing and enriching their grocery data,” says Bagrat Safarian, CEO and co-founder of LocalExpress. “We have built a tremendous data transformation library, and now with the AI revolution, we're growing our proprietary grocery data AI to become the Zapier for grocery data — seamlessly connecting and distributing intelligence across the entire tech ecosystem. This amplifies the data intelligence we've built and helps grocers make smarter decisions with timely analytics. OXZ Capital's investment and expertise will help us scale further and faster, particularly as we bring more AI-powered solutions to market that empower independent retailers to compete at the highest level.”
“LocalExpress stood out to us as a transformative platform at the intersection of e-commerce, AI and grocery — a sector primed for digital acceleration,” says Lester Ng, chief investment officer for OXZ Capital. “This represents the first investment OXZ Capital has made outside of Asia and the first in the retail technology sector. We are excited to support the LocalExpress team as they continue to revolutionize grocery retail through unified commerce solutions.”
The fresh round of funding will also support LocalExpress in enhancing its go-to-market strategies and brand awareness with independent and regional grocers across its home markets, strengthening its mission to make advanced retail technology accessible to all food retailers.
