Chicago
Wal-Mart Stores Inc, the world’s largest retailer, will launch its first investment arm to expand its e-commerce business in partnership with retail start-ups, venture capitalists and entrepreneurs, the company said on Monday.
The plan is being spearheaded by Marc Lore, Wal-Mart’s e-commerce chief, who joined the Bentonville, Arkansas-based company from retail upstart Jet.com, which it acquired for more than $3 billion (Dh11 billion) in August.
Since then, Wal-Mart has acquired three small web retailers to add urban and millennial shoppers.
The venture, called Store No. 8, will work with start-ups that specialise in areas that include robotics, virtual and augmented reality, machine learning and artificial intelligence, Lore said at Shoptalk, a retail conference in New York. It will be based in California’s Silicon Valley, he added.
Wal-Mart will keep the start-ups separate from the broader organisation so that they will not affect the retailer’s bottom line in the near term, Seth Beal, senior vice-president, incubation and strategic partnerships, said in an interview.
He declined to give a time frame for the launch.
