Duvo, an AI-native automation platform that gives retail teams an AI
workforce for day-to-day operations, has raised $15 million in seed funding.
The round was led by Index Ventures, backers of Figma, Revolut and Wiz. Credo
Ventures, Northzone and Puzzle Ventures also participated, along with angels
Roy Reznik (co-founder of Wiz), David Singleton (former CTO of Stripe) and
Kieran Flanagan (former CMO of Zapier).
Retail, e-commerce and fast-moving consumer goods are complex sectors, with
thin margins and large supplier networks. Many operations still rely on staff
manually transferring data between multiple tools and third-party portals,
often using systems that are more than a decade old and not designed to work
together.
Traditional enterprise software projects can be expensive, require
retailers to replace core systems, or involve building complex integrations
that take months or years and may not succeed. As competition increases and
margins come under pressure, retailers that continue to depend on these slow
and fragile processes may be at a disadvantage compared with those that
modernise more quickly.
Addressing this need for faster, lower-risk change, Duvo is designed
primarily for business users rather than technical teams. Commercial, supply
chain and finance teams can create and refine assistants themselves, without
relying on large IT projects or specialised engineering support.
The platform ships with ready-made AI assistants for tasks such as weekly
margin reviews, activating promotions and price changes, reconciling supplier
invoices, assortment optimisation and vendor onboarding. Retailers typically
begin with a single team or country, demonstrate value within a few weeks, and
then roll out the same automations to additional markets without a large-scale
IT project.
Working with Duvo’s agents is intended to resemble delegating tasks to
trusted team members. The agents handle operational work that can slow retail
teams down, executing complete tasks and processes across existing systems,
from older portals to modern tools, and can also place phone calls when needed.
In contrast to general-purpose assistants, Duvo is designed to run retail
operations rather than simply assist from a chat interface. Its agents act
directly within retailers’ systems to carry out tasks autonomously, supported
by governance features, audit trails, security controls and user management.
All actions are visible: managers can review what was done and when, set
approval workflows once, and rely on assistants to surface only exceptions or
decisions that require human input.
The investment will support hiring and product expansion as the company
scales across the retail sector, with plans to move into other verticals where
operational complexity calls for resilient automation.