H&M Group Ventures invests in Avassa

Swedish edge application management and operations platform provider Avassa has closed a new round of investment, adding global fashion retailer H&M Group as a strategic investor.

In a statement, Avassa, which offers a Platform as a Service (PaaS) for managing edge applications and infrastructure across various industries, including retail, industrial, and automotive, said the investment would continue the “modernisation of brick-and-mortar store IT operations”.

Edge computing brings data processing closer to the source, improving application availability and enhancing real-time decision-making to enable businesses to efficiently manage the lifecycle of innovative edge applications and build resilient infrastructure that can operate undisrupted during offline scenarios, maintain security posture in exposed store environments, and accelerate innovation.

H&M Group has selected the Avassa Edge Platform as a key component in a broader redesign and innovation initiative for its in-store IT infrastructure.

Building on this collaboration, H&M Group's investment arm, H&M Group Ventures, has extended its partnership with Avassa by investing in the continued growth of the company alongside the tech firm's existing investors, Fairpoint Capital and Industrifonden.

Fredrik Lundberg, chief executive and co-founder of Avassa said in a statement: "We are honoured and proud to have H&M Group join as an investor. This investment further emphasises H&M Group's commitment to building a secure and innovative new generation of store IT, already demonstrated in the implementation of the Avassa Edge Platform.

“Retail is one of the fastest-moving industries in edge computing and we are excited to collaborate closely with H&M Group, industry leaders in this category. We are also grateful to our existing investors for their renewed trust in us on our continued growth journey.”

Katharina Gromotka, investment manager at H&M Group Ventures, added: "We are delighted to deepen our partnership with Avassa with this investment and we look forward to continuing to use Avassa as an important component to further enhance our edge computing capabilities across the H&M Group.”