PARIS (Reuters) - Carrefour (PA:CARR), Europe's largest food retailer, is joining forces with venture capital firm Daphni to invest in digital retail startups as part of a global plan to step up e-commerce expansion over the next four years, it said on Monday.
Their new venture capital fund, Dastore, will initially invest 80 million euros ($88 million) by taking minority stakes in high-potential emerging startups in France and globally to allow Carrefour "to stay close to innovations and emerging technologies", the statement said.
Last November Carrefour pledged to spend 3 billion euros between 2022 and 2026 to step up digital expansion, one of the pillars of the group's strategy to stay ahead of Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) on grocery deliveries and accelerate its continuing turnaround.
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