Kevel Raises $52 Million in the Largest Round in Its History

Kevel announced $52 million in new capital on October 21, the largest raise in the company’s history, which takes its total capital raised above $100 million.

What happened

The financing includes expanded strategic investments from Fulcrum Equity Partners, dunnhumby Ventures and Iberis Capital, plus additional growth capital from ORIX Corporation USA’s Growth Capital business. Kevel sells API-first ad infrastructure that retailers, marketplaces and commerce platforms use to run media networks of their own. Its release names Tesco, Dollar General Media Networks, John Lewis Partnership, PayPal, Scandinavian Airlines, Home Depot’s Orange Apron Media and Nubank among the more than 100 commerce media networks it supports.

Why it matters

Kevel says the money will go to its AI decisioning and optimization capabilities, expansion into new retail and commerce media categories, and advisory services for retailers. The release describes the market as moving from launching media networks to scaling them, and ties that stage to omnichannel activation and AI-powered decisioning. Founder and CEO James Avery said, “Commerce media is entering a new era, one defined by ownership, transparency, and AI-driven infrastructure built around the business rather than intermediaries.”

The release also notes that dunnhumby, the retail media arm of Tesco, recently launched the Dunnhumby Network Alliance in partnership with Kevel.

One detail worth reading closely

Much of the release rests on explainable AI. Kevel says its transparent AI shows “exactly how and why every ad decision is made,” and that this lets retailers prove performance to advertisers. In our reading, advertisers buying on a network built on Kevel can ask the retailer whether those decision records are shared with buyers, and in what form, since the release does not say. Related reading: Teads and Koddi Open Wolt, Gopuff UK and Hopper Retail Media to OpenRTB Buying covers another route into retail media inventory, and Ask Every AI Vendor for a Default Spend Cap in Writing lists contract terms that apply to any AI decisioning system.

Source: Kevel