Industry Demand for Open Innovation Fuels dunnhumby ventures’ Retail Innovation Network’s Growth

After emerging as the pioneering open innovation program representing retail leaders from 300+ organizations, Retail Innovation Network returns to Bentonville with inaugural Retail Innovation Week

dunnhumby ventures, the strategic venture capital and open innovation arm of dunnhumby, the global leader in Customer Data Science, announced the return of its Retail Innovation Forum Americas event on September 18, 2025 in Bentonville. The forum enables senior decision makers to form strategic connections across one of the largest open innovation ecosystems in retail. Launched in 2024, the Retail Innovation Network has held over-subscribed events in Bentonville and London which brought together global best-practice sharing from 300+ organization and 30+ country representatives. Over 1,000 connections have been made among members.

Alongside the Retail Innovation Forum, dunnhumby ventures and its partners are proud to host the Retail Innovation Week which will take place 15-18^th September in Bentonville. This first-of-its-kind week aims to gather 1,000+ senior retail innovation leaders from pioneering startups, enterprise technology partners, investment firms, academia, retailers, and brands.

"Today‘s retail technology innovation decisions and investments are being made with significant inefficiencies in speed and resourcing. Organizations are mis-using their internal assets while struggling to keep up with the rapidly evolving external technology, data, and AI vendor landscapes,” said Leo Nagdas, Head of Corporate Development and Ventures at dunnhumby. “We are re-framing decades of siloed thinking by bringing the open innovation mindset to retail in the form of the Retail Innovation Network and the ecosystem has welcomed it with open arms,” he added.

Over 200 senior retail and CPG technology leaders are expected to attend the Retail Innovation Forum in Bentonville in September. Forum attendees will experience and participate in innovation showcases, panel discussions, and curated networking opportunities. The panel discussions will focus on:

• Understanding evolving customer needs
• Engaging consumers with relevance and authenticity
• Optimizing critical decisions with data and AI
• Innovating with the ecosystem

The invite-only event is complimentary and offers an opportunity to interact with dunnhumby’s executives, including President of the Americas, Matt O’Grady and Founder and Chief of the Retail Innovation Network, Leo Nagdas. Participants can also engage with strategic innovation leaders from market-leading technology providers, retailer and CPG innovation leaders, and investors.

Takeaways from these events will be shared exclusively with the Retail Innovation Network members over the coming months as part of a new innovation white paper series.

Global retail innovation leaders are welcome to apply for complimentary membership to the Retail Innovation Network via submission link at www.dunnhumby.com/ventures.

To learn about the Retail Innovation Week visit https://www.dunnhumby.com/retail-innovation-week/.

About dunnhumby ventures:

dunnhumby ventures is dunnhumby’s strategic venture capital and ecosystem-led innovation arm with a mandate to partner and invest in early-stage retail technology start-ups that embrace data and artificial intelligence for innovation along the customer's path to purchase. We foster industry collaboration via the Retail Innovation Network, our exclusive ecosystem of senior retail innovation leaders, and seek to align with partners at an early stage to supercharge their ability to take innovation to market by tapping into dunnhumby's retail industry expertise, pioneering data science assets, and global retailer and supplier partner network. Our areas of focus include artificial intelligence (AI), data capture and enrichment, retail media, customer engagement, category management, supply chain, and commerce.

About dunnhumby:

dunnhumby is the global leader in Customer Data Science, empowering businesses everywhere to compete and thrive in the modern data-driven economy. We always put the Customer First.

Our mission: to enable businesses to grow and reimagine themselves by becoming advocates and champions for their Customers. With deep heritage and expertise in retail – one of the world’s most competitive markets, with a deluge of multi-dimensional data – dunnhumby today enables businesses all over the world, across industries, to be Customer First.

The dunnhumby Customer Data Science Platform is our unique mix of technology, software, and consulting, enabling businesses to increase revenue and profits by delivering exceptional experiences for their Customers – in-store, offline and online. dunnhumby employs over 2,500 experts in offices throughout Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas working for transformative, iconic brands such as Tesco, Coca-Cola, Meijer, Procter & Gamble and Raley’s.

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"Organizations are mis-using their internal assets while struggling to keep up with the rapidly evolving external technology, data, and AI vendor landscapes,” said Leo Nagdas, Head of Corporate Development and Ventures at dunnhumby