Kevel Raises $52M Series D to Buy Into Retail Media Consolidation

Retail media infrastructure company Kevel has raised $52 million in Series D funding, and CEO James Avery already has a shopping list. Announced Wednesday, the round brings Kevel's total funding to just over $100 million, and part of the new capital is earmarked for potential acquisitions.

"There are a lot of retail media players out there and a lot of people are selling to the same customers," Avery told AdExchanger. "Consolidation is going to happen."

The raise includes strategic investments from Fulcrum Equity Partners, Dunnhumby Ventures LLC and Iberis Capital, plus additional growth capital from ORIX USA Investments. Avery said Kevel is "pretty close to profitable" and expects to reach profitability by the end of the year — a claim the company has not yet documented in public filings.

Where will Kevel spend it?

Avery declined to name acquisition targets. He did say Kevel would look at vendors in "adjacent" areas — the tech providers retailers use alongside Kevel's stack.

He is not rushing. His read on the market: valuations are split between bargains and bubble pricing.

"Some prices are really good, and some prices are still pretty high," Avery said. "The price really just depends on if a company has 'AI' in its name and whether it has an AI story to tell."

The irony is that Kevel sells its own AI story, built on what it calls "transparent AI decisioning," which Avery likens to "a form of forensic science." The pitch answers operational questions: Which ads were in an auction? What influenced bid prices? Why was a decision made, and what can be fixed when results disappoint?

"It's not enough just to say, 'Trust us, this is doing the best it can for you," he said. "We can go back and do diagnostics."

Transparency also improves performance, he argued: "A model that explains itself is more effective than a black box because retailers can see what's driving the results and adjust them."

How does Kevel tackle fragmentation?

Transparency has limits when every retailer's network works differently, and no brand wants to learn umpteen systems.

"We joke that we're going to help launch 1,000 walled gardens," Avery said, "but then the brands are, like, 'No, please don't, actually!'"

Kevel is attacking the problem on two fronts:

• Aggregation. With Tesco's retail media arm, Dunnhumby, Kevel is building the Dunnhumby Network Alliance, a single buy covering Tesco, John Lewis and Kingfisher, which owns multiple home improvement and garden center retailers.
• Familiar tools. Kevel has worked with Pacvue and Skai — platforms advertisers use to manage campaigns across retailers — on API-based buying. For Dollar General, it built an integration with The Trade Desk, letting brands buy the retailer's on-site ads through the same DSP they already use for off-site inventory.

"We just want to make it easier for brands to buy," Avery said.

What about Google's court-ordered remedies?

Avery, who testified as a witness in the DOJ's ad tech antitrust trial against Google in 2024, welcomes the coming changes to Google's ad stack. On the stand, he described how Kevel — then called Adzerk — tried and failed to compete with Google's ad server, DFP, because of its tie to AdX. That failure forced the pivot from the open web into retail media.

Once finalized, the remedies will likely require Google to share bid data with publishers and connect AdX and its ad server to Prebid (an open-source header bidding framework). Avery is ready.

Kevel still runs a traditional ad server alongside its retail media business, and Avery looks forward to telling publisher clients: "Hey guys, you can finally get off GAM!"

"And I'm really excited to integrate with AdX," he added. "I've only been trying to do it for 16 years."

Whether the remedies survive appeal — and whether Kevel's capital outlasts the wait — will decide how much of this $52 million bet pays off.