Afternoon Coffee: US retail sales fall despite holiday shopping season; Ironclad secures $100 million in funding; PRO recap: Marketboomer, Prewave and AP Automation

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The US Commerce Department reported that retail sales fell 0.7% in December from the month prior, despite the holiday season, according to the Associated Press.

Retail sales also fell in October and November, even though retailers offered plenty of deals to get people to shop early for holiday gifts. A few retailers have indicated they had an unhappy holiday season — Nordstrom, Victoria’s Secret and Urban Outfitters all said sales fell during the holidays.

The report is yet another indication that the COVID-19 pandemic is slowing the US economy. Government numbers out this week reported a spike in first-time weekly unemployment claims, indicating rising infections are forcing businesses to cut back on expenses, the AP reported.

Ironclad receives $100 million in funding to develop digital contracting space

Ironclad, a contract lifecycle management platform, secured a $100 million round of funding this week. BOND led the funding round, with Lux Capital also participating.

In a press release, Ironclad said that the funding will help it solve problems related to business contracting. Ironclad focuses its solution on digital contracting — what they call a standardized system for business-to-business contracting that connects people to systems of data.

Ironclad said it aims to build the digital contracting standard, which this round of funding will help accomplish. “Digital contracting will transform contracts from monolithic, static documents into data pipelines that carry the mission-critical information teams and businesses need to be resilient in the modern, digital age," the company said in its press release.

Spend Matters' analysts look at Marketboomer, Prewave and AP Automation marketplace

This week, Spend Matters PRO analyst Xavier Olivera offered a Vendor Analysis of Marketboomer, a P2P solution. Also, analyst Pierre Mitchell gave insight into Prewave, a supply intelligence provider and a start-up named to our 2020 Future 5 list. Finally, Olivera also gave an updated overview of the accounts payables (AP) automation space and how we view the category for our SolutionMap vendor rankings.

Our PRO subscribers can read the full articles, but all readers can see the lengthy intros that frame the issues being discussed. This week:

• Accounts Payables Automation update (Part 1) — Re-evaluating the sector’s technology developments
• Accounts Payables Automation update (Part 2) —  Re-evaluating e-pro, supplier enablement, invoicing, payments, financing, analytics
• Prewave: Vendor Analysis — Solution & Platform Overview, Vision & Roadmap, Market Analysis and Analyst Assessment
• Marketboomer: Vendor Analysis — P2P Solution Overview, Roadmap, Customer Feedback, Marketboomer Competitors, Analyst Insights 

Read more about a PRO membership.

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