The Retail Times is a weekly newsletter covering retail tech news from Canada and around the globe. Subscribe to R|T using this form to ensure you don’t miss out on the most important retail tech news every week! Ex-Lightspeed Commerce leader Jean Paul Chauvet has joined Montréal-headquartered venture capital firm Inovia Capital as its newest executive-in-residence. During his more than 11 years at the commerce technology company, Chauvet played a key role in scaling Montréal-based Lightspeed into a global, publicly traded player.
He joins Inovia months after stepping down as Lightspeed CEO, following two years at the helm attempting to guide the fast-growing firm to profitability amid a challenging tech market. In an exclusive interview with BetaKit—his first since being replaced as CEO by his predecessor, Lightspeed founder Dax Dasilva—Chauvet said he wanted to take some time off from operations to rest, reset, and consider his next move. Inovia offered a “natural fit” and a chance to share his knowledge with other Canadian tech firms.
( ) Costco is building out an ad network built on its trove of loyalty membership data, using its 74.5 million household members’ shopping habits and past purchases to power targeted advertising on and off its website. The wholesale retailer is still testing such capabilities, and it’s fielding offers from potential ad-tech vendors, but the move signals that the third-largest retailer in the US could become a formidable play.