What's going on?

Shares of Ocado � the British online grocery store and, now, tech company � rose 11% on Friday after the company announced a new partnership with Japan�s biggest supermarket chain, Aeon.

What does this mean?

Ocado started life as just an online grocer, but it became tougher to stay ahead as the big UK supermarkets logged in to the online market. The company focused instead on its warehouse automation, which eliminates much of the need for human labor. In recent years, it�s bagged deals to manage the delivery infrastructure and software for grocery chains in the US, Canada, and France.

Ocado�s newest partner, Aeon, launched its own online grocery service over a decade ago, but online sales comprise a paltry 1% of its $78 billion of annual revenue. It�ll take a minute for Ocado�s robots to start whizzing and whirring in Japan though: orders won�t begin flowing through the automated warehouses till 2023.

Why should I care?

For markets: Proof the robots are taking over.

Aeon will pay Ocado upfront, as well as ongoing fees partly based on the amount of online revenue it generates. And with the Japanese online grocery market currently worth $35 billion, that could earn Ocado significant cash over time � which could be why investors bought up its stock last week (tweet this). In winning over Aeon � which probably had several local robotics firms to choose between � new investors might be convinced of Ocado�s tech prowess. It may well be more successful as a �tech� company than they�d thought.

The bigger picture: A way to go yet.

Groceries have been slower to adjust to the digital world than household staples, which are now commonplace, for example, on Amazon. American grocery shopping is still pretty offline: only 2% of US food spending happens on the web � while in Japan and the UK, that figure is closer to 7%. Beyond delivery technology, Walmart wants to use blockchain to simplify its international supply chains. Ocado�s next project, maybe?