Amazon Go rival Standard Cognition buys DeepMagic
Autonomous checkout venture Standard Cognition has acquired rival venture DeepMagic. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
“Both Standard and DeepMagic took a computer vision only approach to autonomous checkout, making our technologies very compatible,” says Jordan Fisher, Co-founder and CEO, Standard Cognition.
“We both knew from the start that in order to retrofit into existing retail environments, we needed to maintain a very low footprint - a cameras-only system is the best way to do that. DeepMagic had developed very strong computer vision technology that fits very well into our technology portfolio - we’re excited to take the technology forward.”
Bernd Schoner, Co-founder and CEO, DeepMagic, will join Standard in a consulting capacity. He comments: “We’re thrilled that our technology will live on in the Standard platform. We’ve long admired Standard’s approach to autonomous checkout. They are currently leading this market and we believe they are well positioned to win big in this space.”
Explorer.ai
Standard Cognition has raised $86 million in funding from investors including CRV, Initialized Capital, EQT Ventures and Y Combinator. Earlier this year, it acquired AI mapping startup Explorer.ai.
“The Explorer team is highly experienced and already works well together – having them in place gives our engineering team a big edge and a running start toward applying their state-of-the-art computer vision and mapping skill sets in autonomous vehicles to retail,” said Fisher.
“We believe mapping is a critical ingredient to autonomous checkout. The Explorer team has a strong record of tackling these problems together, and we're confident that this will allow us to make rapid progress at Standard.”
