Industry firsts and new identities: here are last week’s most read RTIH retail technology articles
These are the RTIH articles that caught your fancy last week, including AssetFloow, Ikea, Vree AI, Oja, Goodays, BaxterStorey, and Amazon.
The latest from Deliveroo, AO, and Ikea: Last week’s biggest retail technology plays at a glance
RTIH rounds up the stand out retail systems deals, launches, deployments and pilots from the past seven days. Featuring Salesforce, Starship Technologies, ESW, Ocula Technologies, Sook, Simbe Robotics, StoryStream, and Trigo.
Including Trigo, Ocula Boost, and Sook: check out the coolest retail technology plays of 2023 so far
RTIH Editor, Scott Thompson, brings you his top ‘future of retail’ systems launches and deployments from the first three months of the year, including checkout-free stores, stock inventory focused drones, interactive digital mannequins, explorations of the use cases of ChatGPT, and generative AI, and the first ever dedicated virtual store by an underwear company.
Retail technology startup AssetFloow secures €1.5 million investment from GED Ventures
AssetFloow has closed a €1.5 million investment round.
The startup has developed artificial intelligence technology capable of describing consumer behaviour inside a store without the need for cameras or sensors.
With the aforementioned investment from GED Ventures, it aims to triple its R&D team in Portugal, accelerate expansion in Europe and South America, and consolidate its position in the behavioural analytics market.
This is its first equity round (in 2021, it received a €100K SAFE note).
AssetFloow, founded in 2021 by Katya Ivanova and Ricardo Santos, combines AI with behavioural analysis, directly from anonymous retailer sales data.
Its platform generates the paths used by consumers in stores and their interactions with products, allowing an understanding of purchase patterns and behaviours.
AssetFloow provides a tool to create a digital twin of a store, providing information such as heatmaps, paths most used by different consumer segments, suggestions of where to place products/categories to increase sales, promotional campaign strategies, sales anomalies, new products to add to the store etc.
The firm currently operates in Europe (Portugal, Spain, UK, Italy) and Brazil.
Ikea claims an industry first as it says it is now using 100 drones for stock inventory
One hundred autonomous drones are now operational in Ikea stores - the latest in Ikea Zaventem, Belgium – with owner Ingka Group saying it is the first retailer to use such a solution for stock inventory.
Two years ago, Ingka Group and the Supply Chain Development Team at Inter Ikea Group, together with Verity, a provider of indoor drone systems, started developing a fully autonomous drone solution.
As a result, 100 drones are now at work during non-operational hours, with the aim of improving stock accuracy and securing availability of products for online or physical retailing. This means that co-workers no longer need to manually confirm each pallet.
“We are investing in technology across the board so that our stores can better support customer fulfilment and become true centres for omnichannel retailing,” says Tolga Öncu, Head of Retail at Ingka Group.
“Introducing drones and other advanced tools – such as, for example, robots for picking up goods – is a genuine win-win for everybody. It improves our co-workers’ wellbeing, lowers operational costs, and allows us to become more affordable and convenient for our customers.”
Retail technology startup stories interview: Adib Zaher, CEO and Co-founder at Vree AI
RTIH gets the lowdown on VRee AI, a startup working in the areas of computer vision and AI, allowing users to generate 3D models from 2D images, with links integrated for virtual try on capabilities.
Ethnic grocery delivery startup Oja bags footballer Raheem Sterling as angel investor
Oja, pitched as the UK’s first ethnic digital supermarket focused on African and Caribbean goods, has raised a pre-seed extension led by LocalGlobe, with participation from Premier League and England football player Raheem Sterling.
Founded in 2020, Oja, which is Yoruba, a Nigerian language, for market, ships orders from its own warehouses and dark stores to homes across London, and has also recently launched its service in Birmingham.
The funding will be used to further its expansion into new cultures and regions, as well as its B2B offering.
In addition to becoming an angel investor, Sterling will be the firm’s first brand ambassador.
Building a circular business model: Ikea secondhand store in Sweden extended until August 2025
Two years ago, Ikea Retail Sweden opened its first secondhand store as a test at the Retuna Recycling mall in Eskilstuna.
During FY22, sales more than doubled at the location, by giving around 43 000 products a second life instead of going for waste. This made the business profitable.
“Based on the insights during those two years, we are now taking the next step by keeping the store until August 2025. At the same time, we are transferring the learnings into our 21 Ikea stores in Sweden,” says Reza Shomali Country Business Development & Transformation Manager in Ikea Retail Sweden.
“This way, we will be able to offer more of our customers in Sweden our secondhand products. Key to that success is always the competence and passion of our co-workers and partners in combination with the Swedes willingness to donate for reuse instead of sorting as waste.”
“With that said, the reasons behind the success are, a perfect venue with a flow of products and low transportation costs, a collaboration with the right partners, a steadily improved operational efficiency, a widened range, and an ability to really meet the customer’s needs.”
“Thanks to the secondhand test in Eskilstuna, we have developed our skills in seeing value where you do not always see it, like in waste, or in cleaning and repairing used products.”
Critizr changes name to Goodays, launches Artificial Intelligence Lab and appoints new Chairman
Critizr, a specialist in customer satisfaction and experience management, has announced that it is changing its name to Goodays.
According to a press release, the new identity reflects its mission to “bring the employees of a company together around a common objective: to satisfy customers. It also affirms international expansion ambitions, to grow market share across the company’s five bases in Spain, France, Japan, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.”
The company, created over ten years ago, has developed a platform that facilitates digital interactions with customers to improve their experience, with recent deployments including the integration of Google Business Messages and WhatsApp.
Checkout free stores firm Standard AI flagged by Forbes as one of America’s best startup employers
Standard AI has been recognised as one of America's best startup employers for 2023 by Forbes in partnership with Statista.
Jordan Fisher, CEO at Standard AI, says. "This recognition is a testament to the hard work and dedication of our team, and our commitment to creating a positive and supportive workplace culture. As we continue to build out the future of autonomous retail, our employees are our greatest asset.”
Fast and frictionless: BaxterStorey notches up an Amazon Just Walk Out technology first in the UK
BaxterStorey has opened a new store leveraging Just Walk Out technology, making it the first hospitality business in the UK to adopt the Amazon checkout-free solution.
Located at the latter’s London headquarters in Shoreditch, Social Bee aims to offer a fast and frictionless shopping experience for employees by eliminating queues.
In a LinkedIn post, Craig Clarke, Principal, GTM - Just Walk Out Technology at Amazon, said: “Great to see this store launch and the collaboration from teams across Amazon and BaxterStorey.”
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