As Amazon continues to expand its computer vision-based self-service checkout technology by bringing it into larger stores, an AI startup from Israel that has built something to compete with has funding and a new strategic investor as a Won customers.
Trigo, who has developed a computer vision system that includes both camera hardware and encrypted, privacy-compliant software to enable shopping – where customers can pick up items that are automatically recognized and billed before they leave the store Packed 10 million US dollars in financing from the German supermarket chain REWE Group and Viola Growth.
The exact amount of the investment has not been disclosed (maybe because $ 10 million suddenly sounds like a modest amount in these crazy times?) But Pitchbook notes that Trigo has raised $ 87 million so far, and Trigo has now confirmed it Raised “over $ 100 million” including a Series A in 2019 and a Series B over $ 60 million raised last December. The company has confirmed the amount raised is $ 10 million today, for a total of $ 104 million.
The company does not disclose its valuation. We have checked and will update when we learn more.
“Trigo is very proud and honored to deepen its strategic partnership with the REWE Group, one of the largest and most innovative food retailers in Europe,” said Michael Gabay, co-founder and CEO of Trigo, in a statement. “REWE trusts Trigo’s privacy-by-design architecture and we look forward to making this exciting technology available to German food buyers. We also look forward to working with Viola Growth, an iconic investment firm that supports some of Israel’s top startups. “
The REWE investment is part of a larger partnership between the two companies that will begin with a new “Grab and Go” REWE store in Cologne. REWE has 3,700 stores across Germany, so there is plenty of room for expansion there. REWE is Trigo’s second strategic investor: Tesco has also supported the startup and is testing its technology in Great Britain. Trigo is also used by Shufersal, a food chain in Israel.
REWE’s investment comes amid a spate of tech engagements from the food giant, which recently also announced a partnership with Flink, a new grocery delivery startup from Germany that recently picked up a large round of funding for its expansion. It also works with Yamo, a healthy eating startup; and Whisk, an AI-powered buy-to-cook startup.
“With today’s rapid technological development, it is crucial to find the right partners,” says Christoph Eltze, Director Digital, Customer & Analytics REWE Group. “The REWE Group is investing in its strategic partnership with Trigo, which in our opinion is one of the leading companies in the field of computer vision technologies for smart stores.”
More generally, consumer habits are changing rapidly. Whether the average family or the average individual, people just don’t buy, cook and eat the way they did 10 years ago, let alone 20 or 30 years ago.
And so REWE, founded in 1927, like many others in the very established stationary food trade, hopes to join forces with some of the more interesting innovators in order to stay ahead of the competition.
“I don’t think people really want grocery e-commerce,” Ran Peled, VP of Marketing at Trigo told me in 2019. “They do that because the supermarket experience has gotten worse over the years. We are very committed to ensuring that stationary retail returns to the time a few decades ago, when it was still fun to go to the supermarket. What if a business could have a completely new operating system based on computer vision? “
It will be interesting to see how widespread and “fun” smart checkout services become in this context, and whether it will be a winning-take-all market or whether we will see a host of others using similar tools to offer .
In addition to Amazon and Trigo, there is also Standard Cognition, which raised funds valued at $ 1 billion earlier this year, among other things, and other approaches. One thing that could mean more competition is also more competitive prices for systems that could otherwise prove costly to implement and operate except in the busiest locations.
There is also the bigger question of the optimal size for the cash-free grab-and-go technology. Trigo cites data from Juniper Research that 400 billion of these chains will operate annually through 2025. In this category, the market size is 500,000 stores worldwide, 120,000 of them in Europe.
source https://dailyhealthynews.ca/trigo-bags-10m-for-computer-vision-based-checkout-tech-to-rival-amazons-just-walk-out-techcrunch/
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