Amazon Go helped pioneer the concept of a completely contactless store, but other companies like 7-Eleven and Walmart are also moving into this space. And the field is growing, in part due to the proliferation of several startups, including Standard Cognition, Zippin, AiFi, Grabango, and Trigo, offering their technology to retailers.
But in Europe, Portuguese startup Sensei is growing its contactless store platform and has now raised €15 million in a Series A funding round led by BlueCrow Capital. Also participating were new investors Lince Capital, Explorer Investments and Kamay Ventures (the investment arm of Coca-Cola and Arkor Group), as well as existing investors Metro AG and Techstars Ventures.
In 2021, Lisbon-based Sensei raised a seed round of $6.5 million (€5.4 million). Subsequent funding was led by Seaya Ventures and Iberis Capital, with participation from 200M Fund.
The company currently aims to increase the number of fully autonomous points of sale to 1,000 by 2026. It already operates with customers in Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Brazil, and plans to expand into Central and Northern Europe.
Using computer vision, AI-powered sensors, and real-time algorithms, Sensei's system automatically updates customers' carts with a list of products they can pay for instantly, with their identity and privacy protected. .
Contactless stores reduce checkout costs, prevent out-of-stocks, and give retailers real-time visibility into store operations.
Vasco Portugal, CEO and co-founder of Sensei, said by phone: “We have continued to grow, especially in the last year, when we almost doubled the number of stores. So we opened stores in a short period of time. We are now in five regions. ”
“There are two problems in the retail industry: The experience for the customer is terrible. Second, it’s very difficult to process all the sales information in real time. Now, just like with car automation and factory automation. , store automation is important. I think it's a natural transition,” he added.
Antonio de Mello Campello, partner at BlueCrow Capital, added in a statement: The teacher proved to be one of the best in this field. ”
That being said, competition in this space is huge.
Standard Cognition raised $239.4 million, Trigo $199 million, Grabango $93.8 million, AiFi $87.1 million, and Zippin $44 million.