Standard Cognition, one of a host of startups looking to bring cashierless checkout to the retail experience, announced today that it has raised a $35 million Series B round of funding. The round was lead by EQT Ventures fund, with participation from existing investors Initialized Capital, CRV and Y Combinator. This brings the total amount raised by Standard Cognition to $86.1 million.
Standard Cognition retrofits retailers with Amazon Go-like grab-and-go capabilities. Using computer vision and artificial intelligence, it keeps track of items shoppers take from the shelves and automatically charges them via mobile app when they exit the store.
With this Series B round, Standard Cognition now has a far bigger warchest than the other players in the cashierless checkout space, which breaks down as follows:
- Grabango – $17 million
- AWM Smartshelf – $12 million
- Trigo Vision – $7 million
- Caper – $3 million
- Zippin – $2.7 million
However, the one thing Standard Cognition doesn’t have right now is a publicly named customer. Standard Cognition opened its own proof-of-concept store in San Francisco last year, and according to today’s press release, “The company has signed several retail customers and is deploying for two already in multiple locations, with scheduled go-live dates in Q3 and Q4 of this year.” But Standard Cognition has to name names.
This is a fairly common scenario: most startups making cashierless checkout solutions can’t actually name their actual customers right now. In fact, the only two that have done so at this point are Grabango with Giant Eagle and Trigo Vision with Shufersal in Israel. The reluctance of retailers to officially announce a partnerships is understandable as they typically move slowly with such technology implementations, wanting to make sure they pick a solution that can scale appropriately.
The cashierless checkout sector is still wide open, and with today’s big raise, Standard Cognition has the money to withstand the competition.
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