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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

AiFi

Carrefour Teams With AiFi to Launch Cashierless Convenience Store in Paris

French retail giant Carrefour announced today the company has teamed up with AiFi, a maker of machine-vision powered checkout tech, to launch a cashierless convenience store called Carrefour Flash.

Unlike Amazon Go or other cashierless platforms that require an app, smart shopping basket, or biometric check-in, AiFi’s technology utilizes a network of cameras on the retailer’s ceiling that monitors a shopper as they move through the store and pick items up off the shelves for purchase. The computer vision’s AI creates a keypoint tracking system that creates a unique digital avatar for each customer. The system identifies each avatar by measuring the unique distance between the customer’s elbow and their hand. Because the system doesn’t require a unique biometric identifier such as a palm, facial or retinal scan, it ensures customer privacy despite using biometric tracking.

As the customer picks up items around the store, the AiFi system creates a virtual shopping cart. The system utilizes a network of 60 HD cameras and over 2000 sensors built into store shelves to track a shopper’s activity and assign it to their avatar. Once done, the customer walks up to a payment terminal to see their shopping basket and total bill within a few seconds.

This move by Carrefour is just the latest example of a retailer embracing tech that frees shoppers of checking out via a cashier. The wave of cashierless shopping formats, which kicked off in earnest with Amazon’s launch of their Amazon Go store in Seattle in early 2018, has only picked up steam over the past year and a half. One reason for the surging interest is the growing expectation from customers for low-contact ways to shop during the pandemic. The other primary driver is persistent labor shortages as food retailers deal with the high turnover of frontline workers; cashierless store concepts give them a way to operate without hiring and training new cashiers.

The Carrefour innovation team incubated and fine-tuned the new concept over the past year at the company’s headquarters in Massy, France. At launch, the new Paris store will have a total of 900 items for sale.

You can get a sneak peek of Carrefour Flash in the video below:

AiFi x Carrefour: Shopping in a flash with Carrefour Flash 10/10

AiFi Retrofitting Two More Loop Neighborhood Stores with Cashierless Checkout Tech

AiFi announced today that it is adding its cashierless checkout technology to two Loop Neighborhood store locations in California, starting in the San Francisco Bay Area. The deal expands on an existing partnership that saw the two companies opening a fully autonomous gas station NanoStore in Campbell, California in 2019.

AiFi retrofits stores with cameras to create a computer vision-based cashierless checkout system, allowing customers to walk in, grab what they want, and leave, getting charged automatically on their way out. For these new Loop Neighborhood stores, customers will use the AiFi app to scan a QR code upon entering or leaving the store so they can skip the checkout line.

AiFi x Loop Neighborhood: Autonomous stores in Silicon Valley

Cashierless checkout has been gaining momentum throughout 2021, with a number of startups getting funded and system installations going public. It’s been a particularly busy year for AiFi, which entered into a partnership with Dutch convenience store chain Wundermart that will eventually see 1,000 autonomous locations opened up. AiFi also partnered with Verizon to open a 5G-powered popup NanoStore at this year’s Indianapolis 500. Most recently, the company opened an autonomous NanoStore with the Polish convenience chain Żabka.

But AiFi isn’t alone in advancing autonomous retail this year. Zippin has opened up a store in the Barclay’s Center in New York. Trigo is opening cashierless checkout with the Rewe grocery chain in Germany. And Amazon opened up its first full-sized cashierless checkout grocery store in Washington state.

There are a few reasons for all of this accelerated interest in cashierless checkout. First the pandemic (which hasn’t gone away) is pushing retailers to reduce the amount of human-to-human interaction in their stores. Cashierless checkout not only removes a human cashier from the shopping equation, but also means customers don’t have to stand in line next to each other. Additionally, cashierless checkout can benefit the retailer with more real-time insight into shelf inventories. Cameras and sensors keep tabs on what people are picking up and putting back, so managers can identify shortages more quickly.

AiFi’s CEO recently told me that while there is a lot of news and excitement around cashierless checkout, mainstream adoption is still about a decade away. Which means we’ll be writing about similar store openings for a long time to come.

AiFi didn’t disclose exactly where the new cashierless Loop stores will open, but if you’re in the Bay Area and stumble across one, be sure to tell us about your experience with it!

AiFi and Trigo CEOs Weigh in on When Cashierless Checkout Will Go Mainstream

The cashierless checkout space has been on fire this year. Whether its new companies coming out of stealth, raising money or announcing partnerships, there has been no shortage of news coming out of the space.

Despite all of this activity in cashierless checkout, we are still very much in the early stages of the technology. If you want to experience the joy of simply walking into a store, grabbing what you want, and walking out while a system automatically charges your account, you need to live in a pretty major metropolis. Even then you have to seek such a store out, as autonomous stores are still very few and far between.

So for most of 2021, we’ve been in the ramping-up phase of cashierless checkout: debuts, funding, initial retail agreements. When will we get to the practical part, where cashierless checkout becomes mainstream? It’s a question I asked during two separate video chats with the CEOs of AiFi and Trigo.

AiFi is one of the startups that’s been making waves this year. It announced deals with European retail brands Wundermart and Żabka, and set up one of its pop-up, cashierless NanoStores at the Indianapolis 500 with Verizon that ran entirely on 5G. When asked for a timeline, AiFi CEO Steve Gu said, “We are on the cusp of this huge revolution.” He continued, “I think a decade is a very good number. Ten to fifteen years ago smart phones weren’t really a thing. [Cashierless checkout is] similar to smart phones, give it another ten years.”

Trigo was among the first players outside of Amazon to start building a cashierless checkout system. The company recently announced a partnership and strategic investment from German supermarket chain REWE. Trigo is also working with UK store Tesco, and Israeli supermarket chain Shufersal. I posed the same question to Michael Gabay, Trigo’s Co-Founder and CEO. He responded, “Now retailers are starting to plan their rollout. In two years there will be hundreds of stores. Next year you will find autonomous stores in any major city around the world.”

So we have two different timelines, but I think both are saying basically the same thing. We’ll continue to see more autonomous store openings around the world over the next couple of years, but we won’t reach a more mainstream point for a while. This is understandable, given the complexity of the technology, the new paradigm it creates for consumers and the rate at which large food retail chains often move. Besides, good things like cashierless checkout, come to those who wait.

We Need to Talk About Cashierless Checkout (Again!)

Since we just held a Spoon event this week focused on reducing waste, I thought it appropriate to recycle my headline from earlier this year: We Need to Talk About Cashierless Checkout. I’m not just being lazy, I think we legitimately need to talk about cashierless checkout (again) because so much has happened since the first time I said it — and a lot happened just this week!

Let’s start by reviewing the relevant Spoon headlines since the first time I ran that headline in February:

In the last four months, we’ve written nine cashierless checkout stories, which means that roughly every two weeks, we’re seeing sizeable news in the space. But it’s not just the number of stories. Scratch beneath the surface and some trends emerge.

Funding
There are four funding stories for four companies at different stages, operating in different locations around the world. Based in Portugal, Sensei’s round was a Seed round. Israel’s Trigo got a strategic investment from German grocer REWE. Here in the U.S., Grabango’s haul was a later-stage sizeable Series B. And Zippin, which is based in the U.S. but is powering stores in the U.S., Brazil, Japan and Russia, has turned to equity crowdfunding after previously raising institutional money. I wouldn’t call the cashierless checkout funding environment “frothy” yet, but the sustained level of activity shows that investors are interested in emerging an established solutions.

Different Approaches
Beyond the funding, look at the variety of cashierless checkout startups coming to market. SuperSmart, Imagr and WalkOut all do some type of smart shopping cart. Trigo, Grabango and now Amazon retrofit full-sized grocery stores with cameras and computer vision to achieve frictionless checkout. Zippin and AiFi focus on smaller convenience and pop-up stores. In other words, there is a lid for every pot. Retailers will have a number of cashierless checkout options to choose from that suits them.

Europe
While cashierless checkout spots are opening up across the globe, Europe is becoming a particular hotspot of activity. Imagr opened an office in Amsterdam. Sensei is in Portugal. In addition to its funding, Trigo is launching a store with REWE, and is also a partner/investor in UK-based Tesco. AiFi has partnered with Polish convenience chain, Żabka. AiFi is launching a thousand stores with Dutch retailer Wundermart. And not to be left out, Amazon opened up a location in London.

Sports
This is admittedly a small part of the overall picture, but both Zippin and AiFi launched small convenience stores at sporting venues. Zippin opened its third stadium location, this one at Barclays Center in New York, while AiFi partnered with Verizon to open a small pop-up store at the Indianapolis 500.

As I discussed back in February, there are a couple of main drivers of all this cashierless checkout news. First is the pandemic, which pushed retailers into looking for more contactless retail environments. In addition to removing a human cashier/vector of transmission from the equation, cashierless stores keep customers from congregating in line and reduce the amount of time they spend inside.

Another factor, however, is Amazon, which kicked off the whole cashierless checkout trend with its Go stores three years ago. Since then Amazon has only ratcheted things up with its smart Dash shopping carts and just this week, showed it can scale its cashierless checkout to a full-sized grocery store. Amazon’s constant drive to innovate is forcing other retailers to do the same and accelerate their own cashierless plans.

In other words, we’ll need to talk about cashierless checkout a few more times before the year is over.

More Headlines

InnerPlant Raises $5.65M to Turn Plants Into “Living Sensors” and Mitigate Crop Loss – Agtech company InnerPlant, which is changing plant DNA to create “living sensors” that mitigate crop loss, has raised $5.65 million in pre-seed and seed funding,

Upcycled Food Association Launches Open Enrollment as Upcycling Momentum Grows – This week, the Upcycled Food Association announced that it had opened the doors for anyone who wants to apply for certification.

There’s More to Food Waste Innovation Than Tech, According to ReFED’s Dana Gunders – Dana Gunders, the Managing Director and a founder of ReFED, kicked off The Spoon’s recent event by asking two important questions related to food waste: What is innovation, and what is the problem we’re trying to solve with it?

Zippin and AiFi Announce New Cashierless Checkout Store Locations

It’s not even noon pacific time as I write this and it’s already been a day packed full of cashierless checkout news. Things kicked off when Amazon announced a new full-sized grocery store using its Just Walk Out technology, and that was quickly followed up by Zippin and AiFi talking about newly launched cashierless checkout stores. All of these moves show that momentum for the cashierless checkout space that began earlier this year seems to be continuing unabated.

First let’s start off with Zippin, which said today it has opened up a new autonomous store in the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, home of the Brooklyn Nets (the news was first reported by the Sports Business Journal earlier this month). What makes this store a little different from the ones Zippin previously opened in venues like Mile High Stadium and Golden 1 Center is the exclusive partnership with American Express. According to the Zippin blog post, the new store, which will sell an assortment of beverages, snacks and merchandise, is only open to American Express cardholders.

Cashierless checkout stores at sporting events is an alluring concept. The ability to walk into a store, grab what you want and leave without standing in line means you spend less time out of your seat and more time watching the action. With sporting events are just starting to come back, cashierless checkout also provides contactless retail experience. Given all that, it’s cool that AMEX is helping push the technology forward, but it’s a bummer that it’s only available to its cardholders. Such exclusivity reinforces digital divides and only provides the convenience of autonomous retail to the haves, while the have nots can go wait in line with everyone else.

Elsewhere, fellow cashierless checkout startup AiFi announced today that it has partnered with Polish convenience store chain Żabka to launch a cashierless checkout store in Poznan, Poland. AiFi’s announcement is on the opposite end of the spectrum from Amazon in that the autonomous Żabka location will be one of AiFi’s 210 sq. ft. NanoStores. These NanoStores are essentially pre-fab shipping containers that can be shipped and set up just about anywhere. Future AiFi-powered Żabka autonomous stores will be a combination of NanoStores and retrofitted Żabka micro markets.

AiFi has partnerships with 15 store brands internationally, including Choice Market, Carrefour, Loop Neighborhood and Wundermart. Earlier this year, Wundermart said it plans to launch more than a thousand cashierless stores using AiFi’s technology.

While cashierless checkout hasn’t crossed over into the mainstream yet, today’s flurry of activity in the space further illustrates that such a time is not that far away.

AiFi and Verizon Open up Cashierless Popup Store at the Indianapolis 500

Cashierless checkout startup AiFi announced today that it has partnered with Verizon to open up a cashierless convenience Indy Express Shop NanoStore at the Indianapolis 500 race this weekend. The store will allow ticket holders, staff, drivers, volunteers to buy packaged snacks, beverages and merchandise without needing to stand in a checkout line.

To enter and shop at the NanoStore, users need to download the Indy Express Shop app. Customers scan the app upon entrance and once inside, AiFi’s computer vision and AI trechnology keep track of what items are chosen. When customers exit the store, they are automatically charged for whatever they took.

Cashierless checkout is having a big year so far, and sporting venues could be one of the primary locations we see the technology roll out first. Cashierless checkout stores allow sports or concert attendees to quickly walk in, grab what they want and walk out without needing to stand in a line. This speed allows people to get back to their seat sooner and not miss as much of the action. In a post-pandemic world, this speed also means fewer people are congregating inside a store at any given moment, reducing human-to-human interaction and potential viral transmission.

Rival cashierless checkout startup Zippin has installed cashierless checkout stores at the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento, California, and Mile High Stadium in Denver.

AiFi’s NanoStores are basically self-contained, standalone unattended retail experiences that can be set up almost anywhere. This means that not only can AiFi retrofit existing stores in stadiums (and elsewhere), it can also create cashierless stores for outdoor venues and events, like the one at the Indianapolis 500.

The Indianpolis 500 will happen on Sunday, May 30th, but AiFi’s store is open now during all the preliminary events leading up to the race.

AiFi and Wundermart Partner up for Cashierless Checkout Stores

AiFi is bringing its computer-vision based cashierless checkout technology to Amsterdam-based Wundermart‘s chain of convenience stores worldwide, the two companies announced today.

Wundermart currently operates 70 unattended “grab-and-go” convenience stores throughout Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. These stores are typically between 50 and 200 sq. ft. and located in hotels, offices and transportation hubs. While the stores themselves are unattended by staff, Wundermart shoppers currently need to manually scan each item and make their payment at a self-checkout kiosk.

Through this new partnership, Wundermart will incorporate AiFi’s camera-based checkout system. As shoppers enter a Wundermart store, they will need to scan the store app or swipe their credit card at a kiosk. Once inside, AiFi’s camera+computer vision system will automatically keep track of what people take and then charge them automatically as they leave the store — no product scanning needed.

In addition to its computer vision checkout, Wundermart will be implementing AiFi’s OASIS system, which uses computer vision and sensors to track products in the store for more automated inventory management.

Wundermart will also be integrating AiFi’s technology into its Wunderware SaaS package. Wunderware is sold to third-party retailers so they can create their own autonomous stores. According to today’s press announcement, Wundermart and Wunderware plan to open more than 1,000 locations equipped with AiFi’s technology.

The COVID pandemic is pushing retailers of all sizes to re-evaluate the number of touchpoints they have in their stores. Cashierless checkout provides a more frictionless shopping experience that reduces the amount of human-to-human interaction. Not only does it remove the cashier as a vector of viral transmission, but early data suggests that shoppers using cashierless systems spend less time in a store, so there are fewer people congregating in checkout lines and aisles.

In addition to more frictionless checkout, Wundermart said it will be using AiFi’s system to also learn how people are shopping inside their stores. While the company’s system doesn’t use facial or biometric data to track someone, it can analyze what items people pick up (and put back) to help a store operator determine how to most efficiently set up products.

Only a couple of months in and 2021 has already been a busy year for cashierless checkout. New Zealand-based IMAGR has launched its smart-cart solution with retailer H20 in Japan. German startup, Nomitri came out of stealth with its smartphone-centric, cashierless checkout. And Zippin launched an unattended convenience store at a hotel in Japan.

For its part, AiFi has said previously that it plans to have deployed 330 new and retrofitted autonomous stores by the end of 2021. With the Wundermart partnership, they are certainly on their way to achieving that goal.

AiFi’s Cashierless Checkout Powers New 4,000 Sq. Ft. Store in Shanghai

AiFi announced today that its technology is powering a new cashierless checkout store in Shanghai. According to an email sent to The Spoon, the 4,000 sq. ft. store carries 2,000 SKUs including fresh meat and snacks, and is the largest such store powered by AiFi’s technology.

AiFi is perhaps best known for its standalone, shipping container-sized NanoStores, which offer pop-up cashierless retail experiences. With today’s launch, the company is showing that its technology can scale up (at least a bit) and be used for larger-format stores. The new AiFi-powered store in Shanghai is a “hybrid” store that also features a human cashier should shoppers prefer that option.

Casherless checkout allows shoppers to walk into a store, grab what they want and leave, getting charged automatically upon exit. The global pandemic has accelerated interest in cashierless checkout retail experiences because they help reduce human-to-human interaction, and can also cut down on the amount of time shoppers spend inside a store. Fellow cashierless startup Zippin announced yesterday that it has partnered with Fujitsu to bring its technology to market in Japan.

Unlike Zippin, which uses a combination of shelf sensors and computer vision for its cashierless checkout solution, AiFi relies solely on computer vision to track shoppers as they move through a store. Those computer vision capabilities could soon get a boost, thanks to a recent investment in the company from Qualcomm Ventures, the venture arm of the chip giant. As we wrote at the time of the fundraise:

That a Qualcomm entity would invest in AiFi isn’t too surprising. AiFi’s stores rely on a lot of wireless technology, and the startup’s pitch is that it creates a faster retail experience by producing shopping receipts in real time. But Qualcomm is also moving more into computer vision, which is a cornerstone of cashierless checkout. In July, Qualcomm announced a chip cluster that adds machine learning and AI to mid-tier cameras. So investing in a company that gets that tech into more locations makes sense.

And AiFi is certainly looking to get into more locations. AiFi says it has partnerships with top grocery chains in the U.S., Europe and Australia. Earlier this year, AiFi announced that it was going to deploy 330 new and retrofitted stores around the world by the end of 2021.

Qualcomm Ventures Invests in AiFi for Autonomous Retail

AiFi, a startup that makes cashierless, autonomous retail environments, announced today that it has raised a new round of funding from new investors Qualcomm Ventures and Plum Alley as well as existing investors such as Cervin Ventures and TransLink Capital.

The amount of new funding was not disclosed, but the AiFi press announcement said the total amount raised by the company was now $30 million. As of last Friday, Crunchbase had AiFi’s funding at $15 million and listed Qualcomm Ventures as an investor for an undisclosed sum from back in August. So if we’re reading this correctly, it appears that the new round is $15 million.

But equally interesting as the funding is the investor, Qualcomm Ventures, the venture arm of mobile technology giant Qualcomm. The canned quote from Qualcomm in the press release said

“As intelligence continues to move from the cloud to the wireless edge and demand for contactless shopping grows, we are excited to be investing in AiFi,” said Carlos Kokron, VP Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and Managing Director, Americas at Qualcomm Ventures. “We were very impressed with AiFi’s innovative edge-computing solutions and look forward to their technology helping accelerate the deployment of 5G.”

That a Qualcomm entity would invest in AiFi isn’t too surprising. AiFi’s stores rely on a lot of wireless technology, and the startup’s pitch is that it creates a faster retail experience by producing shopping receipts in real time. But Qualcomm is also moving more into computer vision, which is a cornerstone of cashierless checkout. In July, Qualcomm announced a chip cluster that adds machine learning and AI to mid-tier cameras. So investing in a company that gets that tech into more locations makes sense.

In addition to retrofitting existing stores, AiFi makes self-contained, autonomous, shipping container-sized nano-stores. The company says it will be deploying them to 330 locations around the world in 2021, and that it has partnerships with a number of top grocers across the U.S., Europe and Australia.

The pandemic has spurred interest in contactless technologies such as cashierless checkout. Caper just announced a countertop cashierless system for convenience stores. Grabango publicly launched its integration with Giant Eagle’s GetGo Market. Mastercard launched a cashierless checkout partnership with Accel Robotics. And AWM is powering a new cashierless market for a California apartment building.

For its part, AiFi said it will use the new funding to continue to develop its technology.

AiFi to Launch 330 Autonomous Stores by the End of 2021

AiFi, a cashierless checkout startup, announced today that it will deploy 330 new and retrofitted autonomous stores globally by the end of 2021.

AiFi is perhaps best known for its NanoStore, a fully automated pre-fab pop-up retail experience packed inside a small building akin to a shipping container. AiFi’s Orchestrated Autonomous Store Infrastructure and Services (OASIS) tech platform can also be used to retrofit existing retail spaces with autonomous capabilities, allowing shoppers to simply walk in, grab what they want and leave. The system charges them automatically.

According to a press release sent to The Spoon, AiFi’s OASIS technology will be powering 330 new autonomous stores that range anywhere between 800 sq. ft. convenience stores to 10,000 sq. ft. grocery stores. The new stores will be primarily located across the U.S. and Europe, with expansion to other parts of the world planned for the future

The COVID-19 pandemic is still raging across the U.S., which could be accelerating the adoption of autonomous or contactless checkout. Fears over the coronavirus have already caused grocery stores to close down salad and hot bars. Automating checkout would remove the necessity of standing in line with other people, limit cashier exposure to the virus, and obviate the need to interact with a payment terminal that lots of other people have touched throughout the day.

To be sure, eliminating the traditional checkout stand would be a huge undertaking, and large grocery chains aren’t exactly nimble when it comes to implementing new technology. Plus cashierless checkout brings up ethical issues around serving populations that are underbanked. Perhaps, however, AiFi will be taking a page out of Zippin’s playbook and only automating part (like one aisle) of a partner’s store rather than retrofitting the entire building.

We won’t have to wait long to see. AiFi says that it is already powering 10 stores in locations around the world including California, Texas, Amsterdam, Paris and Shanghai. AiFi also has partnerships with Albert Heijn, Carrefour, and others it has yet to announce. If AiFi sticks to its schedule, it will be launching an average of 18 stores per month for the next year and a half.

Two Trends to Watch Out for in 2020: Pop-Ups and Equity Crowdfunding

Based on the volume of digital ink I devoted in 2019 to cashierless checkout and robot-related startups, you’d think that I would pick those sectors as trends to watch in 2020.

While I think those segments will continue to grow steadily over the coming months, the two trends I’m most fascinated by are the ones I actually wrote very little about this year. If you’re looking for a couple of big, juicy trends I think you should pay attention to, you should explore semi-permanent pop-ups and equity crowdfunding.

Pop-up stores have been around for a while, but there are a number of startups looking to capitalize on their small footprint and easy setup to create new retail experiences. AiFi creates nano-stores are small, self-contained shipping container-like boxes that house an operation like a convenience store. These stores are cashierless (like Amazon Go), so customers can walk in, grab what they want and go.

Zippin is another company building out cashierless retail experiences, though it’s “Zippin Cube” is more customizable. The Zippin Cube is modular, so it can fit into existing, odd-shaped real estate. The Cubes can also hold coolers and come pre-wired, so they can be assembled and up and running in as little as three weeks.

Both Zippin and AiFi allow retail brands to quickly, easily and inexpensively set up pop-up stores in sporting venues, office lobbies or even music festivals. Retailers can then extend their brand into new venues without expensive and permanent build out. Think: a mini-Safeway at the base of your office building or a 7-11 at Coachella.

The ability to cheaply squirrel these stores into the nooks and crannies of high-volume but unused space will entice retailers to try them out next year.

Speaking of enticing, I expect startups will sing their siren song next year to entice everyday people to pony up through equity fundraising. Unlike the traditional product crowdfunding on Kickstarter, equity crowdfunding offers investors real equity in the companies they back.

GoSun, GOffee (unrelated “Gos” there) and Miso Robotics all launched equity crowdfunding campaigns this year. GoSun has raised $345,000 with 25 days left in its campaign. GOffee raised $1.07 million, and Miso Robotics aims to equity crowdfund a whopping $30 million.

This is actually GoSun’s second round of equity crowdfunding. The company raised $500,000 in seed money from the crowd in 2017. I spoke with GoSun CEO Patrick Sherwin earlier this year about the reason for crowdfunding and he told me:

“Traditional VC will breathe down your neck,” Sherwin said, “And drive everything towards more profit. This gives us more flexibility and keeps us in charge.”

Greater control over their own destiny is an attractive proposition for startups, and equity crowdfunding also has the benefit of giving companies that aren’t located in major VC hubs access to capital.

There are still plenty of SEC hurdles that a company must go through when equity crowdfunding, but I imagine we’ll see a lot more companies go that route to grow the way they want to.

AiFi’s Cashierless Checkout Promises Real-Time Receipts, and Nano-Sized Stores

I recently took a friend on her first Amazon Go shopping experience. She walked in, grabbed her things and walked out, as one does in Amazon’s cashierless checkout store. But she didn’t receive her receipt notification until a few minutes after we left the store.

I too have experienced this type of gap, and while I’m sure Amazon will always get its money, the bigger concern in that “dark” time is whether or not Amazon Go’s sensors and cameras accurately tallied what I took. If I don’t get a receipt until I’m back at the office and it’s wrong and they charged me too much, do I then trudge back down to the store? And at that point, how do I prove I didn’t take something?

Removing this receipt delta is one area where startup AiFi (pronounced eye-fye) thinks it has a competitive advantage in the cashierless checkout space. I spoke with Steve Gu, cofounder and CEO of the Santa Clara, CA-based company this week, who told me that the AiFi system delivers receipts in 200 milliseconds upon leaving a store. So, basically in real time.

But customers aren’t shopping at cashierless checkout stores just for faster receipts. The whole point is a more convenient buying experience, another area where AiFi might have an edge as the cashierless concept moves more into the mainstream. In addition to retrofitting existing stores with cameras and sensors to create frictionless shopping, AiFi is also building small, modular NanoStores.

These NanoStores vary in size but think of something like a shipping container converted into a convenience store. Last month, Ahold Delhaize installed and opened up a 150 sq. ft version of AiFi’s NanoStore under the Albert Heijn brand in the Netherlands. The store doesn’t even require a mobile app to enter, with customers able to use their debit or credit card to gain entrance. You can see it in action in this video:

Albert Heijn's digital store

The power of the NanoStore lies in its ability to extend a retail brand into new venues without having to do a big buildout. For example, a Safeway could open a cashierless grocery checkout pop-up store in an office building, a college campus or even an outdoor music festival. This type of semi-permanent retail is something DeepMagic has also worked on. More recently, it’s been reported that Amazon might license out its Go tech for similar type stores in cinemas and airports.

Though these NanoStores are easy to set up and run, Gu insisted that AiFi isn’t focused solely on those form factors, and that its technology scales up to larger store footprints as well.

While AiFi has been laying low — Gu said the company didn’t even announce the $11 million Series A round it closed in January of this year — it’s been busy lining up retail partners around the globe. AiFi has announced retail partnerships with the aforementioned Ahold Delhaize, Carrefour in France, Valora in Switzerland, and Żabka in Poland.

As we’ve said before, 2019 is turning into a transitional year for cashierless checkout. Startups providing the technology are maturing, and others in the space, such as Trigo, Grabango and Zippin, have all announced big retail partners this year.

With a total addressable market of, well, any retailer in the world, the cashierless checkout game is not a zero sum one. Lots of startups will get plenty of deals. The question for AiFi will be whether it gets a strategic investment from one of its retail partners like Trigo and Zippin did, and whether AiFi will be able to sign up new partners as fast as it will give you a receipt.