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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

cashierless checkout

With Reported Tesco Partnership, is Trigo Vision Pulling Ahead of the Cashierless Checkout Pack?

Tesco, the U.K.’s largest grocery store chain, is reportedly testing out cashierless checkout using technology from Israeli startup, Trigo Vision. Bloomberg was first to report the as-yet-not-confirmed news, and framed its story as Tesco going up against Amazon and its Go stores. Which is accurate, but I think the bigger story, again if true, is about Trigo Vision gaining traction in the market.

Similar to the setup at Amazon Go stores, Tel-Aviv-based Trigo Vision installs high-tech cameras and artificial intelligence in existing grocery stores to automatically track what people purchase. Shoppers scan an app on their phone upon walking in, grab what they want and leave, getting charged automatically upon exit. Last August, Trigo Vision told The Spoon it had a pilot program with an unnamed European store, and was aiming to to open a full store in Europe by August of this year. Knowing that, word about a quiet partnership with Tesco getting leaked to the press now would make sense.

If the Bloomberg story is true, this would be the second major grocery chain partnership for Trigo Vision. In November of last year, Shufersal, Israel’s largest grocery chain, announced it would be rolling out Trigo Vision’s tech to its 272 store locations over this year. You can actually see Trigo Vision in action at a Shufersal in this video from an Israeli news broadcast:

As we’ve covered before, there are a raft of startups all vying to help supermarkets move to cashierless checkout. But Trigo Vision is the only one to have named at least one partner publicly. Others, such as Grabango, Caper, AWM Smart Shelf, Zippin and Standard Cognition are all in tests with retailers, but those retailers are still unnamed.

Again, the Bloomberg story still needs to be confirmed (we’ve reached out to Trigo Vision for comment), but perception can play a big part in vendor selection. As Trung Nguyen, VP of eCommerce for Albertsons explained at our recent Articulate food automation summit, grocery retailers aren’t just looking for cool new tech; they need a solution that can work at scale. If Trigo Vision’s name keeps coming up in headlines as a proven technology partner, then Trigo Vision will become the perceived leader of the cashierless checkout pack. This perception can then lead to more deals and that dominance can perpetuate itself.

Now, it’s still very early days in the cashierless checkout space, and Trigo Vision’s long-term success over other vendors is far from guaranteed. As noted, there are a lot of players with different takes on the tech and there are a lot of grocery stores in the world. And while Amazon and Walmart are developing their own cashierless checkout solutions, the sheer scale of their overall businesses could be a threat to the very existence of other retailers.

Tesco, it seems though, is ready to put up a fight.

Zippin Re-Launches its Cashierless Checkout Store in San Francisco

Zippin, one of the host of startups working on cashierless checkout, announced today that it was re-opening its San Francisco retail store.

The Zippin store, located at 215 Fremont Street, is akin to Amazon Go both in its bodega-like size and cashierless checkout technology. Zippin is also more like Amazon than other cashierless checkout technologies on the market in the way it uses a combination of both cameras and sensors to keep track of what people purchase.

Zippin opened its retail store in August of last year, but it was more of a working lab that was only open for limited hours. While Zippin operates this retail location, the company, like so many other cashierless startups, is looking to partner with existing retailers to retrofit their stores with checkout free technology.

I spoke with Zippin Founder and CEO Krishna Motukuri last week who explained that while his mission is the same as many other startups in the space, his company’s approach is different from the other startups vying to power the cashierless retail market. “Most others only use cameras,” said Motukuri, “We use cameras and sensors to increase accuracy.” Motukuri said that the problem with a camera-only solution is that they can be blocked by people and don’t provide enough accuracy, so Zippin uses weight sensors on shelves to augment what the cameras see.

Zippin is currently working with four major retailers, but wouldn’t disclose who they are. Motukuri said that his technology can scale up to any size store, but there is typically a cost hurdle as the price is proportional to the square footage of the store. As a result, Zippin’s partners are focusing on smaller stores right now.

For its retail partners, Zippin offers the option of either using the Zippin app or incorporating the Zippin technology into the retailer’s own app to facilitate entry and payment. In either implementation, customers scan their phone going into the store and overhead cameras will keep track of their movements and work in conjunction with the shelf sensors to know what they take. Once a shopper has everything, they just leave the store and the credit card is automatically charged. (Due to recent San Francisco regulations, Zippin does accept cash as well)

In addition to the cameras and sensors, Zippin also runs a number of edge computing modules so all the image processing is done locally in-store instead of sending it to the cloud. The means that the store does not need a big internet connection to function, and can still operate if the internet goes down.

Because it operates its own store, Zippin was able to learn some interesting things about the shopping experience it created. First was just how quick shopping trips became after people visited the store a couple of times. Motukuri said that at first, people were curious and would walk around for a bit. However, subsequent trips for shoppers would drop to ten seconds including purchase. (It should be noted that the store is only 250 sq. ft., so there’s not a lot of room to wander around in the first place.) Motukuri also said that because the experience was so fast, people were making multiple trips throughout the day; sometimes people were coming two and three times in the span of five minutes.

Founded in 2014, Zippin is headquartered in San Francisco and has raised $2.7 million in seed funding so far. That’s far less than crosstown rival Standard Cognition’s $51 million and Grabango’s $18 million. However, it’s still very early days in this space. Amazon Go is spurring retailers into action, so there is plenty of room for Zippin to zip up its own customers.

Walmart Canada Debuts New “Fast Lane” Checkout Option

Oh, Canada, your newest Walmart “Urban Supercentre Concept” in Toronto will feature a host of new retail concepts including a “Fast Lane” version of cashierless checkout for people using the My Walmart app.

According to a press announcement sent out this week, this new Walmart Supercentre lets shoppers use the My Walmart app to scan items as they shop. When they are ready to check out, shoppers go to the Fast Lane and scan a barcode on the app and their credit card on file is automatically charged. The store will have additional associates on hand to help, and, presumably, make sure you aren’t stealing anything.

This isn’t Walmart’s first bout with cashierless checkout. As Grocery Dive notes, last year the retailer had tried expanding its version of “Scan & Go” to 125 stores in the U.S., but later ditched the program because people weren’t using it and the technology didn’t scale. Elsewhere in the Walmart universe, it’s subsidiary Sam’s Club launched a Sam’s Club Now store at the end of last year that required the Scan & Go app to shop there.

More recently, Walmart launched its IRL store in Levittown, NY, which is outfitted with banks of cameras and high-tech sensors to monitor inventory in real time. While IRL didn’t launch with cashierless checkout, the fact that Walmart invested so much in computer vision capabilities for the store suggests that type of functionality isn’t too far away.

Walmart’s moves come at a time when cashierless checkout is heating up. In addition to Amazon Go, which pioneered the field (and was forced into accepting cash), there are a number of well-funded startups looking to retrofit grocery stores with cashierless checkout capabilities.

While cashierless checkout is still a ways away from being mainstream, Walmart isn’t sitting idly by (its proactive nature is one of the reasons we named the company to our Food Tech 25 list). Scan & Go feels like an intermediary step, but it’s a step in the right direction towards our inevitably cashierless checkout future.

AWM Smart Shelf Raised $10M for its Frictionless Shopping and Smart Displays

There are so many companies doing cashierless checkout now, to stand out any more, you almost need a hook, something that sets your particular solution apart from the rest. Grabango allows stores to still accept cash and credit card payments, Caper moves the tech into smart shopping carts, Skip is going after convenience stores, and Amazon is… well taking its cashierless tech ball and keeping it all for its own Go stores.

What sets Adroit Worldwide Media (AWM) Smart Shelf apart is that cashierless shopping is just a part of its overall implementation. Sure, the company uses small, high-def cameras to power computer vision algorithms and AI to automatically keep track of what people purchase (and thus, real-time store inventory), but the company ties this commerce with in-store branding and advertising via digital smart displays.

This means when a store implements the AWM system, it not only facilitates the transaction, but it can direct you to other parts of the store through digital signage, which can be used for advertising, running specials, dynamic pricing, or even to make suggestions based on purchase history or what you are currently buying. For example, if you have ground beef and tomato sauce, the digital signage could create an ad on the spot for you saying “it looks like you’re making a pasta dish, we’re having a sale on noodles over in aisle 3.” Because the store knows where you are (for the cashierless checkout), it can also guide you to the location of that pasta.

Additionally, you could upload a recipe to the store’s AWM-powered app and once in the store, the AWM system would guide you around to help you find everything you need.

Like Grabango, AWM also integrates with a store’s existing payment system. So a retailer could go full frictionless (i.e. just walk out of the store), or a store could still accept cash and credit card payments (sidestepping the controversy around cashless retail).

The AWM system works through a combination of a mobile app and facial recognition. AWM’s provides the infrastructure backend for a retailer’s app, so a shopper would download their local store’s app. Once installed, there are proximity sensors that work in conjunction with the computer visions systems to keep track of what you grab and keep. Shoppers can even opt-in for facial recognition, which can provide a sort of two-factor authentication, so someone couldn’t grab your phone and shop with it.

An image on AWM’s site also shows its facial recognition software keeping track of things like gender, ethnicity and emotional state. This type of facial recognition program will undoubtedly throw up red flags for privacy minded folks, rightfully so. I spoke with AWM Smart Shelf CEO Kevin Howard who said that only AWM and the store have the data, which is stored locally and AWM does not have access to your payment information. But one has to wonder exactly what a store would do if it can tell you’re depressed (chocolate on sale!).

While this level of detail about a shopper may be off-putting to some, it hasn’t scared away investors. Howard said AWM raised a $10 million Series A round led by Mark IV Capital roughly a month ago. The company had previously raised $2 million in 2017.

AWM is also going into public implementations starting this summer. Howard wouldn’t provide details, but they are with full-sized stores, three of which are on continents outside the U.S..

AWM isn’t only smart display company looking to keep tabs on you as you buy your Tab (Tab cola, it’s a beautiful drink). Cooler screens made headlines earlier this year with its smart cooler doors that are basically giant displays that can also track your movements, what you’re looking at and yes, even your emotional response to items.

With its ability to not only remove friction from the purchasing process, but also nudge people around a store for even more purchases, AWM certainly stands out. Now we’ll have to see if retailers will line up for it.

Here is a List of Cashierless Tech Companies Gunning for Amazon Go

Bloomberg has a story up today about the Portugal-based startup, Sensei, titled “Amazon Go Faces Unlikely Challenge From Checkout-Free Startup.” The headline caught my eye because it isn’t unlikely at all, in fact, it’s quite likely. While Amazon has a substantial headstart in getting cashierless stores to market (10 and counting), Bezos’ behemoth faces all kinds of technological challenges from companies big and small in the checkout-free space.

As a quick refresher, cashierless checkout stores are retail environments that allow the shopper to walk in, grab what they want and leave without standing in a checkout line. Some combination of high-tech sensors and cameras keep track of what you buy and charge you automatically. Different companies have different approaches, some of them more advanced than others, but here’s who’s out there right now:

Caper: Rather than installing cameras and sensors in the store, Caper shifts that technology to its smart shopping carts, so retailers don’t have to spend a lot of money to retrofit their locations. Current versions of the cart require the user to scan items, but they’ve said computer vision is coming to make recording what you put in your cart automatic. Caper has raised $3 million raised and says it is in use by two major unnamed grocery store chains.

DeepMagic: Rather than scaling up, DeepMind scales down to create unattended kiosk shopping experiences that are meant to live inside existing locations (think: Hotel or office lobbies). Even these mini, mini shopping stores will face off against Amazon, as the company is reportedly looking to shrink Go stores to fit inside offices to feed hungry workers. DeepMagic is self-funded and has been used by Cisco to sell swag at one of its conferences.

Grabango: A relative newcomer to the cashierless space, Granbango came out of stealth earlier this year. It uses lots of tiny smartphone camera-sized cameras mounted on the ceiling to saturate its computer vision field and keep track of purchases. Grabango’s hook is that it integrates with the store checkout system, so when shoppers are done, they can still pay with a credit card or cash without a cashier scanning each item. Grabango has raised $17.3 million and says it is in pilots with three major grocers and one convenience store chain.

Microsoft: Microsoft isn’t one to let a cross-town rival like Amazon dominate a market without putting up a fight. But right now we’ve only heard reports of the Redmond giant working on cashierless tech with Walmart (another Amazon rival). Another clue that Microsoft cashierless tech could be forthcoming is its recent partnership with Kroger to pilot a new type of tech-forward, smart stores.

Sam’s Club: The Walmart-owned Sam’s Club opened up an experimental store last year, which requires the use of Walmart’s Scan & Go app to pay for items.

Skip: Similar to Sam’s Club approach, Skip is another small entrant in the cashierless space that is targeting convenience stores. Shoppers download and use the Skip app to scan and purchase items in the store. Skip is currently iN use in several western convenience store chains and has raised $5 million in seed funding.

Standard Cognition: While Standard Cognition has its own working store in San Francisco, it’s mainly there to showcase its cashierless chops. Standard Cognition’s website makes a big deal about it not using facial recognition and being built around privacy. The company has raised $51 million in funding and says it has agreements with four retailers across Asia, North America and Europe.

Trigo Vision: Israel-based Trigo Vision retrofits existing stores with off-the-shelf cameras and computer vision to create its cashierless experience. The company has raised $7 million, is in a pilot with an unnamed European retailer and last November signed a deal with Israel’s Shufersal to implement checkout free shopping across all of that chain’s 272 locations.

V7 (formerly AI Poly): We haven’t covered this company fully here at The Spoon yet. AI Poly recently rebranded its retail efforts as V7, and now uses AI Poly for vision AI for the visually impaired and blind. The V7 website says its AI system can plug into and work with existing security cameras, depending on the number a store operates.

7-11: The convenience store chain’s tech works more like a self-checkout than true grab-and-go retail. In the pilot store the company launched towards the end of last year, shoppers use the 7-11 app to scan items and then manually pay for them at separate checkout stations.

And now we can add Sensei to this list. Are there any others we’re leaving out? Any stealthy ones you want to spill the beans on? If so, drop us a line and let us know!

Check it Out, Skip’s Cashierless Tech Targets Convenience Stores

Amazon kicked off the cashierless checkout craze a year ago with its Amazon Go stores. Now a number of cashierless players are coming to market, each with their own solution. Amazon uses a combination of cameras and sensors to automatically keep track of what you buy, while Grabango uses lots of small cameras, and Caper employs a smart shopping cart.

Skip is another entrant in the increasingly crowded field of startups looking to retrofit existing retail outlets with cashierless checkout systems. But Skip’s approach is decidedly less tech intensive. However, this lack of high-end installation could be what gives it an edge in the market. (Hat tip to The Shelby Report for bringing Skip to our attention.)

The Skip checkout system has three parts: a mobile app for the consumer, an app for the store clerk and a cloud cam. Once the shopper downloads the Skip app, they use it to scan and pay for items they are taking. As a shopper scans items, the store clerk’s app gets a notification and a running tally of the items the shopper is taking. This helps the clerk know what is being paid for and helps prevent people from saying they are just picking up milk, but walking out with an armful of goodies.

The Cloud Cam is a wall-mounted camera and screen installed above the store’s entrance that displays the username of the shopper and the number of items they paid for. This display shows the clerk and other shoppers that the person leaving isn’t stealing, and acts as another theft deterrent by letting shoppers know that they are on camera.

If Skip’s approach to cashierless checkout sounds familiar, that’s because 7-11 launched a similar scan-and-go system last year. Convenience stores like 7-11 are actually Skip’s main target, with the company saying the convenience segment has the largest footprint for growth. Skip says its solution will be in roughly 150 convenience stores and 83 grocery stores by the end of this month.

Skip generates revenue through a Saas model, charging stores on a sliding scale anywhere between $15 and $50 a month. The company says it’s seeing ten percent month over month growth.

Like with any new technology, Skip’s solution has pros and cons. On the plus side, there’s really no infrastructure for stores to implement other than some software and the cloud cam, so any store could be easily retrofitted. Additionally, Skip’s system allows existing checkout systems to remain in place, so stores can continue to take cash or credit cards.

Downsides seem to be that the technology still relies on the clerks to help monitor what people are buying. That’s easy when there are one or two people in the store, but it seems like a dozen or more shoppers could overwhelm a lone clerk. Additionally, there are some privacy considerations that don’t seem to be fully thought out. The Cloud Cam displays the username of the person as they exit the store, but people could be using their real name which would then get flashed on a screen for everyone to see.

Right now Skip is available in different regional chains, mostly in Western states, though that will change quickly over the coming months as stores across the country come out of testing and go live. Skip itself is based in Salt Lake City, UT and has roughly 15 employees. The company raised roughly $5 million in seed funding two years ago.

The cashierless tech space may be crowded, but Skip’s low-fi approach and convenience store targeting might be enough to get retailers to check it out.

Can Caper’s Smart Shopping Carts Steal Cashierless Checkout Marketshare?

The cashierless checkout space is getting downright frothy these days. Caper came out of stealth and officially threw its hat in the autonomous retail ring today with a public announcement about its technology and news that to date, it has raised $3.5 million from First Round Capital, Y Combinator and others.

Caper’s take on the cashierless checkout shifts the technology emphasis from cameras mounted in the ceiling to an AI-powered smart shopping cart. The current Caper cart requires users to scan an item’s barcode before throwing them into their cart. Future iterations, already in the works, will remove the barcode and will use a combination of computer vision and built-in weight scales on the cart to determine purchases. Once a customer is done shopping, they exit the store and pay on the built-in screen.

The advantage to this, according to Caper’s press announcement, is that grocery stores do not have to retrofit their stores to enable cashierless checkout. Retailers can simply swap out their old shopping carts for the connected Caper ones. The company says that its smart carts are not that much more expensive than traditional ones.

As Caper told TechCrunch, additional benefits include using the attached screen to map stores and guide shoppers to specials or complementary products (Bought ice cream? How ’bout some chocolate sauce on Aisle 3?) or recipe suggestions. Data from the carts can also tell retailers where people are traveling within the store to provide insight on optimal inventory placement.

And while the company didn’t point it out specifically, moving the computer vision to the cart means that it can scale to even the most massive of grocery stores out of the box as the technology only has to monitor what customers place inside.

Having said that, it seems like one drawback to Caper’s approach is requiring shoppers to use a cart in order to work. There are plenty of times when I go into a store and just grab one or two items and carry them out. Presumably, Caper’s technology wouldn’t record that, but permanent ceiling-mounted cameras would see everything, allowing for broader automated shopping scenarios (no carts) while providing retailers more accurate real-time inventory observation/management.

This has certainly been a big week for cashierless checkout startups. This past Monday, Grabango raised $12 million of for its scalable solution that uses lots of small, ceiling-mounted smartphone-sized cameras. And not that long ago, Standard Cognition raised $40 million for its autonomous retail solution.

Caper’s smart carts are already in use by two unnamed grocery store chains, Grabango says it has partnerships with four retail partners, and Amazon will most certainly continue its rapid Go store expansion. All this investment and activity happening now means cashierless checkout will become more mainstream this year.

Caper Smart Cart - Make Shopping Magic

Grabango Raises $12M for its Scalable Cashierless Tech

It was just about a year ago when Amazon opened its first cashierless Amazon Go store in Seattle. Throughout 2018, others were quick to follow as players like Microsoft, Standard Cognition, Sam’s Club, Deep Mind, AI Poly, 7-11 and Trigo Vision all started developing and rolling out their own versions of cashierless checkout retail experiences.

All this is to say that while the cashierless checkout space is pretty crowded, another entrant, Grabango (pronounced GraBANGo), yesterday announced it had raised a $12 million Series A round to roll out its take on cashierless tech. The round was led by Propel Ventures, and brings Grabango’s total amount raised to $18 million.

Like Standard Cognition and Trigo Vision, Grabango builds cashierless systems for third parties — retailers that want to implement such systems without building them in-house. I spoke with Grabango CEO, Will Glaser, who said that his company’s technology differs from the competition in a few ways.

First, it uses small, smartphone-like cameras and sensors. Mounted to the ceiling, these vision systems are not so high-def that they can read barcodes, but are, according to Glaser, the equivalent of a person looking across a room. They can tell the difference between a can of Coke and a can of Diet Coke. There are a lot of these cameras installed, so much so, that every item on a shelf has 200 percent coverage. If one fails, there’s another watching.

Glaser said the algorithms powering their AI and computer vision TECH are smart enough to detect and work through elemental changes such as lighting conditions, as well as branding changes (like when Coke releases its holiday packaging) in real time.

Glaser also says that Grabango’s system already works at scale. It can be retrofitted into an existing retailer as large as 100,000 square feet of space with hundreds of simultaneous shoppers.

Finally, Grabango handles checkout in two different ways. If you download and install the Grabango app you can literally “grab-n-go,” placing all your items in a bag and walking out. The mobile app will then charge you accordingly. Or, you can also gather all your items and go to a checkout stand and pay however you want with cash, credit, Apple Pay, etc. (even with SNAP benefits). The system knows when you — and all the stuff you’re buying — are at the checkout stand, provides the total so all you have to do is pay the cashier.

It may seem counterintuitive for a cashierless checkout company to offer a checkout option, but Glaser said that Grabango’s system eliminates the most time-consuming part of the checkout process — taking items out of your cart and manually scanning them — so you can just pay.

According to him, the company is already in pilots with three major grocers and one convenience store chain in the U.S., though he wouldn’t provide any further details. Grabango is a SaaS business and charges retailers a monthly subscription fee.

One aspect of Grabango’s technology that the company isn’t as focused on right now is the real-time information it can provide to retailers. Who needs a shelf-scanning robot slowly going up and down aisles, when the ceiling mounted cameras can tell in real time what items are low? There also seem to be opportunities for real-time mapping of stores to make online order fulfillment by human workers faster and more efficient.

Between Amazon Go’s aggressive rollout and the number of startups working on the issue, cashierless tech in the real world is poised to accelerate this year.

Standard Cognition Raises $40M for its Cashierless Tech

Standard Cognition announced yesterday that it has raised $40 million Series A round of funding to fuel its cashierless technology solution which creates Amazon Go-like shopping experiences. The round was lead by Initialized Capital and brings the total amount raised by Standard Cognition to $51 million.

Amazon kicked off the whole walk-into-a-store-grab-what-you-want-and-walk-out payment system with the launch of its first Amazon Go store in Seattle earlier this year. As we approach the end of 2018, Amazon continues to roll out these stores at a rapid pace, putting up new ones in Chicago, San Francisco and soon New York (to go along with its flashy new half-HQ2).

Standard Cognition operates a little differently; it’s not trying to build its own armada of retail locations. Instead it provides its technology to third-party retailers who want to open up their own cashierless stores. Standard Cognition opened up a store in San Francisco earlier this year to show off its technology, and says it has agreements with four retailers across Asia, North America and Europe.

It looks like 2019 will be the year cashierless checkout will start to see some real traction in the marketplace. Sam’s Club just debuted its first cashierless store. Walmart is reportedly working with Microsoft on cashierless retail. 7-Eleven recently introduced its attempt at cashierless convenience. And just this week it was announced that Shufersal, Israel’s largest supermarket chain, will install Trigo Vision’s cashierless tech across all of its 272 stores.

We’ve used the Seattle Amazon Go store a few times and found the experience to be seamless and oddly natural for such a new concept. With so many competitors in the market, and so many retailers not wanting to cede the future of retail to Amazon, expect more funding for cashierless startups and more stores rolling out the technology throughout next year.

Israel’s Shufersal to Implement Trigo Vision’s Cashierless Tech Across all its Stores

Trigo Vision announced today that its cashierless checkout technology, which delivers Amazon Go-like experiences at retail, will be installed in every location of Shufersal, Israel’s largest supermarket chain.

Technically, the two companies have signed an agreement to adopt Trigo Vision‘s technology, but the two still need to go through a pilot in one store first over the next year, and then roll out to the rest of the chain’s 272 locations.

Trigo Vision says that one of benefits of its technology over Amazon Go is that Trigo Vision can be retrofitted into any retail store of any size. Amazon Go stores are built from the ground up to house Amazon’s high-tech cameras and sensors and are typically smaller, hovering around the 2,000 square foot mark. Trigo Vision’s system uses basic off-the-shelf connected cameras, computer vision and machine learning to be able to identify products people put in their cart in a way, the company says, that can accommodate any lighting condition or store set up.

Being able to accurately identify more than 2,500 SKUs in a store has been a challenge, Trigo Vision CEO, Michael Gabay and COO, Jenya Beilin told me in a phone interview. Part of the issue with using computer vision for product identification is that the algorithms must be able to understand subtle shifts in branding, like for a special promotion or a seasonal flavor. But Trigo Vision claims that its technology has automated this process, and now it will go into broader real world use courtesy of the Shufersal partnership.

The competition to bring cashierless checkout tech to the grocery masses is fierce. Amazon is rolling out its Go stores at a fast pace across the country. Sam’s Club just debuted its first cashierless retail store. And Microsoft has long-been rumored to be working on cashierless tech with Walmart: the two giants recently expanded on an existing cloud partnership, which includes working on the internet of things and IT modernization. It makes sense that including a cahsierless retail component could be a part of that relationship, especially when so much data around how people shop and what they purchase can be mined from such a store.

Based in Tel Aviv, Trigo Vision raised a $7 million seed round earlier this year. The company says it’s expanding quickly and will have 20 – 25 people on their team by the end of the year. In addition to Shufersal, Trigo Vision has one other pilot happening right now with an undisclosed European grocer.

Amazon Opens Second Go Store Amid Rising Cashierless Competition

Amazon is opening is second Go store in downtown Seattle this morning. The new Go will be slightly bigger smaller (UPDATE: initial reporting on the second location was incorrect. Turns out the store is smaller.)than the first location, and will feature the same cashierless. technology that allows customers with the Amazon Go mobile app to walk into the store, grab what they want and leave without having to wait in line or stop to pay.

We loved shopping at Amazon Go and even named the store as one of our FoodTech 25 companies that are changing the way we eat. The seamless experience points to an inevitable future where high-tech cameras, sensors and computer vision all work together to make every grocery trip faster and checkout line free.

While Amazon would still be considered the leader in cashierless shopping, the landscape for the technology is more crowded since the first Go store launched in January. Cross-town rival Microsoft is reportedly working on such technology and chatting with Walmart about putting it to use in the retail giant’s stores.

Then there are smaller startups coming to market hoping to disrupt Amazon’s disruption. Zippin just unveiled its cashierless software platform and is set to open up in San Francisco next month. Israel-based Trigo Vision is piloting its software, which the company said can already scale to a full-size grocery store. Others such as Caper and AI Poly are also launching their own solutions.

Cashierless checkout certainly isn’t a zero sum game. There are plenty of retailers in the world looking to create a more efficient (and profitable) buying experience for customers. But for the time being, Amazon is definitely the pioneer. Its first-mover status gives it plenty of data and real-world experience to iterate faster than its competition.

In addition to the two Seattle locations open now, Amazon is opening up new Go stores in San Francisco and Chicago. And, lest we forget, Amazon owns Whole Foods, giving the company access to a network of full-sized retail locations in which to experiment and scale.

For those in Seattle who want to shop at the new Go store, you can find new the Seattle Central Library at 920 Fifth Ave.

Trigo Vision’s Cashierless Tech Isn’t Just for Shoppers; It Provides Insight for Stores, Too

When we talk about Amazon Go-like cashierless stores, the conversation mostly focuses on the shopping experience from the customer’s perspective. The ease with which you can walk into a store, grab what you want — and just walk out. But as Israeli-based startup Trigo Vision points out, there are plenty of benefits for the retailer as well.

Trigo Vision (pronounced tree-go vision) is one of several companies using computer vision and AI to help retail stores re-create the Amazon Go cashierless experience. Trigo Vision works by installing cameras in the ceilings of stores, and the AI is trained by having people (customers or employees, if need be) pick up and handle each item off the shelf in the store so the computer can “see” and learn what it is.

Jenya Beilin, COO of Trigo Vision, told me that using this approach for data collection is better than using synthetic data or existing images of products, because it trains the AI to recognize items under all the existing lighting and background conditions in that store. The result, according to Beilin, is that the technology is able to track purchases with greater accuracy.

The most obvious beneficiary of this computer recognition is the consumer. Trigo Vision’s system sees what you are putting in your cart (and putting back), tallies up your total and automatically charges you on the way out the door.

The same cameras that make it easy to leave also make it easy to track shoppers through the store. The result is that Trigo Vision’s system can provide retailers with useful information on consumer behavior: Where do they buy first? What items are they picking (and returning)? What items are purchased together? Etc.

One obvious benefit of Trigo Vision’s system is inventory management. Sorry, shelf-bot, but your days of manually scanning the aisles looking for gaps in inventory are probably numbered. Trigo’s platform can keep track of how many items are bought and when something needs to be re-stocked.

Digging into the consumer data a little deeper, stores can use the platform to understand how they can better present items to customers. Trigo Vision can help a store realize (in real-time) if a particular product is popular and should be highlighted, or if an end-cap promotion is attracting attention and/or sales.

This type of data is, in turn, helpful for CPG companies. For example, Coca-Cola could gain insight into whether people are buying more sodas in the aisle or at the checkout line. Armed with this data, grocers can even re-architect their shelves and store layout to take advantage of how people are shopping and the order in which they see inventory.

Unlike the bodega-sized Amazon Go stores, Trigo Vision says its platform can scale up to full-sized stores. Right now, the company, which has raised $7 million in funding, is in one pilot program with an unnamed European store. Beilin says they are in talks with more retailers, with the goal of opening in a full store in Europe within twelve months.

Trigo Vision is facing some stiff competition, however. Standard Cognition announced a deal with Paltac Corporation to put its cashierless tech in 3,000 stores in Japan before the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. AIPoly also touts its data insights for retailers as well. And in June it was revealed that Microsoft, which is no slouch when it comes to AI, is working on similar technology and is talking to retailers like Walmart about a potential collaboration.

All of this activity means widespread adoption of cashierless technology is not that far off —and will soon be so commonplace that we won’t even be talking about it at all.