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Imagr

June 18, 2021

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:

  • SuperSmart’s Cart Scale Makes it Standout in Cashierless Checkout
  • Amazon Opens Up Cashierless Fresh Market in London
  • Cashierless Checkout Startup Imagr Expanding into Europe, Says Pilots Cost €65,000
  • Portugal: Sensei Raises $6.5M for its Cashierless Checkout Tech
  • Trigo Partners with German Grocer REWE for Cashierless Checkout Stores
  • WalkOut Retrofits Shopping Carts with Cameras and Screens for Cashierless Checkout
  • Zippin Adds OurCrowd as an Investor, Launches its Own Equity Crowdfunding Campaign
  • AiFi and Verizon Open up Cashierless Popup Store at the Indianapolis 500
  • Grabango Raises $39M Series B Funding for Cashierless Checkout
  • Amazon Opening Full-Sized Cashierless Checkout Grocery Store
  • Zippin and AiFi Announce New Cashierless Checkout Store Locations
  • Cashierless Checkout Startup Trigo Gets $10M Strategic Investment from REWE

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?

March 22, 2021

Cashierless Checkout Startup Imagr Expanding into Europe, Says Pilots Cost €65,000

New Zealand-based startup, Imagr announced today that it is expanding its cashierless checkout services into Europe and opening an office in Amsterdam, The Netherlands next month.

Imagr is part of a rising cohort of cashierless checkout startups that create more automated retail experiences for shoppers. Imagr’s particular solution uses smart baskets and shopping carts equipped with cameras to recognize items placed inside. The carts tally up everything the shopper keeps and charges the user automatically in conjunction with the Imagr mobile phone app.

Up until now, IMAGR had focused on the Asia-Pacific region, providing its checkout technology to three stores across Aukland, New Zealand and Tokyo and Osaka Japan. According to a press release emailed to The Spoon, Imagr has finalized deals with two European retailers.

In addition to its European expansion news, Imagr provided something we haven’t heard from other cashierless checkout startups: pricing information. Imagr says that full store system pilots of its smart cart solutions start at €65,000 (~$77,600 USD).

Smart carts is its own robust subsector of the burgeoning cashierless checkout market. Smart carts don’t require the physical installation of cameras into the stores themselves. Instead, a retailer swaps out their existing shopping carts for the more high-tech smart carts. Because there is no buildout into the store, smart carts could prove to be appealing to retailers looking to experiment with the technology. Other players in the smart cart space include Caper, Veeve, Tracxpoint, Storewide Active Intelligence, and Amazon.

Cashierless checkout has had a busy year so far in 2021. AiFi partnered with European convenience store chain Wundermart to build out 1,000 stores. And here in the U.S. Standard Cognition raised $150 million for its solution.

With the global pandemic pushing retailers to create more contactless retail experiences, we’re going to see a lot more expansion announcements from cashierless checkout startups around the world.

January 14, 2021

Imagr Pushes its Smart Cart Cashierless Checkout to the APAC Region

Let’s just get this out of the way. Imagr is not Imagur. Imagr is a New Zealand-based startup angling to bring its smart cart, cashierless shopping solution to grocery, convenience and other stores across the Asia Pacific region. Imagur is an online library of cute/funny gifs. Since we are a publication covering the future of food, you can probably guess which one we’ll be writing about here.

There are two main camps when it comes to cashierless checkout at retail. in one camp, you have companies like Grabango and Zippin, which install hardware (cameras and sensors) and software (computer vision and AI) inside a store to automatically keep track of what people purchase.

In the other camp, you have companies like Imagr, which push all that technology down into the shopping cart and basket to monitor what shoppers place in them.

There is no “better” solution and each has its advantages. Retrofitting a store provides less “friction” for shoppers (they literally just grab an item and go), but retrofitting a store can be costly, especially for large stores. Smart cart solutions don’t require any installation, but do require shoppers to use the designated carts and baskets.

Execs at Imagr gave me a video demo of its smart carts in action this week, and they work pretty much as you’d expect. A shopper downloads the Imagr app, and scans a barcode on the special Imagr basket (and forthcoming full-sized cart). The baskets have a ring of cameras and lights that use computer vision to identify items placed inside. Consumers shop as they normally would with the Imagr app on their phone keeping a tally. When it comes time to check out, a human checkout clerk scans a barcode on the shopper’s phone to complete the transaction.

https://vimeo.com/393834435

In that workflow, you may notice that the process isn’t entirely cashierless, as there is a person who checks shoppers out. Imagr said that the reason for this was to increase its speed to market. By keeping the cashier in place for now, they can get the rest of its technology into stores.

Speed to market seems to be an overriding ethos for Imagr, which has foresaken some of the extra bells and whistles you might expect to find on a smart cart. Unlike rival smart cart companies like Caper, Veeve and Amazon, Imagr’s smart carts do not have screens attached. Screens can provide in-store guidance, and upsell products to generate additional sales.

But Imagr told me that it purposely avoided adding screens to make its carts simpler to use, it didn’t want people to have to figure a new interface out. They also skipped the screen for privacy reasons (i.e. having an item that might be embarrassing in big letters on a screen that others might see), and because it was just one more thing that could break (like a bum wheel on a shopping cart).

Imagr is focused on the Asia Pacific region and is already live in three locations across Tokyo and Osaka, Japan, as well as Aukland, New Zealand. The company has a partnership H2O in Japan, which operates two grocery retail brands there, as well as two European retailers to be announced.

The Japanese market is turning into a hotbed for cashierless checkout. Softbank led a $30 million Series A round in Accel Robotics, Zippin recently partnered with Fujitsu to sell cahierless tech in Japan, and Imagr’s $9 million Series A round was led by Toshiba (Imagr has raised $12.5 million in total).

Interest in cashierless checkout was accelerated by the COVID pandemic, as retailers sought to reduce the amount of human-to-human interactions in their stores. But Japan has an added impetus for cashierless checkout because of its aging population, and the need to automate more of its labor force.

In other words, more retailers are going to be checking out cashierless checkout this year.

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