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While Amazon Go helped pioneer the concept of a completely contactless store, other stores, such as 7-Eleven and Walmart, have entered the area. The field is growing, in part due to the proliferation of several startups — such as Standard Cognition, Zippin, AiFi, Grabango, and Trigo — offering their technology to retailers.
But in Europe, Portuguese startups Sensei It is developing its contactless store platform and has now secured a €15 million Series A funding round led by BlueCrow Capital. New investors such as Lince Capital, Explorer Investments and Kamay Ventures (the investment arm of Coca-Cola and Arcor Group) also participated, in addition to existing investors Metro AG and Techstars Ventures.
In 2021 and based in Lisbon Sensei It raised a seed round worth $6.5 million (5.4 million euros). Then it was finance led Siaya projects and Iberis CapitalWith participation from 200 million fund.
The startup now aims to create 1,000 fully autonomous points of sale by 2026. It already works 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, the Sensei system automatically updates a customer’s cart and displays a list of items ready for checkout, while protecting identity and privacy.
Contactless stores reduce checkout costs, prevent stock-outs, and provide retailers with real-time visibility into store operations.
“We have had growth, especially in the last year, we have almost doubled the number of stores,” said Vasco Portugal, CEO and co-founder of Sensei, during a phone call. “So, in a short period of time we have opened stores. We are now present in five geographic regions.” .
“There are two problems in the retail industry. The customer experience is poor. Secondly, it is very difficult to process all the sales information in real time. Now, it is really about store automation, like car automation and factory automation. I think it is a natural shift,” he added.
“AI…is transforming many industries, and we believe retail is one of the biggest opportunities and is poised to be disrupted,” Antonio de Mello Campello, partner at BlueCrow Capital, added in a statement. Sensei has proven to be one of the best in the sector.
With all that said, the competition in the space is enormous.
Standard Cognition raised $239.4 million, Trigo $199 million, Grabango $93.8 million, AiFi $87.1 million, and Zippin $44 million.
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