While Amazon Go helped pioneer the concept of a completely contactless store, others, like 7-Eleven and Walmart, have entered the territory. And the field is growing, in part because several startups – such as Standard Cognition, Zippin, AiFi, Grabango, Trigo – have proliferated, offering their technology to retailers.
But in Europe, Portuguese startup Sensei has been developing its contactless store platform and has now raised €15 million in Series A funding led by BlueCrow Capital. Also present were new investors Lince Capital, Explorer Investments and Kamay Ventures (the investment arm of Coca-Cola and Arcor Group), as well as existing investors Metro AG and Techstars Ventures.
In 2021, Lisbon-based Sensei raised a funding round of $6.5 million (€5.4 million). At the time, the financing was led by Seaya Ventures and Iberis Capital, with participation from Fund 200M.
The startup is now targeting 1,000 fully autonomous points of sale by 2026. It already operates with clients in Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Brazil, and plans to expand into Central and Northern Europe.
Using computer vision, AI-based sensors and real-time algorithms, Sensei’s system automatically updates a customer’s shopping cart and displays a list of ready-to-pay items, with a Identity and confidentiality protected.
Contactless stores reduce checkout costs, prevent out-of-stocks and provide retailers with real-time visibility into store operations.
In a call with Vasco Portugal, CEO and co-founder of Sensei, he said the company “has been growing, especially in the last year. . . We are now present in five geographic zones.
“There are two problems in the retail sector. The experience for customers sucks. Second, it is very difficult to process all sales information in real time. Now it’s really about store automation, like car automation and factory automation. I think it’s a natural transition,” he added.
The competition in the space is enormous. Other competitors looking to raise significant funds from investors include Standard Cognition, which has raised $239.4 million; Trigo, which raised $199 million; Grabango, which raised $93.8 million; AiFi, which raised $87.1 million; and Zippin, which raised $44 million.