With great excitement, we have announced in August 2021 that we have raised an additional $10 million in equity funding, bringing the total to $21 million. The round was led by technology growth investor Claridge Israel, with the participation of the company’s existing investors, Entrée Capital, IBI Tech Fund, and Tal Capital. Shopic creates frictionless, personalized shopping experiences in brick-and-mortar stores.
Already deploying our solutions in stores of major grocery chains worldwide, we will use the new funds to accelerate commercial activities and expand our team. Leading grocers and retailers are constantly exploring smart cart technologies to meet the growing demand for frictionless shopping and cashier-less checkout. However, introducing purpose-built smart carts to a store is often operationally complicated and very costly. Shopic overcomes these challenges with an AI-powered clip-on device that can turn any standard shopping cart into a smart cart. It can be deployed with minimal modifications to a store’s infrastructure and layout and still deliver the full benefits of smart cart shopping – an effortless shopping experience without checkout lines while offering a personalized store journey with contextualized promotions. Shopic’s smart cart solution can be deployed in large supermarkets, unlike most other frictionless solutions that are limited to small convenience stores.
“We’re excited to announce this additional funding that will help us progress more rapidly as we expand our solution into new stores and retail partners,” said Raz Golan, CEO and Co-founder of Shopic.
“This investment, from a long-term growth investor such as Claridge Israel, is a vote of confidence in our approach to build and deliver frictionless retail solutions that are practical, immediately deployable, and cost-effective, without having to make major changes to the way stores are run.”
Using computer vision technology, our clip-on device instantly recognizes items placed in or taken out of the cart in real-time, automatically registering them by price and displaying the shopper’s active receipt on the device’s screen. Shopic personalizes the in-store experience by offering digital promotions based on consumers’ previous buying habits, store location, and item selection all in real-time - saving them time and money. For retailers, Shopic’s analytics engine optimizes store management with real-time tracking of shopping carts and store shelves, solving retailers’ lack of information from the moment a shopper enters a store and until they checkout. Shopic provides retailers with live data on a shopping journey and the shopper’s various interactions in the store. This data can be used for footpath personalization, contextual promotions and better understanding of shopping habits.
“Shopic has been developing retail-specific AI for several years, and we’ve gained intimate knowledge of the space and our customers’ unique needs,” said Eran Kravitz, Shopic’s Co-Founder and CTO.
“Our computer vision technology solves many of the challenges of the noisy, visual-heavy environment of big supermarkets, while still delivering fast performance at very high accuracy levels.”
We are already working with some of the largest retailers in Europe, the US, and Israel. Initial deployments indicate that more than 90% of shoppers are enthusiastic about the smart cart and feel their overall shopping experience has improved. Initial data also indicated that shoppers who used Shopic increased their basket size by more than 10%.
“Shopic’s solution provides supermarkets a competitive edge that is affordable and scalable, without having to make significant changes to their stores’ infrastructure,” said Rami Hadar, a Managing Partner at Claridge Israel.
“After following the industry closely over the last few years, we truly believe that Shopic offers the most scalable, economically efficient solution and we look forward to supporting the company on its journey in becoming a leader in its space.” Oded Tal, Founding Managing Partner of Claridge Israel, will be joining Shopic’s Board of Directors.