[ad_1]
Stock robots are having a moment. Two days ago, Swiss company Verity announced an $11 million increase. That followed a $20 million round from fellow drone inventory startup B Garage, which in turn arrived two days after Gather AI announced it had acquired competitor Ware. That same day, Dexory announced $19 million for its back-of-house shelf-scanning robot.
Doing inventory sucks. A lot of. Aside from dealing with the occasional irate customer, it was always my most dreaded aspect of working in retail. Since it effectively amounts to collecting and managing data at scale, it is a prime candidate for automation.
Simbe Robotics announced this week that it has also received new funding. The $28 million Series B led by Eclipse follows a $26 million Series A at the end of 2019 and brings total funding to $54 million. It follows news from March that BJ’s Wholesale Club is rolling out Simbe’s Tally robotics to all of its locations.
Simbe distinguishes itself from the above companies by its focus on front-of-store operations. Tally is designed to keep an eye on shelves and check for missing items that may have been replaced or stolen. It’s a job that traditionally involves hours of human labor and shop closures (or night shifts). It’s also one for shelves that are generally slightly lower than what’s seen in a warehouse, and offers retailers good PR by allowing branded robots to cruise down the aisles with customers.
By contrast, having a robot cruise through the store makes tasks more dynamic and can reduce the amount of time a shelf remains empty. These existing issues have, of course, only been accelerated by the events of recent years. First there were closures for non-essential businesses, then supply chain concerns and labor shortages. No doubt retailers have only become more interested in automating these kinds of tasks.
“Elevating the shopping experience for everyone – retailers, their employees and customers – through AI and robotics is the foundation of Simbe’s mission,” said Simbe co-founder and CEO Brad Bogolea in a release, ” and this funding enables us to share this vision and renewed experience with more retail partners around the world.”
Simbe highlights the following statistics from the past year:
- Serviced to 12 of the 250 largest global retailers in the Americas, Europe and the Middle East, including BJ’s Wholesale, Schnucks Markets, SpartanNash, Wakefern, Carrefour and more
- Over 12 billion shelf photos processed
- More than 5 billion products analyzed for on-shelf availability and price accuracy
- Completed over 1.7 million hours of fully autonomous data collection with store associates and customers
The startup is emphasizing the human element in that last bullet point, no doubt in an effort to get ahead of the criticism surrounding job automation.
Unless acquisition is the end goal, diversifying one’s customer list is always a good idea as well. Competitor Bossa Nova Robotics famously got the kneecap when Walmart terminated a contract with the startup in late 2020.
[ad_2]
Source link