US-based Grabango, a supplier of checkout-free technology to major grocery store chains, announced on 7 June 2021 that it has raised US$ 39 million in a Series B round of funding.
Investors: The funding round was led by Commerce Ventures with participation from Founders Fund, Unilever Ventures, Honeywell Ventures, and WIND Ventures. The total amount of funding raised by the company stands at US$ 71.2 million to date.
About Grabandgo
Founded in 2016 by Will Glaser, Grabango retrofits stores with overhead cameras and artificial intelligence to keep track of what customers take and put in their baskets automatically. Users will just have to download the Grabango app and shop as usual. At the time of checkout, they scan a QR code generated by the app at a Grabango checkout kiosk and their account gets debited automatically.
Cashier-less checkout or contactless payment is gaining momentum worldwide, as a result of the pandemic. There are many companies that have emerged in this space. Some of them are Zippin and Amazon that retrofit stores with cameras to keep track of purchases, while Caper and Veeve use smart shopping carts. Some of the startups are also collaborating with big retailers – AiFi is working with Wundermart and Caper’s smart carts are being used by Kroger.
Retailers are on the constant lookout for ways to reduce human-to-human interactions in stores. Cashier-less checkouts have made this possible. A cashier doesn’t become the source of transmission of the virus among many different people. The cashier-less technology is still new and people will definitely take time to adjust. As the pandemic recedes, implementation of these systems will still take time to evaluate and roll out.
Grabango is being used by Giant Eagle’s GetGo market in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and earlier this year Grabango also released some stats on how it was being used. Some findings from its internal survey included –
· 50 percent of users were 45 or older
· More than 80 percent of visits were repeated visits
· Shoppers spent 1.3 seconds checking out during peak hours
· Refund requests were less than 0.03 percent of total volume, indicating high revenue accuracy
“The new funding coincides with additional store deployments with current and new customers in 2021. We have signed five retail partners, including a global top-10 grocer and multi-store deployments are underway at several of them,” said the company in a statement.
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