Shufersal, Israel’s largest supermarket chain, has signed an agreement to install computer vision startup Trigo Vision’s automated retail platform across its 272 stores.
Shufersal will aim to offer customers a completely seamless shopping experience similar to Amazon Go.
In July 2018, Trigo Vision won a seed round of $7 million funding by UK-Israel based Hetz Ventures and Vertex Ventures Israel. Using AI, Trigo Vision combines a ceiling-based camera network with machine vision algorithms to eliminate the need for a checkout process. The cameras identify and capture customers’ shopping items as they move around the store.
‘We are very excited to begin the process of development and embedding of Trigo Vision’s retail automation platform in order to offer our customers a completely seamless checkout experience,’ said Itzik Abercohen, CEO of Shufersal. ‘Customer satisfaction is one of Shufersal’s main guiding principles with technology playing a big role. We believe our cooperation with Trigo will transform the shopping experience and will minimise our customers' friction points in the stores.
‘This venture will also drive efficiency and minimise costs across our operation. Its scalability and flexibility also means that we can roll out this technology across all of our stores, whether small express shops or larger hypermarkets,’ Abercohen added.
Michael Gabay, CEO and co-founder of Trigo Vision, said: ‘This deal will accelerate our development in a real store environment with real customers rather than trialling our technology in a concept store or lab development. We strongly believe this is the right approach to develop cutting-edge technology that brings value to customers.’
Trigo Vision’s founders have gained experience working on complex projects for Israel’s military intelligence. The company’s computer vision technology needs fewer cameras compared to other solutions on the market, according to Trigo.
Coupled with a data collection process, Trigo Vision provides precise identification of products, underlining the company’s competitive advantage. Complementing this, the company’s platform offers retailers flexibility and scalability for deployment into a store of any size, without requiring any type of change to its layout or structure.
The company’s system is also GDPR-compliant and collects data anonymously without attaching personal identities to it.
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