Are imperfect robots ... perfect?
Greetings, Pulse Subscribers!
30 Forge Retail Pulses? How the time flies. We appreciate your being along for the ride. Now, let’s get to business. Here’s the agenda:
The marketplace of marketplaces
Grab-and-go at the stadium
Buy-now-pay-later at the mall
An imperfect tortilla chip-making robot?
Insights and advice from an e-commerce expert
Registration is open for our Future of Delivery Showcase
Let’s go!
Startup Deals
Retail Technology Solutions | While e-commerce has boomed in the last several years, over 85% of 2021 retail sales still happened in brick-and-mortar stores. For retailers, offering the connected, customized, and streamlined experience of e-commerce at physical stores can be a challenge. Swiftly promises engaging and personalized digital shopping experiences in the brick-and-mortar store with a suite of products including omnichannel retail tools, a turnkey mobile platform, and retail media, all powered by customer data and analytics. The platform helps retailers create a seamless in-store mobile checkout experience with greater product and pricing visibility, personalized product recommendations based on customer data, and personalized discounts and rewards. Swiftly boasts a 40% increase in-store trips, 51% higher annual spend, and 45% increase in shopper basket size. It has helped connect the digital and in-store experience for clients like Family Dollar and The Save Mart Companies and recently raised $100 million in Series B funding.
Marketplace Connector | Within the e-commerce boom, we’ve also seen the growth of marketplaces – sites that aggregate a multitude of retailers to create a one-stop-shop for consumers looking for goods. While Amazon may be the first that comes to mind, there are hundreds of marketplaces worldwide filled with eager shoppers. ChannelEngine could be called the marketplace of marketplaces. With its platform, retailers can sell in over 200 marketplaces, through one integrated connection. ChannelEngine ensures product information and stock levels are synchronized and up to date across marketplaces, while orders are sent directly to clients’ own back-end systems. Utilizing the most important local and major marketplaces, ChannelEngine gets products in front of more customers while offering complete control over what is sold and where, market-specific pricing, currency conversion, and more. Clients include Walmart, H&M, Ahold Delhaize, and Staples. ChannelEngine recently raised $50 million in Series B funding.
Autonomous Retail | Autonomous retail, aka grab-and-go shopping, lets customers simply pick up what they need and leave without having to stop at a register. The speed and convenience are obvious – imagine no more lines at a retail store – but implementation can be costly and time-consuming. AiFi offers a flexible AI platform that enables retailers to affordably deploy and scale autonomous shopping as part of an end-to-end omnichannel experience. Using a camera-only solution powered by advanced tracking algorithms that can scale up to 10,000 square feet, AiFi supports various shopper journeys such as app, credit card, gated, or hybrid entry. By adapting to existing store formats, AiFi makes switching to autonomous retail simple, which explains why it has the most computer vision-powered autonomous stores across the globe. With customers that include ALDI South Group, Carrefour, Compass Group, and the Detroit Lions (where line time was reduced by 50% and per cap sales increased by 170%), AiFi recently raised $65 million in Series B funding.
Corporate + Startup Partnerships
Chipotle + Miso Robotics | It’s the same story across the country: Restaurants can’t find enough people to fill empty roles. So what can they do? Increase efficiency. Miso Robotics has partnered with Chipotle to create “Chippy,” a robotic system developed to deep-fry and season tortilla chips. Most interesting is Chipotle’s request that the bot not make perfect chips, but instead mimic the inconsistencies (like extra-salty nooks) that occur when human employees make the chips. This is so they don’t “lose the humanity” of their food, according to Nevielle Panthaky, Chipotle’s vice president of culinary. As the current labor shortage seems to have no end in sight, robotic adaptation could be a sector ripe for growth. How these bots fare, and how their products stack up to those made by humans, is a story worth keeping an eye on. Learn more about this partnership and Chippy (and its brothers, Flippy and Sippy) below.
Brookfield Properties + Klarna | By-now-pay-later (BNPL) startup Klarna has made its presence felt in physical retail with in-store services in nearly 80,000 stores globally. Adding to its impressive reach, last month Klarna partnered with Brookfield Properties, one of the largest real estate developers in the US, to exclusively offer its BNPL solution in over 150 shopping centers across the country. In addition, Klarna will elevate the in-store shopping experience for millions of customers through innovative activations, including out-of-home media, livestream shopping, augmented reality, and more. As in-store shopping returns to pre-pandemic levels, adding BNPL to the mall experience could push retail to new heights.
Essential Industry Reads
Two-day shipping or online grocery delivery were once seen as high-ticket items for select customers. Now, they’re what everyone expects. As expectations rise, quick commerce (think 30-minute delivery for anything) has as well. Our upcoming April 21 Showcase on the Future of Delivery (see below) will feature an exclusive panel discussion with quick-commerce players, but for today, the team at Bain has taken a look at just how much quick commerce has grown. Specifically, they dive into how mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in the retail sector have boosted startups to national prominence and helped established brands find new ways to wow their customers. With an overview of the current quick-commerce M&A landscape, data-backed evidence, and solid advice on how retailers can stay ahead of the curve when it comes to quick commerce, this piece is a must-read for those looking to accelerate their delivery times.
Over on the StrictlyVC Download podcast, host Connie Loizos interviews Forerunner Ventures founder and managing partner Kristen Green, fresh off closing her latest $1 billion fund. An early investor in brands such as Glossier, Bonobos, and Dollar Shave Club, Green gives an insider's view of the rise of e-commerce and how brands can differentiate themselves in a crowded market. With insights into the latest trends (e.g., metaverse, Web3, solopreneurs, livestream shopping), what Forerunner looks for in the companies it invests in, and more, Green offers an expert's perspective on consumers and their unique needs, as well as the modern history of e-commerce from someone who’s been there from the beginning. Click below to listen to their conversation.
Forge Retail Showcase
Registration is open for our next Forge Retail Showcase on Thursday, April 21st from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm ET. During the event, we’ll focus on the Future of Delivery and hear from DoorDash, Zipline, Food Rocket, and Cartken about the latest innovations in delivery technologies. We look forward to seeing you there!
If you enjoyed reading this edition of Retail Pulse, please subscribe below to receive our future editions and early invitations to our Forge Retail Showcase events.
See you in two weeks!