Kraft Heinz-backed venture hub leads $12m investment in cashierless checkout startup Zippin
“We’re excited to join Zippin’s journey as these new formats become critical to the transition currently underway in retail,” said Smriti Jayaraman, principal at Evolv Ventures.
“Zippin’s technology also offers CPG brands, which have previously been at arm’s length from the point of sale, a unique set of opportunities to participate in the customer journey.”
This round brings the company’s total funding to $15m and will allow Zippin to further invest in product innovation, grow its technical team and expand sales and partnership efforts.
Other investors in the round include SAP.iO, Scrum Ventures, major Latin American distributor Arca Continental, and Nomura Research Institute and NTT DOCOMO Ventures from Japan. Existing investors Maven Ventures, Core Ventures Group, Pear Ventures and Montage Ventures also participated in the over-subscribed round.
“When we launched the Zippin platform for retailers in 2018, we removed friction from the checkout process. With the Zippin Cube, we are aiming to remove friction from bringing that experience to retail stores,” said Krishna Motukuri, CEO of Zippin.
The company is powering four autonomous public stores and several private pilot stores globally. According to the tech startup, US consumers spend an average of 118 hours waiting in line each year.
With Zippin’s technology, which uses a combination of computer vision, AI, and sensor fusion technology, to create a checkout free experience, all shoppers have to do is download a mobile app and scan it before entering a store.
With the funding Zippin plans to open new stores for grocery and convenience chains, sports facilities, airports, and more.
The Sacramento Kings’ venue also marks the launch of the ‘Zippin Cube’, a unique modular, pre-fabricated ‘store-in-a-box’ concept that allows retailers to launch a fully functional autonomous microstore (300 – 500 sq. ft) in less than three weeks from placing the order.
“We obsess about retail operations and physical infrastructure just as much as we obsess about AI and computer vision. That’s why we have more operational public stores than most other startups in the checkout-free space.”
