TEL AVIV, Israel & COLOGNE, Germany–(BUSINESS WIRE)–This replaces the announcement made at 3: 10 AM ET on June 16th 2021 due to an editing error in paragraphs six and seven.
The updated release reads:
REWE Group, Viola Growth Investment Takes Trigo’s Total Funding Over $100M
Trigo, an Israel-based computer vision company disrupting retail with frictionless checkout technology, has today announced an investment from German retail giant REWE Group, and Viola Growth, a top Israeli tech investment firm. The new investments take Trigo’s total fundraising to over $100M.
Trigo is also announcing its new partnership with REWE Group to deliver a “grab-and-go” shopping experience to REWE customers in a new store in downtown Cologne.
REWE, Germany’s second largest grocery retailer with 3,700 stores, is the second major European grocer to both open frictionless stores with Trigo and invest in the startup, following Tesco PLC’s similar moves in 2020.
REWE is the first grocery retailer in Germany to implement a checkout-free experience under real conditions. This builds on Trigo’s ongoing work with Tesco PLC, the largest grocery retailer in the UK, and Shufersal, Israel’s largest supermarket chain.
Smart checkout solutions are expected to process nearly $400 billion of transactions by 2025, according to Juniper Research. Trigo’s analysis of Kantar supermarket data shows there are around 500,000 convenience and small grocery stores worldwide that have the potential to be retrofitted with AI-based frictionless technology. Around 120,000 of them are in the EU alone.
Michael Gabay, Trigo co-founder and CEO said: “Trigo is immensely proud and honored to be deepening its partnership with REWE Group, one of Europe’s biggest and most innovative grocery retailers. REWE have placed their trust in Trigo’s privacy-by-design architecture, and we look forward to bringing this exciting technology to German grocery shoppers. We are also looking forward to working with Viola Growth, an iconic investment firm backing some of Israel’s top startups.”
Christoph Eltze, Executive Board Member Digital, Customer & Analytics REWE Group, said: “With today’s rapid technological developments, it is crucial to find the right partners. REWE Group is investing in its partnership with Trigo, who we believe is one of the leading companies in computer vision technologies for smart stores.”
Eran Westman, Partner at Viola Growth, said: “Frictionless shopping is rapidly becoming a ubiquitous demand among retailers all over the world. We’ve been following Trigo for the past several years and we believe their superior technology and unique offering to top retailers positions them to lead this category and change the way people shop all over the world”.
Founded in 1927, REWE operates over 3,700 stores in Germany and employs over 161,000 people. It’s partnership with Trigo is run out of REWE digital’s Research & Innovation Department.
REWE’s new store near Cologne’s Neumarkt, implements Trigo’s GDPR compliant, privacy-by-design AI architecture and is compliant with Germany’s rigorous data protection legislation. Trigo’s technology does not use facial recognition, nor does it capture biometric data or hold any direct identifiers of customers. The system recognizes shoppers’ movement while they’re in the store but does not know who they are at any stage.
About Trigo
Trigo is a computer vision startup leveraging world class AI and algorithmics experts to build an advanced retail automation platform which identifies customers’ shopping items with exceptional levels of accuracy, creating an entirely seamless checkout process. Trigo works closely with retailers to convert their existing stores while maintaining their unique character and layout and leveraging their physical grocery scale to roll out next-generation offerings securely. Trigo offers grocery retailers a range of additional solutions powered by its 3D engine model called StoreOS™, including predictive inventory management, pricing optimization, security and fraud prevention, planogram compliance, and event-driven marketing. This layer quickly enables actionable insight that boosts the chain’s efficiency. Please visit Trigo for more information.