Dive Brief:
- Frictionless checkout system developer Trigo has raised $100 million in equity financing from new and existing investors, the Israeli startup announced Wednesday.
- The firm plans to use its latest round of funding in part to scale its computer vision-based technology for use in larger stores than it currently supports.
- Trigo is among a group of companies looking to build momentum in the nascent market for automated technology that enables shoppers to leave stores without stopping at a checkout counter.
Dive Insight:
Trigo’s announcement that it has taken in a substantial amount of new capital comes as the company looks to bring its technology to more stores in the United States and Europe and build a presence in other parts of the world.
Notably, Trigo also intends to spend some of the money to enable its technology to function in what the company described as “full-sized urban supermarkets” as well as develop its inventory software application suite StoreOS.
The company, which works with retailers including Wakefern Food, Germany’s Rewe Group, U.K.-based Tesco, Israeli grocer chain Shufersal and Netherlands’ Aldi Nord didn’t specify the size of the grocery stores it hopes to bring on line or indicate when it would reveal their locations.
In January, however, Michael Gaby, Trigo’s co-founder and CEO, said the company planned to deploy its technology in a 10,000-square-foot store in 2022 and “much bigger stores” next year, although he didn’t offer further details.
Trigo has to date focused on relatively small retail locations, such as an approximately 4,300-square-foot Aldi Nord store in Utrecht, the Netherlands, and a Tesco location in London that measures about 2,400 square feet. Rivals including Standard, Grabango and Zippin have also concentrated on relatively small retail locations, such as convenience stores, shops on college campuses and ones in sports arenas.
By contrast, Amazon has been installing its Just Walk Out system in a growing number of the company’s supermarkets, such as a 42,000-square-foot Amazon Fresh store that opened last month in Pasadena, California.
Participants in Trigo’s latest funding round include Temasek, an investment firm controlled by the government of Singapore, 83North and German software company SAP SE, which said would help commercialize Trigo’s technology. Existing investors Hetz Ventures, Red Dot Capital Partners, Vertex Ventures, Viola and Rewe also participated.
The round follows $60 million in funding Trigo raised in late 2020.
