INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Valued at $535 million, autonomous retail startup Standard Cognition has emerged as a soon-to-be tech giant and the best hope for merchants
to compete with Amazon Go
partner with it, exposing data it could use against them.The $86 million-funded Standard Cognition is racing to equip storefronts with an
independent alternative using cameras to track what customers grab and charge them
customers swipe a payment card when entering a smaller kiosk or store, pick up items that are detected by cameras, and simply walk out while
having their card charged
The idea is that businesses could operate satellite micro-storefronts in malls, apartment buildings and more without staff
DeepMagic was easier to deploy since the kiosks were built from the ground up to eliminate annoying checkout lines.Standard Cognition CEO
and co-founder Jordan FisherStandard Cognition meanwhile focuses on retrofitting full-sized grocers and other stores like one in minor
It currently has one experimental shop of its own in San Francisco
much bigger market of existing storefronts
It claims it can grow profit margins for shops by up to 100%.Standard Cognition sees the smaller footprint spots outfitted by DeepMagic as a
crucial piece of the autonomous retail landscape
$150,000 from angel investors since starting in New York in 2017
Yet Standard Cognition, which was founded a few months later, raised a $35 million Series B in July from EQT Ventures and Initialized
It has become a center of gravity in cashierless tech, having pulled in half the total $118 million invested in the space in 2018
the buying spree is getting to market first
I think this is going to be a very fast market
startups like direct competitor Zippin, Trigo, and Grabango
what items disappear from shelves
18 or so Go stores to equipping other businesses
