INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Amazon and others have raised awareness of how the in-store shopping experience can be sped up (and into the future) using computer vision
to let a person pay for and take away items without ever interacting with a cashier, human or otherwise
Today, a startup is announcing funding for its own take on how to use AI-based video detection get more insights out of the retail
Deep North, which has built an analytics platform that builds insights for retailers based on the the videos from the CCTV and other cameras
that those retailers already use, is today announcing that it has raised $25.7 million in funding, a Series A round that it plans to use to
It says that using cameras to build its insights is more accurate and scalable than current solutions that include devices like beacons,
RFID tags, mobile networks, smartphone tracking and shopping data
A typical installation takes a weekend to do.The funding is being led by London VC Celeres Investments (backer of self-driving startup
Phantom AI, among others), with participation also from Engage, AI List Capital and others
The startup is not disclosing its valuation, and previously Deep North has not disclosed how much it has raised.Previously known as VMAXX,
the Bay Area-based startup, according to CEO and co-founder Rohan Sanil, currently is in use by customers in the US and Europe
It does not disclose customer names, but Sanil said the list includes shopping centers, retailers, commercial real estate businesses and
transportation hubs.There are a number of retail analytics plays on the market today, but up to now the vast majority of them have been
based on using other kinds of non-visual (and non-video) data to build their pictures of how a business is working, including logs of sales,
card payments, in-store beacons, in-store WiFi and smartphone usage.This list is, indeed, extensive and already provides a startling amount
of data on the average shopper, but it has its drawbacks
And that is not the only challenge
already, and a typical big box store has dozens
By leveraging existing video footage to understand activity and behavior, operators can now make informed decisions with the help of their
of data privacy, where people pinpoint it as enemy number one in our rapidly expanding surveillance economy, and have ironically pointed out
that it rarely is fit for the purpose it was originally set out to serve, which is deterring and identifying shoplifters
having these cameras installed, using them for analytics gives that business another way of getting a better return on investment
Further, Deep North does not capture personally identifiable information (PII) and was developed to govern and preserve the integrity of
each and every individual by the highest possible standards of anonymization
Deep North does not retain any PII whatsoever, and only stores derived metadata that produces metrics such as number of entries, number of
Many providers of security cameras have started to incorporate retail analytics into their wider offerings, and those that are concentrating
on check out, like Amazon but also startups like Trigo, are likely also to consider this area too
Longer term, as retailers, but also their IT providers, look to get more intelligence about how their businesses are working in a bid for
products that not only are able to generate insights into how people shop, but then to use to those to build recommendations into how stores
are laid out, or prompts to shoppers for what they might consider next as they browse.
