Contactles stores will expand in Europe and Sensei will earn another $16 million

While Amazon Go pioneered the completely touchless store concept, others like 7-Eleven and Walmart have entered this territory. The area is growing, in part because several startups – similar to Standard Cognition, Zippin, AiFi, Grabango, Trigo – have expanded to supply their technologies to retailers.

But in Europe, a Portuguese startup Sensei is developing a contactless store platform and has now secured a €15 million Series A funding round led by BlueCrow Capital. New investors Lince Capital, Explorer Investments and Kamay Ventures (the investment arm of Coca-Cola and Arcor Group), in addition to existing investors Metro AG and Techstars Ventures, also participated in the meeting.

In 2021, based in Lisbon Sensei raised a seed round value $6.5 million (€5.4 million). Then he managed the financing Just like these ventures AND The capital of Iberiswith participation from 200M fund.

The startup currently plans to create 1,000 fully autonomous sales points by 2026. It already serves clients in Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Brazil, and plans to expand into Central and Northern Europe.

Using computer vision, AI-powered sensors and real-time algorithms, the Sensei system mechanically updates the shopper’s basket and displays a listing of things ready for payment, with identity and privacy protected.

Touchless stores reduce checkout costs, prevent out-of-stocks and provide retailers with real-time visibility into store operations.

During the decision, Vasco Portugal, CEO and co-founder of Sensei, said: “We are growing, especially in the last year, we have almost doubled the number of stores. So we opened stores in a short time. We are now present in five locations.”

“There are two problems in the retail industry. The customer experience sucks. Second, it is extremely difficult to process all sales information in real time. It’s really about shop automation, like automotive automation and factory automation. I believe it is a natural change,” he added.

António de Mello Campello, partner at BlueCrow Capital, added in an announcement: “Artificial intelligence… is transforming several industries and we believe that retail represents one of the biggest opportunities and will soon be disrupted. Sensei has proven to be one of the best in the industry.”

Taking all this into consideration, competition in space is big.

Standard Cognition raised $239.4 million, Wheat $199 million, Grabango $93.8 million, AiFi $87.1 million and Zippin $44 million.