London Tech Week 2018: 13 Retail-Tech Startups We Met

The Coresight Research team attended two retail-tech startup pitch events that took place during London Tech Week 2018 held June 11–17: Tech London Advocates’ Retail Tech 50 at startup incubator Cocoon Networks and Project Kairos London’s Retail Tech Pitch at trade show TechXLR8.

Five Startups at Tech London Advocates’ Retail Tech 50

All the startups that participated in Tech London Advocates’ are based in London. MishiPay: A mobile self-checkout technology, MishiPay uses radio-frequency identification (RFID) to offer a checkout-free in-store shopping experience. Users scan the barcode of the product using the MishiPay app to add to their cart, pay using their phone and simply walk out with the purchased products. French home-improvement retailer Leroy Marlin reduced in-store checkout time by 90% by adopting MishiPay’s technology. German electronics retailer Saturn launched a new concept store with no physical checkouts, thanks to its collaboration with MishiPay. Third Eye: An AR and computer vision company, Third Eye offers software that monitors and tracks retailers’ physical store space to detect issues including stock out, queuing and theft, and as a tool to analyze data such as customers’ baskets and the performance of new product displays. PoQ: Through its software as a service (SaaS) platform, PoQ helps retailers create their mobile shopping app. Through the platform, retailers can easily manage the app content, integrate their e-commerce backend to populate the app and monitor the performance through Google Analytics integration. PoQ’s clients includes pure-play retailers Missguided, Made.com and PrettyLittleThings. Yapster: Yapster uses its back-end app to connect retail and hospitality staff to enable mobile team members to interact and work together, making teamwork more efficient. Yapster’s customers include retailer Ann Summers and food service firms Krispy Kreme and Caffè Nero. Mercaux: Through its omnichannel commerce platform, Mercaux enables retailers to digitize their brick-and-mortar retailing operations. The technology includes an app for store staff through which they can access information such as inventory levels, customer history and preferences, and communication from the head office, and a portal for head office for content and analytics through the access of customer data and store performance. Mercaux’s technology also includes a customer-facing app through which shoppers can access digital information of items displayed in-store, get recommendations for alternatives or for items to pair with, and that enables them to pay via the app. Mercaux’s clients include retailers French Connection, United Colors of Benetton and Finn Flare and Dufry.

Eight Startups at Project Kairos London’s Retail Tech Pitch at Trade Show TechXLR8

Below, we highlight eight retail-tech startups that showcased their businesses at Project Kairos London at TechXLR8. Appcent: An e-commerce mobile application development company based in Istanbul, Turkey, Appcent offers a product that helps retailers assist customers using their app. If a transaction made through the app does not go through or if the app crashes, a pop-up window integrated in the app comes up, enabling the user to communicate the problem directly to the retailer, who can solve it and help completing the user’s mobile shopping experience. Datapare: An artificial intelligence (AI) and big data company based in San Francisco, Datapare offers a platform to help retailers track and monitor the competition, giving the insight to better inform business decisions. The platform tracks competitors’ activity and automates market research, collects and analyzes competitors’ product changes and trends, and makes automated product-based price comparisons. Digital Pop-Ups: An AR company based in London, UK, Digital Pop-Ups enables retailers to increase client engagement by embedding AR experiences on their websites. The company provides everything from concept design, user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) design, graphic design, 3D modeling, animation and coding. Planckly: A brand of UK-based Techwisely Ltd, Planckly is a self-checkout platform that enables shoppers to scan product barcodes and pay as they shop. At the end of the shopping journey, the app generates a QR code that represents the receipt and that can be shown to the store staff if they request it. Prodaft: A Swiss-based tech company that provides cybersecurity to e-commerce platforms, Prodaft protects e-commerce businesses from attacks by performing penetration testing, cyber-attack drills, code auditing and security trainings. Scrivito: A Germany-based company, Scrivito offers a SaaS website-editing platform that enables editors to place content directly on the website exactly where they want, and to build pages without the need for developers. Servo Kiosk: A company based in Istanbul, Turkey, Servo Kiosk is a fresh-food automated sales kiosk that enables users to unlock the machine’s door by scanning an app installed on their smartphones. The credit card that is registered on the app is charged automatically for the items the customer picks up when they close the machine’s door. Yobo: A Germany-based company, Yobo offers a local exploration app based on AI that give recommendations based on the user’s personal local preferences. Yobo’s users share pictures of places with each other. The app uses picture-recognition technology and AI to further analyze those pictures to be able to recommend places that match the user’s real-time situation and preferences.