R&D partnership Millenium Food-Tech has led a $10 million financing round in AI-powered checkout platform Supersmart. Together with other investors, the partnership will invest up to $5m. dollars for Supersmart’s developments; the company intends to use the funding to grow itself and its worldwide customer base, as well as re-enforcing its technology, expanding marketing, and developing new products.
“The belief shown in us by Millennium Food-Tech, as well as existing investors and the world’s leading marketing chains, establishes Supersmart as a leading solution, which upgrades the customer experience, in an easily applied way, and through which checkout lines will become a thing of the past,” said Supersmart CFO Ofer Ilan. “We are excited about the installation of our technology in new markets around the world. Together with the marketing chains, we can provide and lead genuine change in the retail world. The investment in question will help us as a company to further the development of the product and expand into additional markets.”
Supersmart’s technology enables shoppers to get in and out of the supermarket faster by means of a proprietary scanning unit placed at the store’s exit, which uses AI, cameras, weight sensors to validate a customer’s purchases without the need for a checkout. Customers pay via app or special pay station, and can walk out the door within three seconds, bypassing the need to wait in line for a cashier completely.
This technology has already been employed by German supermarket chains Edeka, Selgros, and Metro, as well as retail stores spanning eastern Europe; it is currently being installed in the United States, and can be found in Israel in the grocery chain Osher Ad.
“We believe that the retail tech sector will take a huge leap in the [coming] years, that will challenge both consumer and retailer pain points,” said Yossi Hallevi, Business Development Manager at Millenium Food-Tech. “We are sure that SuperSmart [...] are the number one solution to seamlessly solve these pain points.”
Millennium Food-Tech’s investment comes two weeks after it led a round which raised another $70m. in financing for TIPA, a biodegradable plastic packaging company. Since its Initial Public Offering, Millennial Food-Tech has invested in several other food-tech startups, including several plant-based dairy alternative companies, natural food coloring R&D company Phytolon, and Griin Roasting (now Ansā), which provides an AI-powered countertop coffee roaster which promotes sustainable and environmentally-conscious roasting.