Trigo Lands $22M For Cashierless Grocery Checkout

Israeli-based technology company Trigo raised $22M in a Series A funding round for its automated grocery checkout technology, according to a report by TechCrunch.

The company wants to use cameras and artificial intelligence (AI)-powered software to track what a customer gets without them ever having to go through a checkout process. Amazon Go has also been developing this technology, but at a smaller scale.

Trigo is marketing to large supermarkets with its technology. Red Dot Capital led the funding round, and Vertex Ventures and Hetz Ventures participated. Combined with previous funding, Trigo has raised $29 million in total so far, but is not disclosing its valuation.

Trigo said it had numerous deals in place to install its technology, including Tesco, the U.K.’s largest grocery chain, and Shufersal, the largest grocery store in Israel. The tech will go up in 280 Shufersal stores in the next five years.

A series of cameras in the store will monitor shoppers and keep track of what they put in their baskets, but the camera system uses triangulation, not just recording, as it has to be able to tell when people take things out of their carts, as well. 

“I don’t actually think people really want grocery eCommerce,” Ran Peled, VP of marketing, said. “They do that because the supermarket experience has become worse with the years. We are very much committed to helping brick and mortar stores return to the time of a few decades ago, when it was fun to go to the supermarket. What would happen if a store could have an entirely new OS that is based on computer vision?”

Trigo, unlike Amazon Go, isn’t tethered to any of the products being sold and can work with or without loyalty cards.

“We believe that Trigo’s world-leading computer-vision team will be the first to scale this technology globally and unlock the full potential of a true grocery-wide revolution,” said Barak Salomon, managing partner of Red Dot Capital. “The process of manually scanning barcodes for each separate item at checkout is outdated and time consuming. Trigo’s technology is going to save brick and mortar, revitalizing the in-store experience while keeping the best part of shopping alive.”