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Cashierless checkout company Zippin raises $30M

The cashierless technology shift continues apace with today’s news that Zippin has raised $30 million in a series B round of funding. The San Francisco-based company is one of several players in the space to gain traction for a technology that seeks to not only make supermarket queues obsolete, but also generate big data insights for retailers.

Founded in 2018, Zippin leverages AI, cameras, and smart shelf sensors to enable shoppers to place items in their cart and walk out without waiting. The company opened its first checkout-free store in San Francisco back in 2018, and it has since entered into partnerships with the likes of Aramark, Sberbank, and the Sacramento Kings’ Golden 1 Center to power cashierless stores globally.

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SAP.iO Co-Leads Innovation with Munich’s SAP Garden

SAP announced its first-ever fan experience–focused startup accelerator program. From the latest SAP.iO Foundry location in Munich, eight startups have been chosen to participate in the upcoming fall cohort held in collaboration with SAP Garden, a multipurpose sports arena being built by Red Bull in Munich’s Olympiapark.

The collaboration aims to identify innovative technologies for use in in the stadium. SAP Garden will be the new home for local top teams EHC Red Bull München and FC Bayern München Basketball as well as for public ice sports.

Red Bull and FC Bayern München have been longtime SAP customers. With a passion for innovation, creativity and success, the three stakeholders are coming together to pool their expertise to set new standards for the fan experience.

“Together with our long-standing partners and customers Red Bull and FC Bayern, we want to create unforgettable fan experiences in the SAP Garden,” said Thomas Saueressig, member of the Executive Board of SAP SE and responsible for SAP Product Engineering. “The SAP Garden will show innovative solutions and technologies from SAP and startups that put fans front and center. We are looking forward to working together with the cohort to build tailor-made solutions that elevate the fan experience in the SAP Garden.”

SAP.iO Foundry Munich is part of SAP’s strategic business unit designed to accelerate innovation and drive new business models for SAP. The SAP.iO Foundries program is a global network of equity-free accelerator programs located in strategic hubs. It provides startups with access to mentorship, exposure to SAP technologies, and opportunities to meet and collaborate with SAP customers.

The selected startups will work closely with mentors at SAP, Red Bull and FC Bayern to develop proofs-of- concept, access SAP technology and application programmable interfaces (APIs), and identify opportunities to collaborate with SAP executives and customers. The accelerator program will run for three months and conclude with a demo day in early December.

The cohort consists of the following startups:

  • Ariadne Maps provides a crowd analytics platform enabling retailers to infer meaningful insights from traffic data and trends to optimize advertising and marketing, maximize sales and offer the best service to visitors.
  • MultiBall merges sports and gaming, using fully immersive interactive solutions that combine fitness, entertainment and education while providing marketing opportunities for businesses.
  • io is reinventing the sports fan experience using augmented reality, allowing spectators to visualize and interact with live data, which is directly overlaid on top of the pitch and even on top of the players — in stadium or at home.
  • INS Insider Navigation Systems delivers a hardware-independent augmented reality indoor navigation system enabling precise 3D positioning, intuitive navigation and location-based AR content.
  • Pico turns engaged, anonymous online fans into identifiable customer profiles through personalized, one-to-one messaging, driving conversion from existing digital channels and increased revenue from enhanced sponsorships, tickets and merchandise sales.
  • TAWNY offers an emotion analytics software-as-a-service solution to capture and analyze human affective states driving consumer decisions and behavior.
  • Wagawin drives user engagement with interactive advertisements, allowing businesses to gain unique audience insights leading to more customized advertising options.
  • Zippin enables retailers to quickly deploy frictionless shopping in their stores, by employing artificial intelligence, machine learning and sensor fusion technology to create the best consumer experience. In December 2019, Zippin raised a $12 million Series A funding round, in which the SAP.iO program was a contributing investor.

Zippin closes Series A funding round with $12m

Retail checkout-free technology provider Zippin has concluded a Series A funding round, with $12m, taking the company’s total funding to $15m.

The latest funding round was led by Evolv Ventures, which is a Kraft Heinz-backed venture fund focused on investing in tech companies involved in transforming the food and consumer packaged goods industry.

Other investors include SAP.iO, Scrum Ventures, Arca Continental, Nomura Research Institute and NTT DOCOMO Ventures.

Zippin’s existing investors Maven Ventures, Core Ventures Group, Pear Ventures and Montage Ventures were also part of the funding round.

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