Amazon quits rival after failing to secure funding | Wilnesh News

Grabango, a venture-backed startup, is racing to Amazon Cashless checkout technology company shuts down after being unable to raise enough capital to stay afloat.

“While the company has established itself as a leader in checkout-free technology, it has been unable to secure the funding it needs to continue serving customers,” a spokesperson said in a statement to CNBC on Wednesday. “The company thanks its employees, The hard work and dedication of investors and customers.”

food technology publications spoon Grabango’s closure was reported earlier.

Grabango launched in 2016 while developing checkout-free technology that uses computer vision and machine learning to track and count items as shoppers pick them up from store shelves. Grabango founder and CEO Will Glaser is a longtime Bay Area technologist and co-founder of the music streaming service Pandora.

The company employs approximately 100 people, According to LinkedIn and brochures.

Grabango has raised just over $73 million, Pitchbook data shows, with its largest funding round set to take place before the market turns in 2021. In June of that year, Grabango raises $39 million The round was led by Commerce Ventures, Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund and Unilever and Honeywell.

In February, Glaser told Axios The company plans to go public “with a market capitalization of $10 billion to $15 billion within a few years.”

The IPO market has dried up since the start of 2022, with only three prominent venture capital firms going public in the U.S. this year. The lack of liquidity has hit the venture capital industry hard, making it harder for companies to launch new funds and for new startups (except for a few artificial intelligence companies) to raise capital.

Grabango, based in Berkeley, California, is considered one of the main competitors to Amazon’s cashierless checkout service, Just Walk Out. Other new startups in the space include AiFi and Trigo.

Grabango has signed deals with grocers such as Aldi and Giant Eagle, as well as convenience store chains 7-Eleven and Circle K.

Amazon withdrew its cashierless checkout technology from its U.S. grocery stores and Whole Foods Market stores in April. exist a blog post Following the decision, Glaser said Amazon’s reliance on shelf sensor technology in its JWO system “has proven to be its Achilles’ heel.” Glaser said Grabango eschewed shelf sensors in favor of computer vision, putting it on the path to “widespread adoption.”

“It’s a classic fable of the tortoise and the hare, but the players take on surprising roles,” Glaser writes. “The much larger Amazon took an early lead but was unable to convert it into sustained success. Ironically, the more nimble Grabango took a more difficult technical path and is now fundamentally more capable. Gain from patience.

—CNBC’s Ari Levy contributed to this report.

watch: Amazon is betting big on selling its cashierless technology to outsiders