Zippin secures $12M Series A to enable cashierless checkout for brick and mortar retailers

Zippin, a tech startup using AI-driven checkout-free technology platform to enable retailers to quickly deploy frictionless shopping in stores, today announced it has closed $12 million in Series A funding to accelerate new store launches in the coming months, with plans to open new stores for grocery and convenience chains, sports facilities, airports and more.

The Series A round was led by Evolv Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on making investments in emerging and fast-growing technology-enabled companies transforming the food and CPG industry. Other investors in the round include SAP.iO, Scrum Ventures, major Latin American distributor Arca Continental, and Nomura Research Institute and NTT DOCOMO Ventures from Japan. Existing investors Maven Ventures, Core Ventures Group, Pear Ventures and Montage Ventures also participated in the over-subscribed round. This round brings Zippin’s total funding to $15 million. The fresh funding will also be used to further invest in product innovation, grow its technical team and expand sales and partnership efforts.

Founded in 2015 by Krishna Motukuri, the San Francisco Bay Area-based Zippin uses a combination of computer vision, AI, and sensor fusion technology to offer consumers a completely checkout-free shopping experience. Its patent-pending approach uses AI, machine learning and sensor fusion technology to create the best consumer experience: banishing checkout lines and self-scanners for good, and letting shoppers zip in and out with their purchases

Zippin is currently powering four autonomous public stores and several private pilot stores globally. Zippin most recently made headlines for its newly operational autonomous concession stand in Golden 1 Center, home of the Sacramento Kings.

“When we launched the Zippin platform for retailers in 2018, we removed friction from the checkout process. With the Zippin Cube, we are aiming to remove friction from bringing that experience to retail stores,” said Krishna Motukuri, CEO of Zippin. “We obsess about retail operations and physical infrastructure just as much as we obsess about AI and computer vision. That’s why we have more operational public stores than most other startups in the checkout-free space.”

For leading global CPG companies like Kraft Heinz, the emergence of this new retail paradigm presents an opportunity to get closer to the end consumer, provide a superior shopping experience, and build a better, data-driven understanding of shopper behaviors and preferences.

“We’re excited to join Zippin’s journey as these new formats become critical to the transition currently underway in retail,” said Smriti Jayaraman, Principal at Evolv Ventures. “Zippin’s technology also offers CPG brands, which have previously been at arm’s length from the point of sale, a unique set of opportunities to participate in the customer journey.”