RADAR reaches unicorn status after raising $170M to modernize physical retail with AI

For decades, physical retail operated with a blind spot that e-commerce solved years ago. Online retailers know exactly where every product is, what customers click on, what sits in carts, and what sells out first. Physical stores never had that level of visibility.

RADAR, a retail intelligence startup backed by American Eagle CEO Jay Schottenstein, wants to change that.

The company announced Tuesday it has raised $170 million in Series B funding at a $1 billion valuation, officially joining the unicorn startup club. The round was co-led by Gideon Strategic Partners and Nimble Partners, with participation from Align Ventures.

The company says its technology gives retailers something brick-and-mortar stores have lacked for decades: real-time visibility into inventory movement inside physical locations.

That matters more than ever as retailers face growing pressure to run stores with the same speed and accuracy customers now expect online.

RADAR’s system combines overhead RFID sensors, software, and AI analytics to track tagged products across stores, stockrooms, and fitting rooms. The platform captures a full inventory snapshot every eight seconds and delivers up to 99% item-level inventory accuracy, according to the company.

The startup says its platform is already deployed across more than 1,400 stores, including locations operated by American Eagle Outfitters and Old Navy.

“In 2026, operating without real-time intelligence in physical retail means choosing to leave billions of dollars on the table. RADAR is changing that,” said Spencer Hewett, Founder and CEO of RADAR. “Today, we’re empowering retailers to run stores with the same precision as e-commerce. This round signals market conviction in the scale of the opportunity and accelerates our ability to extend that advantage across retail and beyond.”

Inside RADAR’s plan to digitize physical retail

Retailers have spent years trying to solve inventory problems that quietly eat into revenue. A product listed as available online may actually be missing from a shelf. Employees often spend hours manually checking stockrooms. Popular items go out of stock before workers notice shelves are empty. Online order fulfillment suffers when store inventory data is inaccurate.

RADAR says its system turns those gaps into live operational data. The company’s sensors continuously track inventory movement and feed that information into software that triggers replenishment alerts, fulfillment routing, merchandising insights, and theft detection.

The company processes more than 100 billion item-level events per day. That data, collected from physical stores, is becoming one of RADAR’s biggest assets as AI moves deeper into retail operations.

“This is physical AI applied to retail,” the company said in its announcement, describing a system that learns from how products move and how shoppers interact with items inside stores.

The idea is attracting investor attention at a time when physical retail is trying to catch up with the data sophistication of online commerce.

“The physical world has long been a blind spot in an otherwise data-driven economy,” Erik Oros, Chief Investment Officer of Gideon Capital. “RADAR is closing that gap. Starting with retail, the company is delivering clear, measurable ROI today while building a proprietary data advantage that strengthens with every deployment. We believe that combination positions RADAR to define the category and become a foundational layer of real-time intelligence across physical industries.”

American Eagle Outfitters was one of the first retailers to deploy RADAR’s technology across its stores.

“As the first retailer to implement RADAR technology fleet-wide, American Eagle has unlocked greater inventory visibility, empowered our associates and sharpened our insights,” said Jay Schottenstein, Executive Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, American Eagle Outfitters. “With inventory digitized in real-time, we have enabled our creative, operations and technology teams to place their focus on creating seamless, customer-first experiences that define the American Eagle brand.”

RADAR plans to use the new funding to scale deployments across retail chains, develop next-generation sensor hardware, expand its AI analytics platform, and advance autonomous checkout systems. The company is targeting international growth across Canada, EMEA, and Latin America.

The funding announcement came alongside another executive move. RADAR named Abi Viswanathan as chief financial officer as the company enters its next growth phase.

Viswanathan previously served as CFO at autonomous vehicle startup Nuro, where he helped scale the company to an $8.6 billion valuation. He was previously part of Uber’s strategic finance team during the ride-hailing company’s global expansion.

“Inventory is one of the largest and most critical assets for retailers, yet it is often managed with surprisingly low levels of accuracy,” said Abi Viswanathan, CFO of RADAR. “RADAR is changing that by giving leading retailers the real-time, high-accuracy inventory data they need to operate more efficiently, improve store productivity, serve customers better, and compete more effectively. I’m excited to leverage my experience scaling high-growth technology companies to help RADAR build on its momentum and scale through this next chapter.”

The bigger opportunity for RADAR may extend beyond retail shelves.

Its system captures one of the largest datasets on in-store consumer behavior. That information could eventually help retailers forecast demand, improve product placement, reduce losses, and automate more store operations using AI.

“RADAR brings real-time data to retailers that operated like consumers before the internet,” said John Burbank, Partner and Founder at Nimble Partners.