Simbe Raises $50 Million in Latest Fundraising Round
Simbe, a leading provider of store intelligence solutions, announced on Oct. 24 the closing of a $50 million Series C equity financing round led by Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives, with participation from Eclipse, Valo Ventures and other existing investors.
The new capital, which brings the total amount raised by Simbe to over $100 million, will be used to meet surging demand for retail technology across retail verticals, expand into new product areas, and continue scaling its best-in-class solutions to retailers and brands around the world.
“Goldman Sachs is renowned for supporting and scaling enterprise technology and automation companies, and this new capital underscores our vision to transform retail with true in-store visibility,” said Brad Bogolea, Simbe’s co-founder and chief executive officer. “Simbe’s technology will power every store, improving the experience for every retailer, brand, employee and shopper.”
Since introducing the world’s first advanced autonomous item-scanning robot, Tally, Simbe has refined, expanded, and scaled its platform to power automated shelf intelligence for the largest number of retail banners in the world. Through industry-leading computer vision, AI, and robotics, retailers and their vendors gain visibility into store and shelf conditions.
This year, the company announced new and expanded partnerships with major retailers and their banners, including SpartanNash (Family Fare, Martin’s Super Markets, D&W Fresh Market, VG’s Grocery), Wakefern Food Corp. (ShopRite), Northeast Grocery (Market 32, Price Chopper Supermarkets, Tops Friendly Markets), Albertsons Companies (Market Street, United Supermarkets, Albertsons Market), and CarrefourSA, while continuing to strengthen existing partnerships with BJ’s Wholesale Club, and Schnuck Markets, Inc.
Proceeds will be used to accelerate global deployments, broaden retail offerings, and pursue strategic growth opportunities. Simbe will also expand its team, which grew by 100 percent in the past year with the addition of top talent at the leadership level and beyond, to further propel the future of retail and the next phase of company growth.
“Retail automation is a rapidly growing sector, and Simbe is well-positioned to capitalize on the enormous market opportunity due to its strong track record with top global retailers, underscoring its proven impact at scale and strong capabilities,” said Ben Fife, investor, Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives. “We proactively led Simbe’s $50 million round because we recognize their distinct ability to steer retail transformation and meet surging demand for AI and robotics. It’s only a matter of time until we see technology like Simbe’s in every retail store.”
Tageos Unveils First NFC, HF Inlay based on NXP’s ICODE 3
Tageos launched its new EOS-915 I3 NFC and HF inlay, suitable for a wide range of multi-purpose applications including customer experience, item-level tagging, product authentication, supply-chain visibility and smart packaging.
The first inlay to be launched in the market with NXP Semiconductors’ ICODE 3 ICs, the new EOS-915 I3 has an antenna size of 13 x 13 mm offering higher performance and reading speed, maintaining full compatibility with both NFC-enabled phones with near-field data exchange of a few centimeters and long-range HF readers (vicinity) for reading distances of up to 1.5 meters, according to company officials.
The product is being promoted as a versatile choice for non-food retail, logistics, health care and industrial manufacturing to increase operational efficiency and improve NFC customer interaction.
The EOS-915 I3 uses NXP’s ICODE 3 HF chip with an internal tuning capacitance of 23pF. The IC features a customizable digital originality signature to ensure tag origin and offers enhanced privacy modes. It operates at 13.56 MHz from long-range HF readers and NFC-enabled phones for cross-range operations and is compliant with ISO/IEC 15693 (vicinity) and NFC Forum Type 5 tag protocols. The inlay is available in dry, wet and paper-face delivery formats.
Silicon Labs, Kudelski IoT Partner to Accelerate Matter Device Certification
Silicon Labs, in partnership with Kudelski IoT, announced a new solution to accelerate the time to market for Matter-certified IoT devices.
The collaboration integrates Kudelski IoT’s Matter Device Attestation Certificates (DAC) into Silicon Labs’ Custom Part Manufacturing Service (CPMS), enabling device makers to build Zero Trust security from the foundry to customers’ doorsteps.
The Zero Trust approach is fundamental to Matter, a unifying, IP-based connectivity protocol. Matter mandates unique device authentication certificates using Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) for robust security, according to company officials. While this framework significantly enhances IoT device protection, it introduces new complexities for manufacturers, particularly in securely obtaining and transferring certificates from Certificate Authorities to production facilities.
By combining Silicon Labs’ secure, economical, and manufacturing capabilities with Kudelski’s certified Matter PKI service, IoT manufacturers can now have Matter DACs securely injected during production, streamlining the path to Matter volume manufacturing.
The integrated CPMS and DAC injection service provides several key benefits:
- Secure injection of signed DACs at Silicon Labs-designated factories
- Simplified key management and reduced manufacturing complexity
- Accelerated time-to-market for Matter-certified products
- Enhanced protection against counterfeiting and overproduction
“Kudelski IoT’s Matter Product Attestation Certificate Service does the heavy lifting for you, allowing you to join the Matter ecosystem easily,” said Chrystophe Clément, principal architect at Kudelski IoT. “We’re excited to partner with Silicon Labs to scale Matter adoption and reduce the burdens for manufacturers.”
GreyOrange’s SoftFence Enhances RFID Accuracy
GreyOrange has launched SoftFence, an advanced technology within its gStore platform, to elevate retail efficiency through intelligent inventory management and enhanced RFID zone accuracy.
Designed to enhance store execution through real-time inventory management and intelligent tasking, gStore is implemented over 250 overhead RFID-enabled stores, which is a global first.
“gStore’s SoftFence introduces virtual zoning capabilities for retailers, which is a step towards comprehending their portfolio for implementing handheld-only stores,” said Troy Siwek, gStore General Manager, GreyOrange. “SoftFence builds on gStore’s cutting-edge capabilities by incorporating selective reading, signal manipulation, and dynamic control to ensure data security and precise inventory accuracy by creating distinct store sections – including backroom vs. sales floor – without any physical barriers.”
According to company officials, the smart algorithm-driven technology prevents RFID signal leakage and allows only authorized RFID readers to access tag information, preventing unauthorized scans by manipulating signal strength and timing, allowing retailers to further optimize omnichannel fulfillment and streamline operations.
The platform supports real-time adjustments based on store needs, can integrate with existing systems, uses advanced machine learning algorithms to analyze RFID signals that improves stocktake accuracy and optimizes sub-location data, aiding efficient restocking and enhancing store operations.
Simplismart Gets $7m to Empower AI Adoption
Simplismart has announced a $7 million funding round for its infrastructure that enables organizations to deploy AI models seamlessly as it endeavors to positions itself as the critical enabler for AI’s transition into mainstream enterprise operations.
The series A funding round was led by Accel with participation from Shastra VC, Titan Capital, and angel investors that included Akshay Kothari, Co-Founder of Notion. This tranche, more than ten times the size of their previous round, will fuel R&D and growth for their enterprise-focused machine learning operations (MLOps) orchestration platform.
The company was co-founded in 2022 by Amritanshu Jain, who tackled cloud infrastructure challenges at Oracle Cloud, and Devansh Ghatak, who honed his expertise on search algorithms at Google Search. In just two years, with under $1 million in initial funding, Simplismart has outperformed public benchmarks by building the world’s fastest inference engine. This engine allows organizations to run machine learning models at lightning speed, significantly boosting performance while driving down costs.
“Building generative AI applications is a core need for enterprises today. However, the adoption of generative AI is far behind the rate of new developments,” said Jain. “It’s because enterprises struggle with four bottlenecks: lack of standardized workflows, high costs leading to poor ROI, data privacy, and the need to control and customize the system to avoid downtime and limits from other services.”
Simplismart’s platform offers organizations a declarative language that simplifies fine-tuning, deploying, and monitoring GenAI models at scale. Third-party APIs often bring concerns around data security, rate limits, and flexibility, while deploying AI in-house comes with its own set of hurdles. The compnay’s end-to-end MLOps platform standardizes these orchestration workflows, allowing the teams to focus on their core product needs rather than spending numerous manhours building this infrastructure.