Caper is a software technology company that develops and deploys AI-powered automated checkout devices as well as AI-based software applications for retailers, grocers, convenience stores and other general

merchandising Merchandising is any practice which contributes to the sale of Product (business), products ("merch" colloquially) to a retail consumer. At a retail in-store level, merchandising refers to displaying products that are for sale in a creative w ...

store formats. Caper AI was established in 2016 by Lindon Gao, York Yang, Yilin Huang and Ahmed Beshry. It is headquartered in

Manhattan, New York Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

. In October 2021, American retail delivery company

Instacart Maplebear Inc., doing business as Instacart, is an American retail media and delivery company based in San Francisco that operates a grocery delivery and pick-up service in the United States and Canada accessible via a website and mobile app. ...

acquired Caper for $350 million.

History

The company was founded in 2016 by Lindon Gao, York Yang, Yilin Huang and Ahmed Beshry with its main office based in New York. Since its inception, the company focused on the development of automated checkout software to grocery retailers. Caper AI closed its series A round of funding for US$10 million in 2019. In 2019,

Sobeys Sobeys Inc. is a national supermarket chain in Canada with over 1,500 stores operating under a variety of banners. Headquartered in Stellarton, Nova Scotia, it operates stores in all ten provinces and accumulated sales of more than C$25.1 bil ...

, the second-largest food retailer in Canada, publicly announced about commercial deployment of the Caper's Smart Cart technology with its first location being at Glen Abbey Sobeys supermarket in

Oakville, Ontario Oakville is a town and List of municipalities in Ontario#Lower-tier municipalities, lower-tier municipality in Regional Municipality of Halton, Halton Region, Ontario, Canada. Generally seen as a commuter suburb of Toronto, it is located on Lake ...

. As Grocery Dive notes, "The novel coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the deployment of programs that help shoppers get in and get out from stores as quickly as possible". According to

Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...

and

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

, Caper's technology started to roll out in the US and Canada grocery stores in 2019. The deployments include Foodcellar & Co., C-town, Met Fresh Market,

Pioneer Supermarkets Pioneer commonly refers to a person who is among the first at something that is new to a community. A pioneer as a settler is among the first settling at a place that is new to the settler community. A historic example are American pioneers, perso ...

, Gala Fresh Farms and Brooklyn Fare, among others. In autumn 2020, the company introduced Caper Counter, a cashierless countertop for small grocery stores under 10 000 sq feet and fewer than 10K SKUs with a software applying machine learning algorithms, computer vision and Sensor Fusion technology. In 2020, one of the largest American chain retailers,

Kroger The Kroger Company, or simply Kroger, is an American retail company that operates (either directly or through its subsidiaries) supermarkets and multi-department stores throughout the United States. Founded by Bernard Kroger in 1883 in Cinc ...

, launched "KroGo" AI-powered shopping carts developed by Caper AI. The pilot program was introduced at one of its stores in

Cincinnati, Ohio Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...

. Grocery chain Schnucks, Shoprite, and Fairway Market stores all rolled out the AI-powered shopping carts in 2023. In Fall 2024, Instacart launched Caper Carts internationally, with ALDI in Austria and Coles Supermarket in Australia.

Technology

Caper AI uses several technologies to automate the retail checkout process, including computer vision, machine learning and sensor fusion. Caper's technology has multiple cameras and lights to capture images. AI and deep learning are used to pre-train the system to recognize products within the stores The technology can recognize products that are similar or identical by differentiating between them based on textual information and size.

References

{{reflist Technology companies of the United States Technology companies based in New York (state) Retail processes and techniques Automation organizations Payment systems Payment methods in retailing Artificial intelligence companies 2021 mergers and acquisitions

History

Technology

See also

References