Grocery Store Of The Future: 65 Startups Reimagining Shelf Stocking, Product Promotion, Shopper Tracking, And More

While grocers have traditionally not been as affected by the migration to e-commerce as other retailers, e-commerce has now begun to hit the grocery space. As Amazon — the leading threat in nearly every retail industry— pushes more heavily into grocery, brick-and-mortar grocery stores will continue to face increased pressure to optimize every inch of their physical stores.

Dozens of startups aiming to help grocery businesses improve their brick-and-mortar operations have raised funding. These startups offer products ranging from sensors to track shopper routes throughout the store, to virtual reality to design more attractive product displays.

The infographic below highlights 65 startups that focus on serving grocery businesses. We previously looked at startups serving brick-and-mortar retailers here and startups seeking to optimize restaurant operations here. All startups included in this post have a notable use case within the food & grocery industry, although many work with other types of brick-and-mortar retailers as well.

See the infographic, category descriptions, and full startup list below. All startups on the map are private companies and have raised investment since 2013.

Note: Market map is not meant to be exhaustive of startups in the space. Some startups may offer products across multiple categories on the map. In that case, we categorized them according to their primary use case. 

Category breakdown

Real-time shelf monitoring – These startups help food and CPG brands monitor their products in stores — either through AI-powered visual monitoring or via field check teams — to ensure their products are properly displayed, visually monitor product promotions, and more.

Store robots & chatbots – These startups power robots for use in stores, to greet customers and/or track and move inventory.

Augmented/virtual reality tools – These startups use augmented and virtual reality to help brands and retailers design and refine in-store promotional displays before launching them. InContext raised $40M and has a long client list including Coca-Cola, AB InBev, Kellogg’s, and Walgreens. Augment has raised $5M and has worked with Nestle, Coca-Cola and others.

Interactive displays – These startups provide digital, interactive screens to stores to help boost customer engagement in the aisles.

Digital labels – These startups let shoppers scan products with their mobile phones to see additional product information.

Music management – These startups help businesses manage their in-store music playlists.

Shopper feedback – Startups including Wyzerr, TruRating, and Ecrebo help businesses solicit reviews and satisfaction ratings from customers at the point of sale.

Smarter receipts – These startups help stores provide digital receipts and receipts with personalized rewards to shoppers in stores.

Beacons & location tracking – Startups such as Euclid Analytics ($43.6M in disclosed funding), RetailNext ($189M), and Swirl Networks ($32M) use beacons, sensors, and Wi-Fi signals from phones to track shoppers throughout the store and provide grocery stores with insights on foot traffic and individual shoppers. Some also provide proximity marketing tools. These startups offer a similar use case as the In-Store Shopper Insights category (noted below). However, this category is more focused on location-based tech and tends to cater to retailers, rather than brands.

Store management – These startups provide broad software platforms for store management, integrating features such as payment processing and inventory tracking.

In-store rewards – These startups give grocery stores platforms to offer rewards and cash back to in-store shoppers.

In-store shopper insights – These startups provide software platforms to help food and CPG brands monitor their performance at the granular store level. For example, Metabrite ($18.9M in disclosed funding) provides automated receipt processing to help brands understand purchasing patterns at each individual store. Index helps grocery stores offer targeted promotions and shopper insights based on in-store data.

Merchandising tools – These startups aim to improve merchandising for grocery stores and brands. Blue Yonder uses machine learning to help stores optimize pricing and replenishment. Rangeme and Alkemics aim to connect CPG brands and stores for improved merchandising.

Food waste management – These startups help grocery stores and restaurants manage and reduce food waste. Enterra, with $5M in funding, collects food waste from grocers and converts it to livestock feed and fertilizer. Spoiler Alert, which raised $2.8M from investors including Campbell Soup’s Acre Venture Partners, offers a B2B marketplace to help grocers sell and donate surplus food.

Promotion optimization – Startups such as Eversight ($25.2M in disclosed funding) track the performance of promotions to help stores and brands optimize their promotion strategies.

Store gardens – Startups including BrightFarms set up local hydroponic farms near grocery stores and restaurants so businesses can sell sustainable, local produce. BrightFarms raised $55.4M and works with ShopRite, Wegmans, Giant, and others.

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