AiFi is an autonomous checkout platform powered by an advanced computer vision AI platform tracking people and objects through space, unlocking tracking & data solutions across retail sectors at scale.
AiFi is addressing a $17.6T retail tech and AI market, including autonomous, no-line checkout at scale, on-demand data solutions, and tracking movements and objects through the spatial layer. The Company is a market leader in the spatial intelligence and tracking industry, utilizing an advanced AI-powered platform transforming retail and optimizing spaces. In recent years, innovation in AI models for computer vision has enabled the autonomous checkout market to become one of the fastest growing segments of the massive $30T global retail market.
Spatial intelligence, in In AI refers to the capability of algorithms and systems to process and understand the physical space around them. Applications in this space include autonomous retail checkout, space utilization and movement tracking, and provides exciting new opportunities for retailers to maximize efficiencies and find new opportunities. AiFi’s platform provides these services and more to retailers, unlocking significant market opportunities in both the short and long term.
See the video below for a look into AiFi’s patented AI-powered computer vision platform and how it enables autonomous checkout.
* Significant Current Customer Traction: AiFi has already deployed its technology in over 220 stores, with large global retail customers including Zabka, Aldi and Compass Group, in addition to stadium and event venues including the Intuit Dome, new home of the L.A. Clippers. The Company closed 2023 with $8.6M in topline revenue, and is on track to eclipse $25M by year-end 2024. To achieve this, AiFi has prioritized customers with land and expand store format deployments to create repeatability with high margins, resulting in strong YoY recurring revenue growth and a clear path towards profitability in early 2025.
* Maturing Autonomous Retail Technologies: Like many new technologies, the autonomous retail market received significant attention and investment during the recent venture market peak in 2020 and 2021. Since then, the market has matured, eliminating unsustainable models that relied on expensive hardware or substantial human intervention. Notable companies like Standard Cognition shifted focus towards inventory management, and Amazon has sunset its Just Walk Out technology due to the challenges of scaling with their hardware dependent technologies. As a market leader, AiFi is growing through its advanced computer vision AI that minimizes human intervention, and is increasingly capturing the global competitive landscape.
* Retail is Transforming: Due to shifting consumer demands, labor policies, rapid advancement of new technologies, the retail market landscape is constantly evolving to keep pace with both brick & mortar and online competitors. According to BCG and the World Retail Congress, retailers who prioritize innovation and investment in it receive an ROI of 21% and outperform the market. AiFi’s innovative technology supports both macro industry transformation and improved unit economics in a contested market with increasingly tight margins.
* Spatial Intelligence Platform: AiFi is leading the transformation of physical space tracking with its patented AI-powered computer vision technology platform. The Company is empowering customers across the USA, Europe, UK, Asia, and Australia to optimize activities through an autonomous store offering that tracks the movement of objects and people through space. To date, AiFi has tracked 18M objects shopped by 6.5M people through its advanced computer vision technology.
* Strong Strategic Investor Group: To date, the Company has received investment from strategic partners and existing customers like Aldi, Dollar General, United Airlines, Verizon, and Zabka. The current opportunity is being led by Translink Capital and Cervin Ventures, co-leads of the previous round in 2021, with participation from existing investors and key strategics like Qualcomm Ventures.
* Global Market Opportunity: AiFi is transforming a $17T+ retail market. The Company has built a flexible platform capable of refitting existing stores, integrating into new builds, and new nano-sized temporary offerings. New product offerings like spatial analytics services beyond cashierless checkout will allow AiFi to unlock new customer segments in areas like food service and inventory monitoring & tracking for non-retail.
* Strong and Experienced Leadership: AiFi is led by Steve Carlin, CEO, a tenured executive at global organizations like SoftBank Robotics, Facebook, and Ubisoft. He is joined by Joao Diogo (“JD”) Falcao, Co-Founder & CTO, who earned a PhD in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Carnegie Mellon, Áine Riordan, Global Head of Partnerships and a technology transformation expert, and Joe Jorczak, Head of Revenue, with 20+ years of leadership at companies like Zendesk, Oracle and IBM.
Plum Alley Ventures Company is presenting this Series B Extension investment as a new opportunity in AiFi. This round is co-led by Translink Partners and Cervin Ventures, lead investors from the previous Series B round, with participation from existing investors. The Company is raising over $13M at a $100M pre-money valuation. It is important to note that this investment is a recapitalization round vs. the $250M pre-money valuation from the 2021 Series B, representing a ~68% decrease in valuation. The objective of the recapitalization is to set AiFi up for success for the upcoming Series C round with growth targets of both revenue and profitability. It is also important to note that AiFi’s Board and leadership determined the recapitalization of $100M pre-money to account for a target valuation at the upcoming Series C that would enable a make-up for the loss of existing investors’ value in this recap round. As an example, if AiFi secures a ~2x increase in valuation at the upcoming Series C, then it will essentially eliminate any loss in value created with this recapitalization. AiFi’s current and increasing customer base, rapid store deployment, expansion in the Intuit Dome and other stadiums and financials, position it to achieve the target multiple in the Series C capital raise. The funds from this round will be used to service and scale existing customer contracts, and achieve key growth KPIs including $30M in trailing 12 month revenue and a $12M recurring revenue run rate, along with profitability towards its Series C round, targeted for early 2025. For additional context, AiFi generated $18M in topline revenue over the past 12 months, with a $5M recurring revenue run rate as of May 2024.
The repositioning of this interim round proactively supports the Board and leadership’s focus towards the Company’s growth and exit.
Notable investors in AiFi include:
Historical Investments
Plum Alley has invested nearly $4M in AiFi across our member SPVs and Ventures Fund I. Our first investment in AiFi was in a 2020 Pre-Series B SAFE Syndicate, followed by the Company's 2021 Series B via both Syndicate and Ventures Fund I. We are presenting this opportunity to our Member Investors as the key factors of global customer growth, revenue pipeline and de-risked technology support the current investment opportunity and potential upside for the upcoming Series C funding.
More information on the terms of the round can be found in the ‘Capitalization & Current Raise’ Section below.
INVESTMENT TIMELINE
Virtual Company Presentation
Thursday, June 13th, 2024
12:00pm ET // 9:00am PT
RSVP to Google Calendar Invite
Call Details Available Here
Final Investment Commitments Due
Friday, June 21st, 2024
We will take commitments on a rolling basis. Please submit final commitments here.
Funding & Documents Due
Friday, June 28th, 2024
At the end of the commitment period, you will receive details regarding closing documentation and wiring instructions via Carta.
The Company's confidential financing documents and diligence materials are available for review in DropBox. Please request access to data room materials at the top of the page. All documents are confidential and not for further distribution. If you have specific questions or are interested in investing in AiFi, please contact us and submit your investment total here.
Innovation in Retail:
AiFi is at the forefront of the technology revolution within the retail industry. Even before the COVID pandemic forced brick and mortar retailers to reevaluate existing workflows and processes with contactless solutions in mind, the pressure from ecommerce’s explosion in market popularity drove traditional retail towards innovations able to provide new efficiencies and improved customer experiences. While some have already deeply penetrated the market, like buying online and picking up in store, and others are still to be fully realized, like augmented reality applications, the entire spectrum of the retail market is adopting new technologies faster than ever before.
Autonomous Checkout:
One area of innovation in retail that has gained significant attention from customers and investors is autonomous checkout. From highly capitalized startups to legacy tech giants like Amazon, many companies have sought to solve for one of the largest pain points in the retail experience: waiting in line. However, over time, many entrants into this market have shifted focus or bowed out entirely. Standard Cognition, a unicorn startup, has transitioned to focusing on retail analytics, and Amazon has begun moving away from its touted ‘Just Walk Out’ technology. The underlying reason for these headwinds stems from the challenges in finding a scalable and effective technology stack capable of providing accurate and reliable service. AiFi has achieved this with its patented and proprietary computer vision technology. While some competitors rely on additional hardware like ‘smart’ shelves, AiFi’s platform only requires standard security cameras, powered by an advanced AI computer vision technology that has been trained on millions of items and avoids collecting any biometric data on shoppers, protecting privacy. The below image outlines how AiFi’s platform enables a frictionless shopping experience.
Commercial Updates
AiFi has now launched its platform in more than 220 stores and spaces, including with global brands like:
AiFi also counts premier stadium and live event venues as customers like:
These large customers have enabled AiFi to scale deployments and become the largest camera-only autonomous checkout platform in the world. In 2023, the Company earned $8M in topline revenue with $4M annual recurring revenue (“ARR”) as of year end. More information on AiFi’s revenues and projections can be found in the next section.
With 223 deployments under live contracts, the Company is projecting to achieve 270 deployments by the end of 2024, including ~50 from the Intuit Dome itself, a 5 year exclusive contract.
Future Technology Expansion - Spatial Tracking
Spatial tracking refers to the capability of algorithms and systems to process and understand the movement of objects in the physical space around them. AiFi has begun to expand its service offerings beyond autonomous checkout and growing the capabilities of its computer vision platform to address broader spatial AI applications. Examples include backroom inventory monitoring, theft detection, and safety monitoring, all areas the Company is in active conversations or trials with customers, including large brands like Chipotle.
Below are several applications AiFi is pursuing beyond autonomous checkout:
Growth Strategy
Since 2022, AiFi has been focusing its growth efforts primarily in convenience stores, stadiums and other live event venues. These small square footage deployments are not only well suited for autonomous checkout technologies, but represent a highly scalable and repeatable process, allowing the Company to achieve key KPIs towards growth. Large scale deployments, while possible with AiFi’s current technology stack, require significantly more labor and customization to ensure successful deployments. As AiFi continues to scale its capacity for new deployments, larger square footage spaces will become more economically viable, unlocking large market segments.
Historical Financials
AiFi closed 2023 with total revenue of $8.6M, with an ARR run rate in Dec 2023 of just over $4M. During this period, the ARR total grew 262% due to both new deployments and renegotiations of legacy contracts. Combined with improvements to the technology platform performance, AiFi achieved a 400%+ increase in gross profits, reaching $3.8M at 44% margins in 2023.
The Company has built on this momentum through the beginning of 2024. AiFi has generated about $13M in topline revenue to date and is currently tracking at a $5.5M ARR run rate, and with continued growth through the end of the year, including going live at the Intuit Dome in October for the start of the NBA season, projects to reach $12M+ in ARR by December 2024. The total revenue for the year is projected to eclipse $21M, taking one time and service fees into account for deployments. Notable customers that AiFi will be making initial deployments or expansions with include F.C. Kaiserslautern, Zabka, Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Verizon (pending SOW) and Oak View Group.
Unit Economics
A key element to AiFi’s continued success in growing both top line and recurring revenue comes from the Company’s short term focus on convenience store and live event venue deployments. These spaces allow for reliable and fast setups that enable AiFi to control for costs and begin generating revenue quickly.
Through this focus, the Company has achieved gross margins of 74% on its core SaaS business. Overall gross margins, including hardware and setup costs, have been reduced due to the scale of the Intuit Dome deployment which features 4,000+ cameras, but by year end AiFi projects a 56% overall gross margin.
More information on AiFi’s financials, including a detailed 3 year financial forecast, are available in the Company Data Room accessible above.
Capitalization
Prior to the current Series B Extension, AiFi has raised a total of $83M across Series Seed (2016), Series A (2019), and Series B (2021) rounds.
Notable investors in AiFi include:
AiFi has secured a diverse group of investors that have the capability to support the Company both in future financing rounds and in industry connections and support.
Recapitalization Positioning
The Company is raising a minimum $13.4M Series B Extension at a pre-money valuation of $100M, co-led by Cervin Ventures and Translink Capital. This is a recapitalization from the $65M Series B, which was raised at a pre-money valuation of $250M, representing a ~68% decrease in valuation. As shared, the objective of the recapitalization is to set AiFi up for success for the upcoming Series C round with growth targets of revenue and profitability. It is also important to note that the new $100M pre-money was determined to allow for a future increase in valuation at the upcoming Series C that would target a make-up in the loss of value in the current recapitalization. To achieve this the Company would need to secure a 2x increase in valuation at the Series C. Based on the current financial and customer trajectory, the Company is on target to achieve this in early 2025.
Current Raise & Dilution
With the additional new money of at least $13M, the dilution impact is slightly less than 20%. For our existing member investors to continue to maintain their current ownership on the cap table, they would need to invest 20% of their original investment. At this level we eliminate any dilution caused by the current new capital round. Additionally, while there is a 1:1 pay to play conversion to common, with our participation in this round we are protected and continue to maintain our preferred shares. Based on Company-provided information, this capital raise is likely to be oversubscribed, highlighting continued support from existing investors and interests from new investors.
Keeping in mind the Company’s current revenue, contracts, technology deployment and profit targets, we are presenting this investment opportunity as a new opportunity for both existing and new members to participate in our member investor SPV targeting a $500k investment in the current opportunity.
Series B Extension Financing Terms:
Competitive Landscape
The competitive landscape for autonomous checkout has matured in the past 3 years. The above chart outlines how AiFi’s computer-vision based technology matches up with other competitors in the market, showcasing the advantages AiFi provides customers, especially in its flexibility in applications. Of these companies, many have shifted away from targeting the same market as AiFi as outlined below, leaving significant white space for AiFI to expand. Zippin is the primary competitor in the stadium venue space. However, AiFi has signed multiple customers who previously had worked with Zippin, including the stadiums for the Tennessee Titans, the Kansas City Chiefs, and the brand new Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, home of the Raiders. These anecdotes highlight how AiFi’s technology platform provides the most consistent and reliable service in the market, and has built a reputation as a market-leading provider.
Market Opportunity
AiFi is addressing a $17T market opportunity with its market leading autonomous retail platform, enabled by advanced AI computer vision technology. By prioritizing development of the computer vision technology, AiFi is able to unlock multiple segments of the retail market beyond autonomous checkout, its initial beachhead.
AiFi has built a flexible platform called ‘OASIS’ to power its autonomous storefronts via computer vision models and APIs. The core AI is capable of tracking shoppers, products and the space itself, with industry specific capabilities like payment reconciliation, inventory management, and even loyalty programs. When connected into the store’s existing software stack via APIs, additional analytics and management capabilities are unlocked.
Addressable Markets
AiFi has broken out its TAM across three serviceable markets, with a clear progression plan in place to unlock each segment as the Company scales its technology to offer great flexibility in deployments and deeper data analytics and insights. The markets include:
Advanced Computer Vision Technology
Since its founding in 2016, AiFi has developed a market-leading computer vision-based technology platform. With an initial focus on enabling autonomous checkout, AiFi’s technology is capable of providing a seamless and streamlined checkout experience for customers across store types and for a variety of products. Using standard security cameras, the platform can accommodate both fully autonomous and hybrid checkout systems, giving retailers great flexibility to find the solution that works best for their business and customers. This flexibility also provides the option for 24/7 operations, increasing profitability from a given location. With live active inventory tracking, AiFi’s platform also enables retailers to ensure they keep in-demand products in stock and on the floor. In live operations, AiFi has found that these added efficiencies can result in a 2-3x on store profits, all while improving the customer experience.
Proprietary Training System
The backbone of AiFi’s technology is supported by a state-of-the-art, proprietary, and purpose-built training module that is the first in the world designed specifically for training AI for autonomous retail solutions. At its most basic, the system allows AiFi to simulate complete store environments, from the products themselves to shelf layouts, customer tracking and shopping activity recognition. AiFi imports 3D models of products to train the AI recognition from every angle and distance with precision. While in real-world deployments, a store’s planogram is uploaded into the system with locations for each product, this aspect of the AI training allows AiFi’s system to recognize products picked up and placed down in new locations.
Customer tracking also allows AiFi to identify common shopper routes through stores, enabling the AI to predict product selection and providing key customer insights to retailers to better plan product placements and planograms. Finally, the simulation models are accurate enough to allow for synthetic data generation, providing a new source of training material for the AI system. Please click here for a live look at AiFi’s store simulation platform in action.
Privacy By Design
A key component of AiFi’s technology is that the massive quantities of customer data that the platform collects is completely anonymized. Multiple customers based in the E.U. have confirmed that AiFi is GDPR compliant, meaning the Company is able to do business in the strictest consumer privacy market segment in the world. AiFi’s keypoint tracking system allows for privacy protection, with no identifiable information collected. Their computer vision platform does not track facial features or other biometric data.
Technology Advancements
Since 2016, AiFi has continued to improve its computer vision AI, and to date has tracked over 18M objects shopped by 6.5M people.
In 2023, AiFi’s engineering team reduced the amount of annotation data required by 21.10%, while maintaining an item identification accuracy of 98.98% across nearly 3M products, demonstrating the capability of the platform to deliver high levels of automation without affecting accuracy. In addition, the Company managed to minimize downtime, with the platform in operation 99.77% of the time.
Steve has built a steady career in commercializing and scaling brands and business and is an advisor to more than a half dozen startups. He has held leadership positions at companies such as, P&G, Ubisoft, and Facebook. Most recently, he was President and Chief Strategy Officer at SoftBank Robotics, for which he led the go-to-market strategy for its retail-facing autonomous solutions.
Joao Diogo Falcao, Co-Founder & CTO
A lifelong engineer, Joao’s experience with technical product development led him to find a niche expertise in shaping AI-powered retail checkout. He holds a PhD from Carnegie Mellon University. As co-founder, he has helped grow AiFi to have the largest number of camera-only, computer-vision powered stores around the world.
Áine Riordan, Global Head of Partnerships
Áine comes from a consulting background, leading and delivering large scale technology transformation programs, operations, and enterprise performance initiatives in industries including retail and FMCG. Core to her experience is collaborating effectively with strategic partners to bring clients transformative digital visions to life. A passionate driver of innovation, digital and emerging technology, she leads AiFi’s Global Partnerships function.
Throughout his 20+ year career, Joe has held leadership roles at large tech companies including Zendesk, Oracle, Medallia, and IBM. In his most recent role at Yext he led solution development, value messaging, customer engagement, and go-to-market strategy. Jorczak holds a degree in English from Penn State and an MBA from the Goizueta Business School at Emory.
Fabio Pelho, Global Head of FP&A
Fabio has an industrial engineering background and 10+ years in corporate finance managerial positions at Silicon Valley startups in the Agro Industry and Corporate Banks sectors, helping to build companies from the ground up. He is a former member of the Financial Committee and Advisory Board at Copersucar S/A, one of the biggest ethanol traders globally.
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