Trax, the Singapore-headquartered, Tel Aviv-founded computer vision and retail intelligence company has bought French rival Planorama for an undisclosed sum – it’s third acquisition in less than a month, bringing a direct rival into its embrace.
Trax, fresh from a $100 million Series D funding round that valued it at more than $1.1 billion, described Planorama as “Europe’s top supplier of image recognition services for retail execution and merchandising for Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) companies.”
The companies both specialise in solutions that let retailers identify gaps in shelves, and suppliers confirm if supermarkets are compliant with agreed display terms.
Trax says it can identify over a billion retail products from a smartphone photo.
See also: Retail Intelligence Company Trax Raises $125 Million, Brings Cameras to Supermarket Shelves
Trax CEO Joel Bar-El told Computer Business Review: “There are multiple dimensions of value created by this transaction. First is the larger customer pool of the combined entity. Second is the larger product offerings to the market (as both Planorama and Trax had unique solutions the other didn’t have) and third is the larger strength and footprint of the combined force (revenue, geographies and headcount).”
Asked about Planoram’s IP, he said: “Some of the two companies products are overlapping but some don’t. We intend to take the best offering from each side for a better more comprehensive offering to the market.
Trax plans to keep the companies operating side-by-side in the short-term, then tale the best of each product offering and go to market with a unified offering further down the line. For the time being, Planorama will continue to operate with its own branding: “We have not made any decisions for the right approach after that,”the CEO said.
Planorama provides deep learning-based image recognition. Based on shelf pictures from any source, their image recognition solution can instantly analyse and recognise millions of product items. The deal is the latest in a series of Trax acquisitions: the company bought China’s AI and big data service, LenzTech, and US-based shopping rewards app, Shopkick this month.
“We are delighted to join Trax as we share the same passion to bring the best of breed technology and capabilities to retail. Together we will be able to better serve our customers and partners and provide our people with exciting opportunities to grow,” said Ayoub Khammari, CEO, Planorama.
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