SeeChange Technologies Ltd., a U.K.-based developer of real-time artificial intelligence recognition systems, said today that it has raised $10 million (£8 million) in early-stage funding led by Triple Point Capital.

The company aims to build systems to help global retail outlets save money by helping customers at checkout, improve safety in aisles and avoid losses for warehouses. New investors Runa Capital and True Capital also participated in the round. Existing investor Crane Venture Partners also joined, which led the company’s $4.7 million seed funding round in October 2021.

SeeChange develops a platform that uses existing video sensors built across the entire retail supply chain and applies advanced AI models to analyze events to improve efficiency with meaningful data and insights about events. Its platform, called SeeWare, uses advanced computer vision to deliver notifications in real time so employees can take action immediately when something happens and provides historical data for business intelligence tools.

Retail stores, big and small, constantly face issues with product losses from damage, theft and fraud across every part of the store from the warehouse to checkout. The patterns of how this can happen are often visible to the cameras overseeing each of the visible sections of the stores and warehouses and can include unsafe activities, employee and customer behavior and more.

Perishables, such as fresh groceries, can also suffer spoilage if they’re not quickly moved from pallet to fridge in a reasonable amount of time. Cameras watching waiting areas with AI producing alerts that perishables have been left in unsafe conditions too long would go a long way to reducing food loss and waste.

The same could be done for shopper habits involving fresh produce on shelves, helping stores accommodate where lots are placed and integrate better systems to prevent food expiry on the shopping floor. According to a 2022 report from Climate Science Ltd., worldwide over 30% of food is either lost or wasted.

The same system can use in-store cameras to improve safety for shoppers and employees by detecting hazards such as spills quickly using visual AI recognition models. Existing CCTV cameras can be used to prevent accidents before they happen by detecting these hazards as they happen and alerting employees to the existence of the spill so that they can take action immediately before someone runs across it and injures themselves.

Another place SeeWare’s visual AI stands out is at self-checkout, where shoppers often walk up with fresh produce such as cabbages, carrots, apples and other fruits and vegetables. When they use the scanner plate, and they must contend with the fact that produce doesn’t have a barcode so they can’t just scan it. Anyone who has gone through the song and dance of pressing the catalog button, finding the proper icon for dragon fruit, red cabbage, bok choy or whichever particular heirloom tomato they picked that day might empathize with how annoying it can be to buy fresh veggies.

With the advantage of a smart visual recognition AI capable of quickly recognizing fruits and vegetables, however, all of this changes. A shopper need only show the camera in the self-checkout their selection and the item and quantity can be recognized quickly, whether fruit is loose or in a bag. The company claims its AI can do this in under a half-second with high accuracy. It also reduces the need for a staff member to intervene and help click through the complex menu at the kiosk.

Jason Souloglou, co-founder and chief executive of SeeChange, said the new funding shows confidence in the platform and that the company is “delivering improved profitability by enabling an enhanced and modern shopping experience.”

Souloglou added that the funds would help expand the company’s commercial deployment and build up the commercial product and support teams.

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