Groceryshop 2024 “Shark Reef” Startup Pitch Competition: Preview—12 Innovators Enhancing the Supply Chain, Customer Experience and Operations

Introduction

Coresight Research is a research partner of Groceryshop 2024, which will take place during October 7–9 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Groceryshop is an annual conference that helps businesses navigate the evolving grocery landscape, exploring the latest business models, advanced technologies and shifting consumer behaviors.

On the first day of the event, the “Shark Reef” Startup Pitch competition will see 12 early-stage retail-technology innovators compete to win the Judges’ Choice and Audience Choice awards. The competition will span three sessions on The Cherry Stage, beginning at 2:55 p.m. and concluding at 5:15 p.m. PT (local time of the event).

In this report, we preview the pitch competition, covering its format and the judging panel as well as an introduction to each participating innovator.

Groceryshop 2024 “Shark Reef” Startup Pitch Competition: Preview

Event Format and Judging Panel

The Groceryshop 2024 “Shark Reef” startup pitch competition will comprise two rounds:

• Round 1: All competitors will present for three minutes on how their innovative technologies are addressing important challenges in retail. The expert panel of judges and the audience will rate each presentation, with the top six companies by combined score progressing to the next round.
• Round 2: The finalists will each participate in a more in-depth, five-minute Q&A session with the judging panel.

The judges will then reveal the Judges’ Choice winner, and the audience will have the opportunity to rate each company and cast their votes to determine the Audience Choice winner.

Deborah Weinswig, CEO and Founder of Coresight Research, will emcee the pitch competition as well as feature on the judging panel. She will be joined by three expert judges:

• Deepak Jose, VP & Head of Data Science & Business Intelligence, Niagara—Jose is a purpose-led executive leader in digital transformation, commercial strategy, data sciences and analytics, with a proven track record of driving profitable growth for global brands. Jose is co-author of the international bestselling book, “Leading Through the Pandemic: Unconventional Wisdom from Heartfelt Leaders.” He is also an advisory board member for SkyMul, an aerial robotics startup.
• Danielle Lay, Partner at NEA—Lay is focused on consumer, social and commerce infrastructure companies. She is an active investor and/or serves on the board of Burrow, Fizz, Goody, Patreon and Prime, among other companies. Lay is also a member of NEA’s Asia investing team. Prior to joining NEA in 2017, she was an investment banker at Goldman Sachs covering fintech.
• Brita Rosenheim, Managing Partner at Vita Vera Ventures—In addition to her role at Vita Vera Ventures, Rosenheim is a lead investor at Portfolia’s Food & Agtech Fund, building on her 20+ years of food and tech investment, M&A execution and strategy experience. She is recognized as an expert on the food-tech ecosystem and spent over a decade advising food and tech startups and incumbents at her eponymous firm. Prior to that, Rosenheim was a corporate finance and M&A investment banker focused on the consumer/Internet industries at Robertson Stephens, Cowen and ThinkEquity Partners.

Innovative Solutions Across Four Areas of Disruption in Retail

The participating startups satisfy the following selection criteria:

• Business-to-business (B2B) solution
• Pre-Series A—funding of less than $8 million
• Founded since 2018
• Scalable—addresses a major retail challenge or opportunity
• Highly differentiated—unique or highly differentiated technology or business model

Coresight Research categorizes the 12 startups into four areas of disruption in retail, as detailed below.

1. Supply Chain and Inventory Management

This category comprises technology companies whose solutions improve supply chain efficiency, inventory management and collaboration among stakeholders.

Startups: bops, Journey Foods

2. Operational Efficiency

This category comprises technology companies that offer platforms to streamline business processes and improve store operations.

Startups: Augmodo, Leav, Machyna, Puller AI

3. Enhancing the Customer Experience

This category comprises technology companies whose solutions focus on enhancing customer services and engagement, such as through personalization.

Startups: Cimulate, Devour, Indellia, Kodif, Rodeo

4. Marketing

This category comprises technology companies that focus on innovative marketing strategies to enhance brand visibility and consumer engagement.

Startups: Hummingbirds

Figure 1. Groceryshop 2024 “Shark Reef” Startup Pitch: 12 Innovators Across Four Areas of Retail Disruption

Source: Coresight Research

 

The Competing Innovators

We introduce each innovator in alphabetical order below.

Augmodo

• Presenter at Groceryshop: Ross Finman, Founder & CEO
• Area of Disruption: Operational efficiency
• Year Founded: 2023
• Headquarters: New York, New York, US
• Download the Innovator Profile for Augmodo here.

Modern retailers often face challenges related to inefficient order-picking processes and the management of out-of-stock items, and these issues can ultimately lead to unfulfilled orders, unsatisfied customers and increased operational costs. There is a need for solutions that streamline these processes without requiring significant changes to existing workflows.

Augmodo addresses these challenges with its artificial intelligence (AI)-powered solutions that automatically scan a retailer’s store and build a comprehensive store “Realogram” as orders are processed. This technology requires no pre-mapping, pre-scanning or additional workforce training, making it simple to implement in existing retail environments. Augmodo’s adaptive-routing feature uses the Realogram to optimize route planning based on changing product locations within the store, ensuring that order pickers can efficiently navigate the aisles, reducing travel time and increasing productivity. Additionally, Augmodo’s solutions help track out-of-stocks, improving shelf-inventory intelligence and management.

Adaptive routing using Realogram
Source: Augmodo

 

bops

• Presenter at Groceryshop: Jorge Risquez, Co-Founder & CEO
• Area of Disruption: Supply chain and inventory management
• Year Founded: 2022
• Headquarters: New York, New York, US
• Download the Innovator Profile for bops here.

In the fast-paced retail environment, consumer brands often struggle with inventory management due to a disconnect in data, which can result in stockouts that frustrate customers, excess inventory that increases costs, and phantom inventory that misrepresents stock levels. According to a Coresight Research survey of 150 US-based retailers in January 2024, 92% of respondents reported that they are at least slightly challenged by out-of-stocks—and 16% are extremely challenged.

bops addresses these challenges with its AI-driven Collaborative Inventory Intelligence Platform, which streamlines the collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment (CPFR) process for CPG (consumer packaged goods) brands and their retail partners by offering real-time visibility into inventory levels and consumer demand, and supply chain collaboration workflows to enable actionability.

By synchronizing inventory with consumer demand, bops provides actionable insights that help brands avoid stockouts and overstocking through improved forecasting accuracy, ultimately improving product availability and customer satisfaction.

Risquez and Coty’s Customer Supply Chain Leadership
Source: bops

 

Cimulate

• Presenter at Groceryshop: John Andrews, CEO and Co-Founder
• Area of Disruption: Enhancing the customer experience
• Year Founded: 2023
• Headquarters: Boston, US
• Download the Innovator Profile for Cimulate here.

Conversion is a huge challenge for online brands and retailers. The US e-commerce market could lose $130–160 billion in sales in 2024 due to cart abandonment, Coresight Research estimates, in addition to suffering from long-term impacts on customer loyalty.

Cimulate addresses these challenges through its Cimulate Customer-GPT solution, which develops a comprehensive model of customer behavior based on clickstream, search, purchase and product data. This model is designed to enhance every touchpoint in the shopping journey by better understanding and predicting customer intent, thereby increasing the likelihood of conversion.

Starting with searching and browsing, the platform’s generative AI capabilities allow for real-time optimization of content, ensuring that customers receive relevant information that is tailored to their preferences. By streamlining the customer journey and improving product discovery, Cimulate aims to improve conversion rates and foster greater confidence among consumers in their purchase decisions.

Devour

• Presenter at Groceryshop: Shelly Rupel, Co-Founder & CEO
• Area of Disruption: Enhancing the customer experience
• Year Founded: 2021
• Headquarters: Phoenix, Arizona, US
• Download the Innovator Profile for Devour here.

Traditional food-delivery apps often fail to engage younger consumers, leading to a lack of loyalty and interaction. There is a growing need for innovative solutions that not only provide food delivery but also create an engaging and entertaining experience for users.

Through its DevourGO+ app, Devour combines food delivery with gaming elements, including AI-driven recommendations and a gamified loyalty program that allows them to earn rewards in their favorite games. Users can earn rewards through interactive gameplay, unlocking exclusive in-game perks and enhancing their overall experience, thereby fostering greater customer loyalty and engagement, especially among Gen Zers.

By integrating promotions and campaigns into the company’s platform, brands can create paths from discovery to redemption, drive sales and build loyalty.

Rewards and challenges in the DevourGO+ app for food delivery
Source: Devour

 

Hummingbirds

• Presenter at Groceryshop: Emily Steele, Co-Founder & CEO
• Area of Disruption: Marketing
• Year Founded: 2022
• Headquarters: Des Moines, US
• Download the Innovator Profile for Hummingbirds here.

Brands often struggle to connect with consumers on a local level, resulting in ineffective marketing campaigns that fail to resonate with target audiences. Traditional advertising methods can feel impersonal and disconnected from the communities they aim to serve. There is a pressing need for solutions that facilitate authentic connections between brands and local influencers who understand their communities.

The Hummingbirds marketplace enables brands to work directly with local influencers who are already trusted by their audiences, creating highly targeted marketing campaigns involving organic, grassroots content. This means that posts are more likely to drive engagement and loyalty among relevant consumers, increasing brand awareness and helping brands to establish real relationships with their target markets.

Case studies from Hummingbirds
Source: Hummingbirds

 

Indellia

• Presenter at Groceryshop: Ruby Singh, Co-Founder
• Area of Disruption: Enhancing the customer experience
• Year Founded: 2021
• Headquarters: Palo Alto, California, US
• Download the Innovator Profile for Indellia here.

Collecting and analyzing customer feedback from multiple channels remains a challenge for many brands—with feedback scattered across various platforms, it can be quite difficult to identify trends and make informed decisions that lead to enhanced customer satisfaction and drive business growth.

Indellia is a customer-feedback management platform designed to help brands and manufacturers gain actionable insights to improve product quality and the customer experience overall. The platform centralizes feedback from various sources, including e-commerce channels, support tickets and chatbot interactions, providing businesses with a comprehensive view of customer sentiment.

Utilizing AI technology, Indellia analyzes raw feedback data to identify emerging topics and sentiment trends, providing companies with intuitive reports and visualizations that help them prioritize areas for improvement and make data-driven decisions. With its various features, including keyword search and prediction alerts, Indellia empowers brands with the deep insights needed to proactively address customer concerns and refine their strategies.

Indellia’s data pipeline for customer feedback
Source: Indellia

 

Journey Foods

• Presenter at Groceryshop: Riana Lynn, CEO
• Area of Disruption: Supply chain and inventory management
• Year Founded: 2018
• Headquarters: Austin, Texas, US
• Download the Innovator Profile for Journey Foods here.

The food supply chain involves inefficiencies that make it difficult to develop and distribute nutritious products. Food companies face challenges with ingredient sourcing, formulation optimization and supply chain management, leading to delays and increased costs.

Journey Foods is an AI-powered software platform that assists food companies in developing, launching and scaling their products more efficiently. AI-driven ingredient discovery allows users to find suitable ingredients based on criteria such as nutrition, cost and sustainability. The platform also provides product formulation optimization, enabling ingredient recommendations and sending supply chain alerts to help improve existing products.

Journey Foods also offers centralized product management, allowing teams to collaborate and keep track of products in a single platform, reducing communication bottlenecks.

Snapshot of Journey Foods’ platform
Source: Journey Foods

 

Kodif

• Presenter at Groceryshop: Mike Zayonc, Co-Founder
• Area of Disruption: Enhancing the customer experience
• Year Founded: 2021
• Headquarters: Palo Alto, California, US
• Download the Innovator Profile for Kodif here.

As customer expectations continue to rise, businesses are faced with the challenge of providing efficient and effective support across multiple channels. Many companies are dealing with high volumes of inquiries, which result in longer response times and decreased customer satisfaction. This is further complicated by the need for personalized service, which often requires significant resources and can strain customer support teams.

Kodif addresses these challenges with its comprehensive AI-powered automation platform. Its Customer Autopilot feature enables customers to independently resolve their issues through various digital channels, such as chat and email automation. By implementing proactive engagement strategies and personalized self-service forms, Kodif empowers customers to find solutions quickly and efficiently.

Kodif also offers an AI-powered Agent Copilot that provides insights and analytics to optimize processes and improve agent productivity. This dual approach not only reduces the volume of inquiries that require human intervention but also allows support agents to focus on high-value tasks, ultimately leading to improved customer satisfaction and loyalty.

The Kodif ecosystem
Source: Kodif

 

Leav

• Presenter at Groceryshop: Olivier Roy, CEO and Co-Founder
• Area of Disruption: Operational efficiency
• Year Founded: 2019
• Headquarters: Montreal, Canada
• Download the Innovator Profile for Leav here.

Retailers in the US DIY (do-it-yourself), drugstore, grocery, mass merchandise and warehouse club sectors are experiencing an average revenue loss of 4.5% due to in-store inefficiencies, according to a Coresight Research survey of 150 US-based retailers in January 2024. Addressing these issues could create a $127.9 billion revenue opportunity in 2024, growing to $143.3 billion in 2027, we estimate.

Leav tackles these challenges with its core “Unified LiveCart” technology, which offers seamless, low-latency (20-millisecond) interactions across multiple touchpoints in retail stores, allowing customers to scan products and complete transactions anywhere in the customer journey by using their mobile devices and preferred payment methods. This technology not only eliminates the need for traditional checkout lines but also enhances the overall shopping experience by making the checkout process faster.

Leav also offers a mobile point-of-sale (POS) solution for store associates, enabling them to assist customers more effectively. By integrating seamlessly into existing retail systems and environments, Leav’s solution empowers retailers to enhance customer engagement, reduce operational bottlenecks and ultimately drive higher sales.

A customer completes an order with Leav’s solution
Source: Leav

 

Machyna

• Presenter at Groceryshop: Victor Chan, Co-Founder & CEO
• Area of Disruption: Operational efficiency
• Year Founded: 2021
• Headquarters: San Diego, California, US
• Download the Innovator Profile for Machyna here.

Grocers today face a host of daunting challenges, from high operational costs and labor constraints to a lack of accessible, actionable data—all compounded by fierce online competition. As such, there is growing demand for solutions that simplify the shopping process while simultaneously maintaining operational efficiency.

Machyna is redefining how data are leveraged in the physical shopping environment. Its SmartBaskets and SmartCarts capture in-store shopping behavior, transforming it into rich, value-added data services. By integrating AI-enhanced insights, Machyna delivers a seamless and immersive “phygital” experience that fuses online and offline retail. The company’s intelligent tools engage customers in real time and enable retailers to elevate the shopping experience while unlocking multiple new revenue streams.

Features of Machyna’s SmartCart
Source: Machyna

 

Puller AI

• Presenter at Groceryshop: Zac Choi, Co-Founder & CEO
• Area of Disruption: Operational efficiency
• Year Founded: 2022
• Headquarters: San Francisco, California, US
• Download the Innovator Profile for Puller AI here.

Retail and brand organizations often struggle to access data needed for decision-making, relying heavily on IT or engineering teams for support. This technical bottleneck creates a last mile “data-to-insight gap,” hindering the ability of business users to respond quickly to market changes and customer needs.

Puller AI addresses these challenges by providing a user-friendly platform that allows non-technical users to seamlessly retrieve data from various sources, including POS systems, data warehouses, CRM (customer relationship management) systems and spreadsheets. By utilizing AI-powered automation, users can easily ask questions in natural language and receive immediate answers, supporting confident decision-making.

Puller AI emphasizes security with compliance standards such as SOC 2 and GDPR, ensuring that sensitive data are protected while enabling trusted access. The platform’s ability to connect to multiple data sources provides a comprehensive view of business performance, empowering retail teams to make informed decisions and enhance operational efficiency across their organizations.

Rodeo

• Presenter at Groceryshop: Ben Fisher, Founder & CEO
• Area of Disruption: Enhancing the customer experience
• Year Founded: 2021
• Headquarters: Los Angeles, California, US
• Download the Innovator Profile for Rodeo here.

E-commerce brands often face high cart abandonment rates due to cumbersome login processes for returning customers. The friction of resetting passwords or navigating complex logins leads to lost sales and a decline in customer engagement.

Rodeo is a retention marketing platform designed to enhance the online customer experience by offering a passwordless auto-login feature. This innovative solution enables returning customers to access the checkout page directly from email or SMS marketing without needing to manually log in, significantly reducing checkout friction.

By integrating with other tools in a company’s tech stack, Rodeo streamlines the customer journey and optimizes sales funnels, improving conversion rates and overall customer engagement.