Zippedi

About Zippedi

Zippedi operates on a Robotics as a Service (RaaS) model, targeting the longstanding challenges of inventory management and operational efficiency within the retail sector. Founded in 2017 by Ariel Schilkrut, Alvaro Soto, and Luis Vera, the company has its origins in a three-year research project at the UC Computer Science Department in Chile. The founders leveraged their background in image recognition and AI to tackle issues that CEO Luis Vera had been working to solve for years, waiting for the technology to mature to a practical and cost-effective level.

The company's core offering involves autonomous mobile robots that navigate retail environments, such as grocery and home improvement stores, to digitize the physical shelf space. These robots, equipped with high-resolution cameras and sensors, scan tens of thousands of products daily to collect real-time data on out-of-stocks, pricing inaccuracies, and planogram compliance. This data helps retailers increase on-shelf availability, which can boost sales by 2-5% and improve operational productivity by 30-50%. The service is designed to benefit in-store shoppers by ensuring products are available and correctly priced, and to enhance the online shopping experience by reducing order substitutions and omissions.

Zippedi's business model is subscription-based, including a setup fee, catering to large retailers, CPG companies, and last-mile delivery services. After a successful pilot in Latin America with chains like Sodimac, Walmart, and Cencosud, Zippedi expanded its operations to the U.S., securing a contract with a major home improvement retailer to deploy its solution in over 100 stores. To complement its robots, the company developed the Bruno App, a mobile task management system for store employees, and an updated On-Shelf Availability (OSA 2.0) platform to improve data management and logistics. Since its inception, Zippedi has raised significant capital, including a $6.9 million seed round in 2021 and a $12.5 million Series A in 2022, to fuel its expansion and robot manufacturing capabilities.