eyeQ, which has developed a unique technology to bring online-style customer experience to brick and mortar stores, today announced $1.2 Million funding. The investment comes from Corsa Ventures, DreamIt, Houston Angel Network, South Coast Angel Network and other angel investors. eyeQ will use this infusion to expand its business, adding new customers and increasing engagements with existing, including multiple Fortune 50 brands. This funding will help reach additional cutting edge brands and retailers who are using eyeQ to reinvent the in-store shopping experience.
'Since getting our solutions into stores and restaurants, the response - and almost immediate ROI - has been amazing,' said eyeQ founder and CEO Michael Garel. 'Our customersare finding measureable value in the intelligence eyeQ delivers. This additional investment will help us get our systems in more locations faster.'
Since being installed in stores, the eyeQ systems have analyzed 3.2 million faces, resulted in 142 thousand shopper engagements, valuable learnings eyeQ customers did not have access to prior.
'Brick and mortar stores aren't going away, but they are finding it harder to compete, and keep customers over online options,' said Brian Grisby, managing partner, Corsa Ventures. 'eyeQ gives these physical stores and brands a leg up, and powers customers with intelligence, in real time, to make smart decisions - and purchases - right in the store. We are thrilled to support eyeQ's continued development.'
eyeQ is a showcase company for IBM, building its solution with BlueMix, IBM's cloud platform, and Watson, IBM's cognitive computing system. eyeQ has presented at IBM's Interconnect, IMPACT, Pulse, and Smarter Commerce conferences and its CIO Leadership Exchange. eyeQ won the Mentor/Investor Choice award at the 2014 Austin IBM Smartcamp and was one of two companies to win the US regional Smartcamp finals in November 2014, currently moved on to the IBM Smartcamp Global Finals, representing North America.
Retailers and brands have a significant problem: shoppers have come to expect the benefits that shopping online gives them, including personally relevant messages, pertinent suggestions, and deep product information (ratings, reviews, specifications, etc.). These benefits are almost completely missing in physical stores. To address this gap, eyeQ has created a new class of retail technology - Fully Aware and Responsive In-Store marketing - to help brick-and-mortar retailers harness e-commerce capabilities.
The eyeQinsights system learns about in-store shoppers and uses that intelligence - their activity, demographics, and preferences - to enable retailers to instantly customize each shopper's experience. eyeQ does this through interactive touch-screen displays throughout the store that sense customer demographics, loyalty, personality and location while they shop. This helps retailers and brands better understand customer characteristics and preferences to respond in a way that is engaging, insightful, and productive for both the shopper and retailer.
About Corsa Ventures:
Corsa Ventures is an Austin, TX-based venture capital firm focused on early stage opportunities in central Texas.
About DreamIt:
DreamIt gets you to the future faster by providing synergistic innovation models that assist companies from startups to large multinational corporations in de-risking new businesses quickly and cost effectively. Since 2008, DreamIt's intense 3 month accelerators and venture fund have helped entrepreneurs start companies like LevelUp, SeatGeek, Adaptly, Elevate, Biomeme, Meerkat and over 170 others. These companies have gone onto raise over $180M in financing and have a combined market capitalization of over half-billion dollars.
In addition to working with startups, DreamIt partners with world class institutions and Fortune 500 companies to run dedicated industry accelerators. These accelerators shine a spotlight on a given area and provide all the resources needed to help entrepreneurs gain both customers and traction. DreamIt also helps partners innovate internally by pulling new business concepts and employees out of large organizations and running them through DreamIt programs. This leverages the strengths of larger organizations with the nimbleness of a startup. For more information about DreamIt and their programs check out http://www.dreamit.com or email info(at)dreamit(dot)com.
About eyeQ:
Founded in 2012 and based in Austin, Texas, eyeQ has developed a unique set of technologies to help brick-and-mortar retailers harness e-commerce intelligence. eyeQ creates a unique hybrid in person/online experience for shoppers that give them what they have learned to love from e-commerce (ratings, reviews, suggested offerings and more) to help them decide and buy on the spot. eyeQinsights is an in-person responsive marketing system, learning about and responding to customers with the information and suggestions that are most helpful to them. eyeQ is a member of the Austin Technology Incubator, a 2014 graduate of DreamIt Ventures, and a founding member of the Future of Privacy Forum. For more please visit http://www.eyeqinsights.com or call 855.879.6500, or follow eyeQ on twitter at @eyeQinsights.