Dive Brief:
- Simbe, the robotics company whose aisle-scanning bots are in several U.S. grocery chains, announced Thursday it has raised $50 million in a Series C round led by Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives.
- The robotics company said it plans to use the new funding to expand into new product areas, scale its solutions with global deployments and “pursue strategic growth opportunities.” The company also plans to expand its team, which doubled in the past year.
- The new capital brings the total amount raised by Simbe to over $100 million and comes at a time when the company is seeing “surging demand” for retail technology across retail verticals.
Dive Insight:
Simbe, the maker of the aisle-scanning robot named Tally, has been refining its technology to help retailers and vendors gain increased visibility into store and shelf conditions.
In a little over a year’s time, the retail automation solutions provider said it has introduced several new technological capabilities and grown its partnerships. This summer it launched technology that allows grocers to remotely monitor inventory levels, product layouts and other aspects of their stores visually using imagery and data captured by Tally. The company also debuted this year a shelf-intelligence platform designed specifically for wholesale club environments and a brand insights solution that gives retailers’ vendor partners near real-time shelf intelligence.
“We proactively led Simbe’s $50 million round because we recognize their distinct ability to steer retail transformation and meet surging demand for AI and robotics,” Ben Fife, an investor with Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives, said in a statement.
Fife added that Simbe is “well-positioned to capitalize on the enormous market opportunity” for retail automation.
The Series C round builds on Simbe’s Series B round in July 2023, which brought in $28 million and was led by Eclipse.
Simbe noted in the Thursday announcement that it unveiled this year new and expanded partnerships with retailers including SpartanNash, ShopRite, Northeast Grocery, CarrefourSA and three Albertsons banners: Market Street, United Supermarkets and Albertsons Market. The technology company also counts BJ’s Wholesale Club and Schnuck Markets among its clients.
At the start of the year, Simbe said its subscription revenue base tripled in 2023, noting that this growth rate “represents Simbe’s path to profitability.”
A few months later, Simbe announced six top executive appointments, including Jeremy Wortsman, a former Gopuff and Target veteran, as senior director of customer success and Ben Bond as vice president of strategy and business development.
