Oriient, a specialist in high-performance indoor GPS, announced has closed USD4 million in seed funding from F2 Capital and innogy Innovation Hub, the accelerator and venture capital arm ofGerman energy company innogy SE.
The company is already working with some of the world’s largest retailers, as it scales to unlock the power of indoor navigation by delivering an experience similar to online search, to in-store shoppers.
Oriient provides enterprise level businesses including retailers, airports, malls and wholesalers, with the ability to allow their customers to navigate large areas and locate items with pin-point accuracy. The service is the first solution of its kind requiring no installation nor hardware: instead of using beacons or WiFi, it is based on just Earth’s magnetic field and users’ smartphones.
“Amazon Go put the retail industry in a frenzy – big box retail is focusing on saving people the five minutes it takes to checkout, but what about the hour spent trying to find everything in the first place?” says Mickey Balter, Founder and CEO of Oriient. “We started Oriient to solve this problem and have cracked the code with technology that is both highly accurate, cost effective and easy to deploy.”
“It is with technologies like Oriient that retailers put customers front-of-mind and can provide shoppers and employees alike an easier, more convenient experience inside their store, and not only does Oriient recover money that has been left on the table through untraceable products, it also helps retailers and brands to upsell via their instant targeted promotion feature. That’s why they have been a perfect fit for our METRO Accelerator for Retail,” says Sylvia Dudek, from METRO.
Jonny Saacks, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at F2 Capital, adds: “Oriient is finally solving a long-standing problem in the market providing accurate indoor positioning without the need to deploy any costly infrastructure. Applicable to many use cases across multiple industries, we are excited to support the talented team at Oriient with their vision to become a standard service offered in all major stores, factories and airports around the world”.
“Oriient’s technology has the potential to radically enhance the consumer experience across many settings and, as their pilots highlight, is attracting significant interest from forward-thinking customer-focused businesses,” says Annemie Ress, Managing Director for innogy Innovation Hub. “We are pleased to be investing in Oriient and supporting Mickey and the team as they continue to grow their customer base and enter new markets.”
