Everseen secures $70M to revolutionize retail security with AI technology

 Everseen, a startup that uses computer vision to prevent theft at self-checkout counters, just raised €65 million in a Series A round led by Crosspoint Capital Partners. The funds will help the Ireland-based company scale its business and address the challenges facing the retail industry.

Shrinkage, where a store has fewer items in stock than in its recorded inventory, is a serious problem for retailers. In 2017, stores lost an estimated 1.33% of revenues to shrinkage, totaling an estimated $47 billion, according to the National Retail Federation.

Everseen's algorithms can detect and track objects of interest, analyze how they interact, and recognize "actions of interest" performed by shoppers and sales associates. The platform can also "know" when items on a shelf are almost out of stock and pinpoint processes needing immediate attention.

The system processes video of hundreds of millions of products and tens of millions of customer interactions every day, and can connect with a retailer's existing tools to provide insights and near-real time analytics. Everseen's goal is to stop and recover loss, and improve the overall customer experience.

However, workers at Walmart, once a major Everseen customer, have criticized the system, saying that it often misidentified innocuous behavior as theft and failed to stop actual instances of stealing. Walmart and Everseen settled a lawsuit in December 2021.

Everseen's use of computer vision to monitor shoppers and store associates raises questions about privacy and bias. While the company claims to be fully compliant with GDPR, some customers may be uncomfortable with the idea of being constantly watched and tracked.

Despite these issues, Everseen counts over half of the world's top 15 retailers among its customers, with deployments in over 6,000 retail stores and at more than 80,000 checkout lines. The speed of adoption of this technology increased during the pandemic as retailers looked for new ways to sell and shoppers looked for new ways to buy.