BeMyEye, a UK-based provider of “crowdsourced perfect store data,” has acquired StreetBee, a Russian startup that has developed fast data collection and processing solutions for retail.
The terms of what seems to be an all-stock deal have not been disclosed, but an unnamed source told Russian business daily Kommersant that StreetBee’s shareholders will receive a 20% stake in the company.
These shareholders include UltimateVC, a Moscow-based early-stage VC fund which invested in StreetBee in 2016.
StreetBee’s entire team (50 people), IP and technology have been acquired, TechCrunch notes. Streetbee founders are joining BeMyEye in senior positions, including Andrey Elisev as Marketing Director, Vladimir Lyzo as head of Image Recognition Development and Kirill Nepomnyashchiy as VP Sales Russia and CIS.
Launched in 2013, StreetBee has developed a crowdsourced data collection process that is verified and processed by a proprietary automatic image recognition solution. Dubbed ‘Deep Vision,’ this technology “uses convolutional neural networks to analyze shelves in retail outlets at high speed (less than 20 sec) and accuracy (more than 96%),” claims the startup on its website.
Deep Vision automatically calculates such ‘shelf KPIs’ as “share of shelf in facings/assortment, on-shelf availability or out-of-stock, planogram compliance, regular and promo prices, POSM presence.”
Thus, according to TechCrunch, the acquisition will allow BeMyEye to launch ‘Perfect Shelf,’ a solution using image recognition technology to help consumer goods companies get objective and actionable in-store insights at lower costs.
The deal also allows BeMyEye, which currently operates in 21 countries across Europe, to strengthen its presence in Russia and neighboring countries.
“The combined companies claim to aggregate crowds of more than 1.5 million data gatherers, which will enable consumer goods companies to get a consistent view of in-store performance” in these countries, notes TechCrunch.
Founded in 2011, BeMyEye acquired LocalEyes a French competitor, in 2016, and UK operator Task360 in 2017.
