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Once again, it's an exciting time for us at Caper! Over the past year, the race to draw shoppers' attention back to brick and mortar grocery has sped up. In the midst of an ever-growing market, we remained focused on our mission – make shopping magical for consumers, and produce pragmatic returns for retailers. We are happy to be joined by Lux Capital (alongside other strategics, angel and early Caper investors) in closing a $10 million Series A to take the next giant step: bring Caper to more stores. We work hand-in-hand to address one question: how do we create a seamless experience for shoppers and retailers alike?
Early this year, we announced our Seed funding and introduced the Caper Smart Shopping Cart, the world’s first AI-powered shopping cart that simplifies checkout via computer vision and enriches retail experience via the cart’s digital screen. Since then, we’ve processed 10,000+ transactions and gotten an impressive 9.1 out of 10 average customer satisfaction rating, surveyed across thousands of shoppers. With promotion recommendations and nearby deals features in our cart, we were able to improve average basket size by more than 10% – we are not only improving checkout but also enriching the whole shopping journey and making it more enjoyable.
This is just the beginning. We have executed commercial contracts with some of the largest grocery chains in North America, and we plan to deploy over 1,000 Caper carts in the coming year. We want to bring this awesome experience to more shoppers, and help retailers stay competitive. Digitizing retail experience shouldn’t require a fortune to retrofit complicated camera systems on store ceilings and revamp store operations. Just a few plug-and-play Caper Carts would do.
We're thrilled that our Seed investors, such as First Round Capital, Y Combinator, Hardware Club, Sidekick Fund, and FundersClub, decided to follow-on in our Series A. Red Apple Group, a well-known New York supermarket operator that owns Gristedes and D’Agostino, as well as other undisclosed strategic investors, also participated in the round. Their trust in Caper’s vision only strengthens our commitment to innovate the $3.2 trillion retail market, of which, 92% is still transacted in physical stores.
With the newly infused capital, we will continue to bring on like-minded innovators to join our team. We will continue to bring value to our retail partners and big smiles to shoppers. We have many plans over the coming months – can't wait to bring these into the hands of Caper users.