While Amazon Go pioneered the completely contactless store, 7-Eleven and Walmart among others have overrun the space. And the field is expanding, at least in part because several startups—Standard Cognition, Zippin, AiFi, Grabango, and Trigo—have exploded, offering their technology to retailers.

But Portugal-based startup Sensei has been building its contactless store platform in Europe and has just attracted a Series A funding round, sized at €15 million. Leading the round was BlueCrow Capital; Lince Capital, Explorer Investments, and Kamay Ventures-the investment arm of both Coca-Cola and Arcor Group-were new investors; supporting the round were existing investors Metro AG and Techstars Ventures.

In 2021, Sensei, based in Lisbon, raised a seed round of $6.5 million (€5.4 million). Funding then came from Seaya Ventures and Iberis Capital, with 200M Fund participating.

The startup is now targeting 1,000 completely autonomous points of sale by 2026. It has already begun working with clients in Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, and Brazil, among others, it says, and it looks forward to expanding into central and northern Europe.

This Sensei system automatically updates the customer's cart, showing a ready-to-pay list of items while keeping identity and privacy protected with computer vision, AI-powered sensors, and real-time algorithms.

Contactless stores reduce checkout costs, prevent stock-outs, and offer retailers real-time visibility into store operations.

Over a call with Vasco Portugal, CEO and co-founder of Sensei, the company has "been growing, especially last year. .. We are now present in five geographies.".

"There are two problems in the retail industry. The experience for customers sucks. Secondly, it's very hard to process all of the sales information in real time. Now, it's really about the automation of stores, like the automation of cars and the automation of factories. I think it's a natural transition," he added.

Competition in the space is huge. Standard Cognition, Trigo, Grabango, AiFi, and Zippin among others, have raised $239.4 million, $199 million, $93.8 million, $87.1 million, and $44 million, respectively, to raise sizeable rounds from investors.