It’s an exciting time for founders Luis Merino and Jordi Becerril.
Their startup, Engage Vision, is planning to launch in three stores with an initial prototype by the end of October 2022. Within the past two months they have secured pre-seed funding and capital commitment from one group which has enabled headway into product development.
The concept for Engage Vision began in 2018 and was legally founded in April of 2022. Since its founding, Engage Vision has integrated into the local startup ecosystem via collaboratives and receives counsel from important members of the startup community such as Manny Quevedo of CoSentry and OpsCompass, Keith Fix of Retail Aware, and Tom Chapman of Chapman & Company, this publication, and Peeq.
Luis and Jordi have backgrounds in machine learning, and computer vision. They went to high school together and remained friends. In 2019, crucial headway was made with the Startup Collaborative where Luis walked through problem discovery and received guidance on how to find the exact pain points Engage Vision technology was able to solve. At that time, Engage Vision had a different strategy, but when the pandemic hit a new need surfaced. Retailers weren’t getting foot traffic through the doors.
Then, once the pandemic was over there was a huge influx of customers, that’s when Engage Vision pivoted their idea towards the possibility of providing data metrics and quantifying what is happening in stores with this influx.
Analysis for All
The problem that Engage Vision solves is that there is a vast amount of data that small businesses have but can’t tap to do analyses. This data could be analyzed to determine where customers spend their time within a store, how long they engage with a display, and the paths they travel throughout the store.
Engage Vision is able to use the small business owned cameras on site to monitor customers. This is different from what is currently offered because competitors charge businesses for new hardware, installation of said hardware, and the software.
Another aspect is the trend for the retail industry is that shoppers who physically go to stores are looking for the in-store experience. With the ease of e-commerce shopping, customers who take the time to travel to a storefront location are expecting more, and Engage Vision aims to help small businesses deliver the optimal experience through data analysis and visualization.
Engage Vision offers plug and go flexibility that isn’t biased towards objects or people. This allows technology that would normally be out of reach for small business owners to be accessed and utilized. Small businesses owners are the ideal target market and customer base because they provide an environment that offers flexibility without red tape or hoops. The ease of use that comes from the plug and go technology ensures that small businesses won’t be left out of important innovations and infrastructure.
Funding Goals
Engage Vision has received funding from MOVE Venture Capital and the Maverick Venture Fund. MOVE Venture Capital, which will be formally announced in November, is a pre-seed and seed fund focused solely on Nebraska founders. The aim of MOVE is to fund more Nebraska founders, fund them earlier, and offer terms that are in line with top early-stage VC’s in the country.
They are also working on unlocking the Nebraska Prototype Grant by the middle of October.
Engage Vision is raising a small pre-seed round with 4 goals.
- Build vision technology that is scalable and will generate the machine learning model foundation for accurate analytics,
- Build query technology to provide a clear touch-point for retailers to understand their business,
- Obtain 50 paying customers within the next 6 months to empower retailers and continue improving technology, and
- Unlock the Nebraska Prototype Grant.
Engage Vision’s revenue model consists of Software as a Subscription with 3 tiers. Since they are so fresh, they currently do not have paying customers but have been partnering with local retailers to test the product, technology, and proof of concept.
Engage with Engage Vision
Are you or do you know community members in the machine learning or retail space? If you’d like to connect with Luis email him at [email protected]. He is interested in speaking with small business owners concerning pain points of collecting and analyzing data.
Also, if you are hispanic or latinx and want to be involved in the startup ecosystem Luis wants to speak with you. “I never thought we would be where we are right now, [it] was out of reach when there aren’t role models who look like you, understand you, or are like you. As long as you put your mind to it, it’s possible.”
You can also message Engage Vision via their website at engagevision.ai.
