Tech Startups Taking to the Groceryshop Stage for Pitch Competition

B2B companies looking to help grocers with AI, inventory management and more

9/14/2023

B2B tech startups will present their grocery-focused solutions at this year's Groceryshop event.

As the grocery industry gears up for this year’s Groceryshop event, to be held Sept. 19-21 at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, 12 innovative early-stage business-to-business technology startups are also gearing up to take the stage for this year’s Shark Reef Startup Pitch competition. The startups' co-founders and CEOs will present about the technology solutions they are building to transform store operations, e-commerce, marketing, merchandising, supply chain and other key areas within grocery and CPG.

The event will be emceed by Deborah Weinswig, CEO and founder of Coresight Research, and will comprise of two rounds. All competitors will present for three minutes in the first round, followed by a short Q&A, after which six companies will progress to the next round. In round two, the finalists will each participate in a more in-depth Q&A session. The judges will select the Judges’ Choice winner, and the audience will have the opportunity to rate each company to determine the Audience Choice winner.

[Read more: "How Toshiba Aims to Curb Grocery Shrink"]

In addition to Weinswig, judges will include Ashley Hartman, managing partner at Bluestein Ventures; Matt Nichols, general partner at Commerce Ventures; and Carle Stenmark, general partner at VMG Partners.

Each startup will represent one of four areas of disruption in retail, including artificial intelligence (AI), inventory management and supply chain, marketing and loyalty, and e-commerce fulfillment. Coresight Research offered a snapshot of each company participating, including:

Guac: Specializes in AI-powered demand forecasting for grocery retailers.
Luca: AI-powered co-pilot for enterprise retailers that identifies revenue- and profit-boosting opportunities in product pricing.
Native AI: Market intelligence platform that leverages generative AI to help businesses create enhanced customer experiences.
Envelope: AI-driven retail management platform, called enRetail.
Mammoth: Supply chain platform that leverages real-time data and AI to help food companies build better supply chains.
TAINR: Package-refill technology provider.
3mint: Omnichannel loyalty platform for CPG brands.
AndesML: Aims to revolutionize e-commerce monetization by transforming businesses into multichannel advertisement networks using an AI-powered technology platform.
Crafted: Specializes in providing quality user-generated content for food and beverage brands.
Swish Brand Experiences: Data-driven product-sampling platform for brands and retailers.
Bevz: SaaS (software-as-a-service) platform that automates convenience store inventory purchasing from snack and drink distributors.
Instock.com: Offers robotics-as-a-service to help retailers reduce the cost of picking and packing orders through automation.