POSpulse receives second funding this year – High-Tech-Gründerfonds invests in retail-analytics company POSpulse

POSpulse provides Smart Data for retailers and brands: By utilising crowdsourcing POSpulse collects data from the shopper’s perspective at the point-of-sale and provides retailers and brands with detailed analysis and optimization proposals for their POS activities. For the first time it is possible to gain extensive and comprehensive knowledge and real-time insights into the real purchasing situation at the point of sale – whether it is the exeution of shopper promotions, product placements, customer behavior or competitive analysis.

Milestone for the young company: The Berlin-based start-up POSpulse (www.pospulse.com) receives their second funding this year. The High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF) invests a mid six-figure amount in the innovative point-of-sale analysis company.  Earlier this year, the company builder etventure had invested.

POSpulse is a specialized analytics provider for consumer goods manufacturers and distributors, hence disrupts the traditional market research industry. POSpulse collects data by utilising crowdsourcing: Real customers, so-called Scouts, collect any kind of information and images from the point-of-sale using the proprietary ShopScout App with their smartphone, from any number of retail outlets, sending it back to the POSpulse technology backend in real-time.

Using the proprietary analytics dashboard, manufacturers and retailers immediately get intuitive assessments along with optimization recommendations regarding the marketing of products at the point-of-sale. This way, it is possible to document the placement and overall product availability, as well as the use of promotional materials or the competitive activities. Through individual reviews of the ShopScout, POSpulse is also able to analyse specific target groups, with a detailed view on how certain measures influence the shopping experience and whether a promotion and its message reaches the consumer in the intended way.

Retailers benefit from additional information about the customer’s perception of all details of the retail store. This may inlcude the perception of the store design, shelf planograms, the range of products, their placement, out-of-stocks and more.

Dominic Blank, CEO and founder of POSpulse: “This funding is a validation of our business model and an important milestone fueling the great traction we have generated. Our goal is to be the leading POS analytics provider worldwide. In the future, we will provide our customers comprehensive recommendations incorporating additional data sources and making their results comparable to benchmarks in order to support them in performing at the highest standards at the POS to serve their shoppers better.”

With the funding POSpulse invests in the further expansion of its sales team and technical progress of the analytics platform.

The first international orders this year paved the way to expand into more markets internationally in 2015.

The innovative approach to source data from the point of sale using a mobile crowd in order to highlight potentials to optimize the sales process is commented by Chiara Sommer, Investment Manager of the High-Tech Gründerfonds: “The need for detailed shopper insights is highly relevant for FMCG producers and distributers. Insights into the customer behaviour not only provides a clear competitive advantage but also nullifies the technological disadvantage of stationary retail against online retail.”

About POSpulse
POSpulse is the leading provider of crowd-based data collection and analysis of point of sale activities of retailers and consumer goods manufacturers in Europe. More than 10.000 Shopscouts generate data and fotos from the point of sale on behalf of POSpulse. The data collection about real consumers provide retailers and producers of FMCGs with real time feedback about the shopping experience on location, e.g. the product placement, secondary placements or competitive insights. POSpulse started operating on the 1^st of January 2014 and quickly gained traction with clients like Procter & Gamble, Beiersdorf, Osram, SAB Miller and tegut. The company’s headquarters is in Berlin. Current investors are etventure and the High-Tech Gründerfonds.

Contact:
Christian van Alphen
Pressesprecher POSpulse
CVA KOMMUNIKATION
Rankestraße 10 I 80796 München
Tel +49 160 – 972 69 103 christian.vanalphen@cva-kom.de
www.cva-kommunikation.de

About High-Tech Gruenderfonds
High-Tech Gruenderfonds invests in young, high potential high-tech start-ups. The seed financing provided is designed to enable start-ups to take an idea through prototyping and to market launch. Typically, High-Tech Gruenderfonds invests EUR 500,000 in the seed stage, with the potential for up to a total of EUR 2 million per portfolio company in follow-on financing. Investors in this public/private partnership include the Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy, the KfW Banking Group, as well as strategic corporate investors including ALTANA, BASF, Bayer, B. Braun, Robert Bosch, CEWE, Daimler, Deutsche Post DHL, Deutsche Telekom, Evonik, Lanxess, media + more venture Beteiligungs GmbH & Co. KG, METRO, Qiagen, RWE Innogy, SAP, Tengelmann and Carl Zeiss. High-Tech Gruenderfonds has about EUR 576 million under management in two funds (EUR 272 million HTGF I, EUR 304 million HTGF II).

Contact:
Chiara Sommer
High-Tech Gründerfonds Management GmbH
Schlegelstraße 2 I 53113 Bonn
Tel + 49 228 – 82 30 01-00
Fax + 49 228 – 82 30 00-5
info@htgf.de
www.high-tech-gruenderfonds.de