We are thrilled to announce that Microsoft for Startups will be participating at NRF 2023: Retail’s Big Show at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York from January 15-17, 2023. We have several activities planned for the event and will be showcasing almost a dozen startups focused on intelligent stores, unified commerce and Metaverse.
Events at NRF 2023
Microsoft for Startups sneak preview of NRF
If you’d like to know more about the startups being featured (and all the events that we have planned) at NRF 2023, join us for a sneak preview webinar on Tuesday January 10 at 9:00 am PT. Click here to register for this webinar.
Microsoft for Startups networking reception
Monday, January 16th 4:00-5:00 pm ET, Microsoft Terrace at Javits Center.
Meet with some of the top retail startups driving innovation in retail. This session is open to Microsoft account teams and retail and CPG companies. Please register here to attend.
Microsoft for Startups innovation showcases
Sunday-Tuesday, January 15-17th 1:00-2:00 pm ET, daily, Avanade Lounge at Javits Center.
Microsoft for Startups will be showcasing their top retail solutions that cover three key themes retailers are aiming to address in 2023. Please register here to attend.
- Sunday January 15th: Intelligent stores
- Monday January 16th: Unified commerce / Supply chain
- Tuesday January 17th: iCommerce / Metaverse
Schedule 1:1 meetings with startups
This is an opportunity to schedule 1:1 meetings with the founders of the Microsoft for Startups partners. Please let us know who you would like to meet with (see list below) and a date/time that works for you. Contact MFSGTM@microsoft.com to schedule.
Startups featured in the innovation showcases
Intelligent stores
Shopic’s unique clip-on device turns any standard shopping cart into a smart cart and helps grocers bring the advantages of online commerce to their physical stores. Shopic’s smart carts are best suited for large format grocery stores and deployed with minimal store modifications: a charger-shelf unit and plastic mounts on existing carts.
Most stores today are just like old website counters, only measuring traffic and nothing else. Pathr.ai is building digital analytics for the physical world, helping retailers understand shopper behavior inside retail stores, much like modern website analytics today. Pathr.ai’s CPG Display Tool, True Conversion Rate Tool, and Brand Effect vs. Location Tool are all designed to deliver previously unavailable business insights that empower retailers to obtain higher levels of revenue and make stronger business decisions for their physical stores.
Clobotics’ Smart Retail recognizes product displays, barcodes, and assortments and makes suggestions to improve sales and profitability. Customers use a smartphone app to capture photos of store shelves, which Clobotics’ Software-as-a-Service platform parses in the cloud. Clobotics solutions enable retail execution as well shelf analytics for retail.
Cloudpick is a smart retail solution provider. With proprietary computer vision, deep learning, sensor fusion, and edge computing technologies, Cloudpick empowers highly digitized, intelligent, cashier-free stores with a grab-and-go shopping experience. Cloudpick has collaborated with e-commerce companies, traditional retailers and payment partners worldwide and equips brick-and-mortar stores with streamlined, cost-efficient and technically retrofitted properties that support “new retail” shopping experiences.
Unified commerce / Supply chain
Developer of AI and robotic technology intended to deploy fleets of fully automated dark stores at customer doorsteps. The company provides robotic containers for deployment in dense urban residential areas, enabling businesses involved in last-mile logistics to work efficiently on a massive scale and meet the urgent need for rapid delivery.
NextBillion.ai is a developer of a spatial data platform designed to help enterprises manage location data and adopt an AI-first approach at scale for every use case and geography. The company’s platform helps enterprises build, scale, and manage their own mapping ecosystem, enabling clients to tackle highly complex location problems with the help of tailored location and navigation technology solutions.
Developer of digital security software designed to safeguard the user’s personal identity. The company’s platform uses cryptographic keys protected with biometrics to securely store the identity data on a user’s device to log in on any device, enabling users to enjoy passwordless authentication within minutes. OwnID adds Passwordless to your registration and login forms. With OwnID, users can authenticate with phone biometrics, instead of a password, using a minimalistic button that blends seamlessly into existing forms. The authentication flow is web-based and doesn’t require an app installation. The complete end-to-end platform works cross-OS, cross-device, and cross-domain.
Pockyt is a checkout platform that helps businesses access and retain digital native shoppers globally. Through strategic partnerships with leading global digital wallets, Pockyt facilitates access to over 4 billion global shoppers for their merchant partners. Pockyt enables merchants to accept and manage payments from their customers’ preferred digital payment methods, online and in-store.
QuickNode simplifies blockchain infrastructure for teams big and small. A lightning-fast global API provides instant access to Ethereum, Solana, Bitcoin, Polygon, BSC, Fantom, Avalanche, Terra, Celo, Optimism, Arbitrum, Algorand, Harmony, and Gnosis (xDai) networks. Access chain data via JSON-RPC over https:// or wss:// (websocket) endpoints. Monitor usage with analytics dashboard and ship faster with tools like 1-click WebHooks for smart-contract events, NFT, and ERC20 token APIs.
iCommerce / Metaverse
Fashable has developed a solution using generative AI, to enable apparel and fashion brands to create new designs based on signals from multiple sources. They are revolutionizing digital content creation, and building a powerful visual technology to solve real problems and have a positive impact in the fashion industry, with application in different use cases.
Zblocks enables companies to use blockchain and Web3 without the complexity and need for crypto. It enables enterprises to pay in fiat currency, eliminating the need to keep crypto on their balance sheet. It protects enterprise investments by enabling development across multiple blockchain layer 1 protocols. It uplevels enterprise developers with a low-code/no-code (LCNC) environment that leverages a large collection of pre-built, security-validated components and smart contracts, thus enabling dApp (decentralized application) creation for multiple use cases and it provides out-of-box connectors to enterprise databases and applications like CRM, marketing and e-commerce tools.
Developer of a conversational artificial intelligence technology designed to provide chatbot service. The company applies deep learning to the field of machine learning research to develop a voice, video, and conversation processing technology and use it as an interactive artificial intelligence service, providing customers with a chatbot which is a non-face-to-face counseling service that possesses human learning ability and language comprehension ability.
SleekFlow is an omnichannel social commerce platform that helps retailers and brands sell, convert, and support better on their favorite social messaging chats. The platform enables a comprehensive customer journey across SMS, live chat, and major social and messaging services like WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, or whatever your clients prefer.
To get access to the whole range of Azure products and services for startups in the retail vertical, sign up today for Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub.
