Hetal

Hetal Retail operates a retail shelf-intelligence platform for consumer brands. A network of everyday shoppers, referred to as "Hetalites," reserves in-store assignments through Hetal's mobile app and records short videos of designated aisles and end caps while shopping; each aisle clip takes roughly 15-60 seconds. Computer vision and AI models process the footage to identify missing products, incorrect pricing, misplaced displays and other execution issues, and a proprietary "store severity" algorithm ranks the resulting problems so brands can prioritize where to send merchandising resources.

Beyond issue detection, the platform coordinates corrective workflows, confirms that fixes were made, and measures the resulting sales lift. Use cases described by the company include verifying on-shelf availability, checking whether in-line sets and end caps were installed on time, tracking displays, detecting promotional non-compliance, and identifying geographic price deviations from expected MSRP by pairing in-store observations with sales data. Combining shelf data with sales data is positioned for category management work and buyer negotiations.

Hetal was founded in 2023 by David Roger and is based in Bronx, New York. The founding group also includes Michael Rostowsky (product and finance), Bobby Shomrony (operations) and Mike Walters (CTO); the team previously ran and sold blue-light eyewear brand Felix Gray, where Roger was cofounder and CEO and where the business expanded from direct-to-consumer into national retailers including Target, CVS and Best Buy. Advisors cited by investor nvp capital include Jeff Williams, former SVP of Retail at NielsenIQ, and James Kairos, interim CEO at Jyve.

Founding story

Founded in 2023 by David Roger together with Michael Rostowsky, Bobby Shomrony and Mike Walters. The team previously built and sold Felix Gray, a blue-light glasses brand that expanded from direct-to-consumer into national retail distribution; there they encountered difficulty understanding what was happening on store shelves and slow sell-through data, which led to Hetal.

Business model

Hetal sells software and data services to consumer brands, with pricing advertised on its site as starting at $2.00 per store per month; investor nvp capital describes store-level insights starting at less than $2 per visit. Supply comes from a crowdsourced network of shoppers who are paid per completed recording session — $10 or more per session per nvp capital — with videos reviewed within 1-3 business days and approved payments processed within 2-4 business days via bank connections through Plaid.

Recurring per-store subscription pricing to brands, advertised from $2.00 per store per month, with the company reported to have meaningful ARR while in beta.

Traction

The company website states 100+ customers work with Hetal. nvp capital wrote in September 2025 that Hetal, still in beta, was approaching 30 customers with meaningful ARR. Reported outcome examples include 8x ROI on merchandising and merchandising spend savings above 50%, turn-rate improvements driving sales over 30% with Lemme, and a brand-block win with roughly 3x sales for Oats.

Latest developments

In September 2025 nvp capital disclosed its investment in Hetal alongside Ludlow Ventures, GTM Fund, Nomad Ventures and MXV, and reported the company was approaching 30 customers with meaningful ARR while in beta.