Retail Pulse

Retail Pulse, legally incorporated in Singapore as Nsight Technologies Pte. Ltd., began as an AI company applying computer vision and a proprietary analytics engine to smartphone photographs of small mom-and-pop (kirana) stores. Images captured by CPG sales representatives were processed to detect products and in-store assets with a stated accuracy of over 90%, and the analytics layer converted these detections into store-level insights on product visibility, marketing execution and sales optimization. The company also described extending the data capture to shop owners themselves, so that CPGs could receive daily store data, run trade promotions directly and monitor availability at scale, with adjacent use cases cited in fintech credit scoring, direct-to-consumer offline strategy, e-commerce and mobility [2].

The company's current website at retailpulse.ai presents the business under the name Kirana Club, positioned as a community, commerce and distribution layer for kirana retailers and FMCG brands in India. The platform has three stated components: a business community where retailers exchange information on sourcing, inventory and seasonal preparation, discover products, schemes and margins, and track mandi bhav and kirana news; a brand activation offering covering trade scheme communication, product launch campaigns, retailer-influencer amplification and geographic or category targeting; and a market insights offering providing pricing and margin intelligence, category and competitor signals, retailer sentiment and validation of new product development and schemes. A newly announced B2B marketplace lets brands sell to kiranas without building their own general trade distribution, bundling demand generation, fulfillment, collections and retailer insights, with a seven-day payout cycle and no fleet-on-street requirement [0].

Founding story

The company was founded in 2020 by Zaraif Hossain and Anshul Gupta, who met through and built the company within the Entrepreneur First Bangalore cohort, incorporating in Singapore in June 2020 after pitching Entrepreneur First's global investment committee [2].

Business model

B2B [2]. Brands pay to reach and sell to kirana retailers through the platform's marketplace, activation campaigns and market insights products, while retailers use the community and ordering functions; earlier materials describe the model as licensing the AI product to CPG companies and selling data [0][2].

Reported revenue streams include licensing and selling data to CPG customers [2]. The current site describes brand-facing marketplace sales with a seven-day payout cycle to brands, plus paid brand activation campaigns and market insights services [0].

Traction

The website reports a network of 40 lakh-plus retailers, coverage of 16,000-plus pincodes and 5,300-plus cities and towns, and cites an example emerging food brand that launched without a general trade team reaching 12,500+ monthly orders across 450+ cities with a three-week time to market [0]. Earlier reporting states the company worked with PepsiCo and L'Oreal and analyzed millions of images from 400,000 stores, had engaged 8 of the largest CPG companies, and had fewer than 10 employees [2].

Latest developments

The company's site announces a new B2B marketplace allowing FMCG and emerging brands to sell to kirana retailers without building distribution, with demand generation, fulfillment, collections and retailer insights included, a seven-day payout cycle and no fleet on street [0].