Zippin

Market position

Zippin operates in the autonomous, checkout-free retail technology market alongside competitors including Grabango, AiFi, Trigo and Focal Systems. It has been a finalist in Sports Business Journal's Sports Tech Awards every year since the awards launched in 2022, winning Best Innovation in 2023 and being named a 2025 finalist for Best in AI, where it describes itself as the only checkout-free technology provider nominated in any category that year.

Zippin emphasizes accuracy from fusing camera and shelf-sensor data, no cap on the number of simultaneous shoppers, low total cost of ownership through commodity and off-the-shelf hardware, installation within a few days using existing store formats, shelving, coolers and standard power, Power-over-Ethernet wiring to cut installation labor, and a small in-store footprint based on edge devices.

Technology

Zippin's platform fuses inputs from overhead cameras, product tracking and smart shelf sensors, applying computer vision ("vision cognition") and machine learning to track shopper behavior and product locations. The company says its multi-sensor fusion yields high accuracy without limits on the number of shoppers in the store simultaneously, in contrast to solutions it says lose accuracy when stores get crowded. AI algorithms are deployed on edge devices in-store to reduce bandwidth needs. Hardware uses off-the-shelf, commodity components that can be installed in most cases within a few days and replaced individually to keep support costs down; all sensors are powered over Ethernet, with a single CAT6 cable supplying both power and data.

Go-to-market

Direct enterprise sales through an inbound contact form and sales team, supported by customer case studies (for example a Fort Worth Magazine store at DFW International Airport), a white paper on the "frictionless economy," and visibility from industry awards. Deployments are positioned as fast retrofits of existing structures rather than new builds.

Retailers and operators of stores, kiosks and fast-casual restaurants, with a concentration in sports and entertainment venues, plus airports, corporate campuses, healthcare facilities and theme parks. Named deployments include Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, Nu Stadium at Miami Freedom Park, The Pavilion at Star Lake, LEGOLAND Windsor Resort, Cirque du Soleil, SJU International Airport, DFW International Airport, Houston Methodist Cypress, the SAP campus in Bangalore and STMicroelectronics in Crolles, France.

Geography

Deployments span the United States (including Kansas City, Miami, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston and Puerto Rico's SJU International Airport) as well as the United Kingdom (LEGOLAND Windsor Resort), France (STMicroelectronics, Crolles) and India (SAP campus, Bangalore).

History

Zippin was founded by industry veterans from Amazon and SRI with backgrounds in retail technology, AI and computer vision, and has raised venture funding from Silicon Valley firms. A secondary profile places the founding in 2018, a $12 million Series A in 2019 with Lightspeed Venture Partners and Maven Ventures, and a $30 million Series B in 2021 that included OurCrowd; the same source names ECIP, the investment arm of the Cleveland Cavaliers, as an early investor whose backing supported a deployment at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. The company remained privately held as of early 2025.