Qualcomm has led a $35m series B funding round for Israeli smart grocery shopping cart start-up Shopic, bringing its total funding raised to $56m.

Shopic offers an AI-powered clip-on device that transforms shopping carts into smart carts. Using computer vision algorithms, it identifies items placed in the cart in real time, while displaying to shoppers product promotions and discounts on related products. The system acts as a self-service checkout interface as well, saving customers the time and hassle of queuing to pay.

Data collected by the company during live deployments of its system found that Shopic’s technology increased shoppers’ monthly spending by eight per cent.

Shopic not only delivers a new retail experience for in-store shoppers but also provides real-time inventory management and customer behavioural insights for grocers through its analytics dashboard. These reports also include aisle heatmaps, promotion monitoring and new product adoption metrics.

“Today’s consumers are used to friction-free online shopping experiences, but retailers struggle to deliver them for in-store shoppers,” said Raz Golan, CEO and co-founder of Shopic. “As the only solution that uses full computer vision rather than barcode scanning, Shopic empowers retailers to not only meet customer expectations but to delight them.”

The series B investment will be used to expand the company’s penetration to global markets. Shopic’s technology has already been deployed by several grocers in Europe, the Americas and Israel. This includes some of the world’s largest supermarket chains.

As opposed to monolithic smart carts, such as Amazon Dash, Shopic’s clip-on device can be used with any shopping cart, offering a cost-effective implementation path for grocers.

Additionally, shoppers can remove the device when their transactions are complete and use the cart to take their groceries to the parking lot, completing a frictionless shelf-to-car shopping journey.

Inside the cart, Shopic uses a camera duo that enables its AI-computer vision model to support large catalogues of over 50,000 items, cover edge cases and achieve low latency with limited processing power. The algorithm can even identify products thrown into the cart when it’s in motion or when people put multiple products in their carts simultaneously.

The $35m series B investment round was led by Qualcomm Ventures. Other participating investors include Vintage Investment Partners and Clal Insurance, with Shopic’s existing investors Tal Ventures, IBI Tech Fund, Claridge Israel and Shufersal.

“We support Shopic’s vision of hybrid retail, where the best of online shopping and physical store experiences merge,” said Merav Weinryb, managing director of Qualcomm Ventures in Israel and Europe. “Shopic’s smart cart, which is a compelling and pragmatic smart retail solution, is helping enable this future. We were very impressed with the performance of Shopic’s cart in live supermarkets, demonstrating the potential of AI to transform everyday experiences for everyone.”