Singapore’s Vertex Ventures, alongside with Zetta Venture Partners have led the funding round for San Francisco-based Dor, a provider of analytics and counting services that measure in-store foot traffic for retail merchants.
The round was a seed funding round which saw an investment of US$3.8 million, resulting in a rise of the company’s valuation to US$11.6 million.
Commenting on the investment, Ash Fontana, the managing director at Zetta Venture Partners said, “Dor matches the accuracy of competitive products at 1/15th the cost.”
Dor is co-founded former Apple engineers – CEO MIchael Brand and CTO Gregg Golembeski – and aims to offer retail organizations of all sizes, an affordable and secure solution to measure and analyze foot traffic.
The Californian provider does this through offering proprietary thermal sensing technology combined with machine learning algorithms to provide reliable insights about customer traffic. This enables retailers, museums, libraries, and offices to optimize staffing, improve marketing, and increase the conversion of visitors to customers.
Dor also incorporates real-time weather data that will allow retailers to better understand how the weather affects traffic to their stores. Visually, the sensor is also coated in white which will allow it to blend with the decor in modern stores.
Besides, the system which cost less than US$200 requires no camera, break-beam and Wi-Fi systems or professional installation. It works simply through a battery-powered sensor and relies on its own, closed cellular network.
In any case, Dor sends all its actionable, real-time analytics data to a cloud dashboard – making the information accessible whenever and wherever.
The platform also integrates POS systems like Square and Lightspeed to automatically calculate and track conversion rates in order to provide insights into revenue’s correlation with the store’s traffic.
Vertex Ventures is a global network of funds that counts Singapore’s Temasek Holdings as a major investment partner in its various funds. Its portfolio is heavily weighted to information technology (IT) and healthcare verticals and is headquartered in Singapore. The Vertex Global Network encompasses Silicon Valley, China, Israel, India, Taiwan and Southeast Asia.
