The 14th World Retail Awards aim to put a spotlight on many examples of innovation, creativity and world-class retailing.

The retail industry is embracing a rapid transformation in the digital age; and we are excited to be shortlisted for the "The Retail Technology Game-Changer" category. This is a strong validation of our hard work over the years.

The category recognises technology companies that are inventing new solutions to re-shape the industry for the better. At HIVERY, we are helping consumer packaged goods (CPGs) companies and retailers prevail in an era of big data, complex merchandising rules, and AI, supporting their shoppers and employees in the process. Ultimately, HIVERY’s AI-driven recommendations are about allocating our planet's resources more optimally.

Last year's winners included METRO GMBH, The Dubai Mall, Afterpay (category winner), and Nike, to name a few. HIVERY is honored to be amongst great brands.

Learn more about the World Retail Congress and the Awards

HIVERY is proud to be shortlisted for the World Retail Awards this year

Aussie AI startup HIVERY has raised $8 million in Series A funding, led by Blackbird, as it makes a grab for a global opportunity helping retailers stock the products consumers really want.

Founded in 2015 and backed by drinks giant Coca Cola, HIVERY uses AI to inform retailers which products should be placed where, and how much they’re likely to shift.

Find out why HIVERY has secured funding for the development of innovative rapid Strategic Category Stimulation informed by AI and deep learning.

Funding For AI Category Management Solutions

Aussie AI startup HIVERY secures $8 million for tech telling retailers what to stock

The data economy is making new demands of Australia’s, and indeed the world’s, business models, with rapid advances and availability of technology redefining markets and reshaping industries.

AI is already helping business owners better understand their customers, supply chains and emerging opportunities. There are numerous companies (large and small) using predictive analytics and machine learning to analyse their data. 

One company that applies AI-powered solutions to help retailers generate a return on retail space investment is HIVERY, a big-data start-up using cutting-edge AI tech to inform product recommendations, price learning, space rationalisation, and promotions.

Founded in 2015 and spun out of CSIRO’s Data61 the same year, HIVERY uses  cloud-based AI-powered solution based on machine learning to gather and convert data findings into easy-to-action measures.

From small experiments with dozens of vending machines in Newcastle Australia, to counting Coca-Cola as a client and exporting five products globally, HIVERY have expertly leveraged the power of AI and machine learning to grow and expand their business.

Retailers need to know which products to stock, how much of that product to stock, and how to price/promote it all in the most cost-effective way in different locations and markets.

“Take Coca-Cola – they have 500 brands and around 3,000 beverage types or SKUs (stock-keeping unit, most often a scannable barcode printed on product labels),” explains HIVERY COO and co-founder, Franki Chamaki. 

“Coke in a can, Coke in plastic bottles and even different variations of Coke: Coke Diet, Coke Cherry and not to mention Coke in 200ML, 250ML, 1.5 Litre, etc. How do you determine what SKU should be placed in a specific outlet? What is the best?

Optimal space is just a derivative of the right assortment and the right price/promotion. In order to have optimal space, you need to work out what optimal SKU/assortment and as well as price/promotion. This is what we solve.”

Self-learning algorithmic models that use AI and machine learning provide the mechanics behind HIVERY’s unique product ranking method, while the operations research element (the application of advanced analytical methods to help make better decisions) determines how much of the recommended product should be supplied. 

This process also simultaneously incorporates the specific requirements and rules distinctive to individual businesses. 

The same methodology can be applied to vending machines. “It takes a vending planner around 45 minutes to optimise one vending machine, and that’s just space, not assortment,” says Chamaki. 

“With HIVERY’s solution, this is done seconds and we are able to optimise for both space and assortment while incorporating merchandising rules all simultaneously in one click of a button. Literally one button.” 

AI can be used in any business and any industry, says Chamaki. “It has the potential to create new competitive advantages provided the goals are well defined.

AI is a general-purpose technology, meaning it can be leveraged by any entity, just like the internet or electricity before.” 

In four years, HIVERY has grown their product suite from one to five, have four international offices (Sydney, Japan, USA, and Mexico), and count The Coca-Cola Company, Walmart, Red Bull, Diageo and TRIAL Co as clients. 

They recently won the Export Council of Australia’s Technology and Innovation Award, Deloitte’s Top 500 Technology Award (2018), Business Chamber’s Excellence Export (2018), and are representing New South Wales in the 57th Australia Export Awards. 

Over the course of the next four years, HIVERY plans to continue scaling their AI and operational research products, with an outlook to generate US$20 million in recurring revenue. 

HIVERY COO Franki Chamaki at Export Awards 2019, where HIVERY won Export Council of Australia’s Technology and Innovation Award

Chamaki credits CSIRO’s Data61 with a critical role in fostering HIVERY, lending specialised knowledge in AI and skills to develop unique intellectual property, acquire talent, and access grants. 

“Our recent product in the trade promotion space was actually co-developed with Data61’s research assistance. Here, we needed to demonstrate to our client that we could generate a more profitable promotional schedule, observing a number of constraints. 

A Data61 researcher worked with us in developing a unique prediction model to produce an optimised promotional schedule. The promotional schedule generated results that are 40 percent better than the current business method,” explains Chamaki. 

“Given over 80 percent revenue of most consumer-packaged foods revenue comes for trade channels like supermarkets, any improvement can generate significant commercial benefits and competitive advantages.” 

AI, ML and data science revolutionising industry

According to Chamaki, AI technology has the ability to reshape and optimise not just Australia’s retail industry, but industry in general. “It’s a general-purpose technology, hence it will impact all and every aspect of personal life, society and industry just as electricity or the internet did.” 

Find out where HIVERY is exporting innovative AI Planograms Software and how it can help your retail chain.

Exports Of Our AI Retail and CPG Software

HIVERY utilises cutting edge artificial intelligence (AI) technology to provide key product insights to retailers, including stock recommendations, price learning, space optimisation and more.From small experiments with dozens of vending machines in Newcastle Australia in 2014, to counting Coca-Cola as a client and exporting five products globally, HIVERY have expertly leveraged the power of AI and machine learning to grow and expand their business... Read more

Learn about our cutting edge AI Category Management software and how it can help you generate exceptional Trade Promotion Calendars.

Cutting Edge AI Category Management, Trade Promotion Software

Retail’s changing dynamics demand planning for the required retail selling space, not the available space. New applications deliver constant assortment editing for new products and near-real-time updates. Retail CIOs can use this research to understand current trends and identify vendors.  HIVERY Curate mentioned in the analysis. Access report (account access required)

HIVERY Curate mentioned on Gartner's Market Guide for Advanced Retail Space Management Applications

Artificial intelligence (AI) gives companies and organizations the ability to make use of vast amounts of data to improve operational efficiencies and drive top line growth. Given the capital intensive and detail intensive nature of vending, it stands to reason that AI brings an invaluable tool to the table.

While AI is finding application in a wide range of industries, Australia based HIVERY has recognized the benefits AI can bring to vending and developed a vending focused package called Vending Analytics. For the second year in a row, the NAMA show at the Las Vegas Convention Center featured a presentation on how the HIVERY AI tool has made vending operations more efficient and improved profitability. Read More.

Operators Explain How AI Boosts Efficiencies And Improves Profits At NAMA Show

The Export Awards celebrate NSW business excellence in international trade and recognise exporters’ contribution to the NSW economy.  HIVERY digital technologies finalist. Read more.

ECA announces 2018 Premier's NSW Export Awards finalists

Last weekend HIVERY won Excellence in Export nomination at Sydney City Regional Business Chamber Awards. HIVERY is to compete at the State Awards this coming November.  Read More.

Reyes Coca Cola Bottling, based in Irvine, Calif., improved its full line vending profitability by deploying an artificial intelligence (AI) tool. Company representatives gave an overview during the recent NAMA show at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Read More

Artificial Intelligence Delivers Sales And Service Improvement For Coca Cola Vending Machines

Australian firm HIVERY has solved business problems in the retail and FMCG sectors in Australia, the US, Japan and China using artificial intelligence (AI), helping customers generate ROI never seen before.  Read more.

Find out how our cutting edge AI Category Management Software can help your FMCG business and retail stores.

How Vending Machine Merchanise Optimization Works With AI

The power of artificial intelligence in automated retailing has been proven in the full line beverage vending industry, a business that requires managing product selection and service for thousands of machines across hundreds of miles.  Read More.

AI delivers sales, service improvement for Coca Cola vending machines

HIVERY is all about data. The company lives by the motto ‘Data has a better idea’. The Coca-Cola backed company uses artificial intelligence and data to optimise the product offering in a specific vending machine, store or pop-up. It’s all about the products that will sell in that location, even if they’re all different. Read More.

Vending machines that think for themselves?

Last month we took a deep dive into the 40 Melbourne Startups to Watch 2017. This month we’re turning the spotlight onto Sydney; our Aussie city most accustomed to soaking up the accolades and with good reason. For each startup, we looked at launch, funding, size, product and of course the founders and decided to chuck in another 10, just for good measure.

HIVERY build prescriptive analytics tools, leveraging data using AI and Machine Learning to find new humanly impossible patterns that drive new profits. HIVERY was born following a big data hackathon that brought together Franki ChamakiandJason Hosking, serial entrepreneurs from the Coca-Cola Founders platform, and Charles Gretton, Matthew Robards, and Menkes van den Briel, data scientists with backgrounds in AI and Operations Research.  Read more.

he pair used prescriptive analytics, which combines machine learning and artificial intelligence with historical data, to help the soft drink giant stock its machines more efficiently. Before, Coke used “a lot of gut feel, manual intervention, many hours of experimentation. We do it at a single press of a button.” After a Data61 pilot study for Coke turned out to be a success... Read More

Science friction: Larry Marshall, CSIRO 2.0 and the politics of innovation

A data-driven startup backed by Coca-Cola has become the latest startup to spin-out from Data61, providing a blueprint for how entrepreneurs can leverage public sector research, HIVERY co-founder Jason Hosking says.Using a combination of machine learning and artificial intelligence, HIVERY uses prescriptive analytics to boost retail profits. Read more.

Find out how Coca-Cola is using HIVERY's Assortment-Space Aware Optimization artificial intelligence.

Assortment-Space Aware Optimization at Coca-Cola, Walmart

How this startup successfully spun-out of Data61 and teamed up with Coca-Cola

Australia’s largest digital research outfit, Data61, has announced its first spin-off since the demise of its previous incarnation, NICTA.  HIVERY uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to create analytics tools that help boost clients' profits, with the....read more

Last week’s fanfare over the arrival of the Keurig Kold soda-dispensing machine glossed over a far more interesting story that’s been bubbling for some time: Coca-Cola Company is investing in businesses like Keurig Green Mountain to bring radical innovations to Coke’s distribution and marketing processes.  Read more.

How Coca-Cola Uses Entrepreneurs (And Keurig) To Jump-Start Innovation

The one risk of not finding solutions to business problems in-house is that “eventually you might find you have to pay more for the answer in the long run, much like when Avis bought (ride-sharing company) Zipcar for $500 million once it noticed that some people just wanted to rent cars by the hour.”That’s a risk Butler is willing to take. He says that once identified, Coca-Cola Founders typically are given $250,000 to $500,000 to launch their projects. Read more

Turning raw data into retail insights