Online grocery delivery startup BigBasket acquired the enterprise business unit of Kochi-based deeptech startup Agrima Infotech.
BigBasket will be implementing Kochi-based startup Agrima Infotech’s unique customer vision technology platform, Psyight, at the self-checkout counters of the former’s retail stores.
Agrima Infotech is incubated by Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM) to revolutionise offline retail in the country.
The acquisition was announced by Hari Menon, CEO, BigBasket, on the sidelines of a two-day virtual event — ‘Huddle Global 2022’ of KSUM.
Psyight — created by Anoop Balakrishnan, Arun Ravi, and Nikhil Dharman under Agrima Infotech — helps identify all Indian fruits and vegetables uniquely from an image without using barcodes.
KSUM Chief Executive Officer John M Thomas described the acquisition as a “milestone” for any Kerala startup.
“It not only reiterates the strength of our startup ecosystem, but shows the great impression firms such as BigBasket have about our startups,” he noted. “I hope the deal would encourage startups to move ahead strongly in their attempt to scale up their business.”
Anoop Balakrishnan, Co-founder and CEO, Agrima Infotech, said, the startup joining hands with BigBasket will redefine the offline shopping experience in the country.
Co-founder and COO Arun Ravi said that detecting raw food items such as fruits and vegetables uniquely from an image is a complex machine vision problem since the appearance of those items may vary to the location of their origin and seasons.
“We have captured thousands of images of each SKU (stock-keeping unit) across the seasons and from different locations to achieve cent percent accuracy,” he added.
Menon, noting the acquisition brings “a lot of value to our business”, said BigBasket will use this expertise on AI (artificial intelligence) and ML (machine learning) to enrich and enhance a whole lot of technological innovation in the company.
Recently, BigBasket opened its first technology-driven self-service ‘Fresho’ retail store in Bengaluru.
