XRC Labs’ Cohort 3 Demo Day: Retail Ready for Innovation

Fung Global Retail & Technology attended the XRC Labs 2017 Cohort 3 Demo Day in New York City. XRC Labs is an innovation accelerator that runs two 14-week programs each year. The eight emerging startups participating in its third cohort are providing solutions designed to analyze data for better decision making and to improve the customer experience.

Pano Anthos, Founder and Managing Director of XRC Labs, opined that the store, as a format, is going through an evolution, and that retail is in a state of change.

Anthos described five ways that stores have evolved: i) today stores are going to the consumers; ii) stores are experiences; iii) stores are more personalized with unique outputs; iv) stores are services, such as rentals; and v) stores are plants, where consumers can buy made-to-order items.

The seven companies that took part in the Demo Day are: Benja, Cartogram, ChatQuery, Check Out, Mirror That Look, Snappy and Ziel.