This Chennai-based startup offers everyday solutions to physical retail stores through video analytics

The global video analytics market size is expected to be worth $14.9 billion by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 20.4 percent during the forecast period, according to MarketsAndMarkets. The adoption of video analytics solutions is being primarily driven by government organisations that are focusing on improving public safety, and due to advancements in offerings by vendors with the integration of AI. 

One such startup is Tango Eye that combines several technologies to deliver a scalable accurate cloud solution for video analytics. Its solutions are delivered to brand owners and operators who can now view their store performance across all stores in a unified manner. 

The AI-based computer vision startup focuses on deep learning technology to convert video footage into meaningful insights.

“All the CCTV data were in silos until an incident/any suspicious event (shoplifting and pilferage that happens within a store) happened. We realised a lot of insights can be derived from the existing CCTV feeds through our video analytics solution and decided to help bridge the gap between ecommerce analytics and in-store video analytics,” Founder and CEO Surender Gounder tells YourStory.

The Chennai-based startup has an AI-powered control centre for SOP (standard operating procedures) compliance in physical spaces. TangoEye offers several features ranging from knowing your customers (KYC) process to measuring employee efficiency and providing safety and security. The firm is aiming to improve operational efficiency and reduce the costs of surveillance monitoring.

“Architecture is a key component of tech. We have various algorithms to detect, redact and classify human behaviour within a storefront. Our USP is that we can do this across multiple cameras seamlessly. This essentially allows us to sequentially track and combine the activities of an individual without the use of biometric face recognition algorithms. This allows us to be agnostic to camera angles or models. While allowing the product to easily scale from one to 100 cameras per store,” Surender says.

The company is backed by unicorn retailer Lenskart through their Vision Fund. Founded in 2018, it is currently present in 1,000+ stores across India, Singapore, and Europe trusted by brands like Lenskart, Nykaa, Sangeetha Mobiles, and Da Milano.

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The team 

“Right now we are 55 members in the team and planning to expand to 150 in the next 12-18 months,” says Surender.

Surender is passionate about data analytics and is an innovative thinker looking to maximise the abundance of data around us. With an increasing number of developments in the AI space, he decided to venture into using AI to build a product for real-world analytics in the retail sector.

He has been instrumental in product development and defining the architecture end to end.

Prior to TangoEye, Surender was an Equity Finance Trader at Credit Suisse (CS) NY where he was responsible for facilitating and managing short positions across Asian markets. He also drove the build of several trading analytics tools while at CS, helping hedge funds understand market trends and trading patterns.

He received a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Boston University School of Management with a focus on Finance, Accounting, and Computer Science.

Funding and revenue

The startup had raised a seed round of Rs 3 crore from Lenskart, Riso Capital LLC, and angel investor Gaurav Gulati (CIO OYO family office) in October 2020.

In December, the firm also recently secured $1 million in a pre-Series A funding round led by Lenskart. The funds will be deployed to enhance product features, along with hiring tech as well as business development talent to enable rapid growth.

Speaking on the investment, Peyush Bansal, CEO and Co-founder of Lenskart, said in a press release,

“With our investments such as TangoEye, we are aiming to create and build world-class businesses from India, especially those that are disrupting the industry with technology or product innovation. We want to provide support to exceptional entrepreneurs by helping them build successful enterprises. We will be utilising our expertise and experience so far in scaling startups to help TangoEye strengthen its presence and boost their technological developments, while also encouraging them for additional investment rounds.”

“We bring ecommerce style analytics to retail stores to enable high conversion and customer engagement. The fundraise will allow us to add new features to the product, enabling our customers to embark on the phygital journey and harness in-store technology. We are looking at 10x growth in the next 12 months. We are in the conversation for additional funding,” says Surender.

“Ours is a monthly subscription model where the user needs to pay $30 per month per store subscription. We are at about $350,000 ARR currently,” he adds.

The way ahead

TangoEye is looking to target multi-outlet retail stores to help them gain insights about their customers and employees to boost sales and ensure efficiencies at the store level.

The startup is looking to scale from the current customer base of 2,000 retail stores to 10,000 retail stores. This will be achieved with a combination of growing retail brands in India and internationally.

TangoEye is present across all cities in India, as well as in Singapore and a few stores in Italy.

“We are deployed across all stores of Lenskart, Nykaa, and Da Milano across India. We are also deployed at Sangeetha Mobiles in TN, Medkart Pharmacy, SSIPL Retail Ltd and are conducting trials at brands like Jockey, SOCH, Metro Brands, Realme to name a few,” says Surender.

“The companies we benchmark are RetailNext, Deep North, and V-Count among others,” he adds.

TangoEye is also building product features around employee efficiency tracking and aims to be the control centre for monitoring for its clients.