San Francisco-based Simbe has spent the past decade working to digitize physical stores, with a mission to enhance visibility and operational efficiency for retailers. Brad Bogolea, Simbe’s co-founder and CEO, recently spoke with The Shelby Report about the company’s evolving role in the retail technology landscape.
Simbe is widely recognized in the grocery industry for its flagship product, the Tally robot, which autonomously scans shelves and captures real-time data to assist retailers in maintaining optimal inventory levels and pricing accuracy.
Bringing visibility to store operations
Bogolea emphasized that purchasing decisions are made at the shelf, making it critical for retailers to ensure product availability and accuracy for customers.
“When they come in stores, they’re expecting the product that they’re looking for to be in the right place, have the right price and to be fully available,” he said. “I think one of the big challenges that retailers deal with today is understanding what’s happening in their physical stores.
“At Simbe, we’ve often referred to this as a data desert, because retailers know what they sell, but without sending someone out to the shelf, you don’t really know what’s happening there. That’s really how the concept of Simbe and our Tally platform was born, to provide this true visibility in what’s happening in physical stores.”
With more than 33 retail partnerships, Simbe has scaled its operations to chainwide deployments with major retailers, including Schnucks and BJ’s Wholesale, and collaborates with Wakefern Food Corp. and SpartanNash.
Simbe’s reach extends beyond grocery, serving club, mass market, alcohol, farm and hardware stores.
“We see this broad applicability of this type of technology. And really, at the end of the day, it’s about improving the customer experience and the team member experience,” Bogolea said. “Instead of team members having to search for problems in the store, they have perpetual instrumentation that helps them identify which products may need restocked, which price tags may need changed, which products are in the wrong place.
“Retailers have begun using this type of platform to evolve their operating model in this complex market that we all operate in, where the cost to serve only continues to increase.”
The company, backed by venture capital, has raised more than $104 million, including a recent $50 million round led by Goldman Sachs. Bogolea noted a turning point in 2024, with more retailers recognizing the value of real-time shelf monitoring.
“We raised $50 million from Goldman Sachs and signed almost more retail partnerships last year than in all our history. We’re seeing this inflection point in the industry where more and more retailers are seeing the value of perpetually instrumenting their store shelves.”
Expanding offerings with new technologies
Beyond Tally, Simbe continues investing in new product areas, including Tally Spot, a multi-modal solution designed for fixed-camera monitoring. This expansion caters to particular retail needs, such as monitoring specific category inventories, bottom-basket detection and high-theft categories.
Bogolea highlighted the broad utility of Simbe’s technology.
“Retailers often come to Simbe because they’re either struggling with on-shelf availability or pricing, promotional execution, planogram integrity – they’re struggling with these types of issues,” he said. “They may also be struggling with continuity around labor, given the turnover rates in these types of environments.
“What they quickly realize is the data that we garner is valuable to almost every function in the business. It’s valuable to not only store ops for merchandising or supply chain or online grocery, but also finance, asset protection and real estate.”
Simbe’s technology also includes a virtual tour tool, which enables retailers to walk through stores remotely, and an updated suite of mobile applications that provide real-time issue resolution.
“As Tally or Tally Spot find issues in these stores, our data can be directly disseminated to your mobile app or your mobile phone, as well as handheld devices in these stores,” Bogolea said.
In addition, retailers can leverage the data Simbe collects for broader industry insights and potential monetization opportunities.
Growing impact on national and independent grocers
Initially focused on regional and super-regional grocers such as Schnucks, Giant Eagle, Wakefern and SpartanNash, Simbe is expanding into national chains.
“We are seeing the national grocers really wake up,” Bogolea said.
For independent grocers, Simbe is exploring partnerships with wholesalers and distributors to package solutions tailored for smaller retailers.
“Whether they have three stores or 30 stores, or whatever the number may be, giving those same groups the same access to technology is something that really excites us.”
[RELATED: Simbe Introduces Mobile Application, Virtual Tour Capabilities]
Looking ahead: AI and automation’s role in retail
Reflecting on insights from the recent FMI Midwinter Executive Conference, Bogolea sees a growing retailer focus on automation and AI.
“Retail executives are more deeply thinking about automation and AI … realizing that AI is going to touch every component of their business,” he said. “And most retail executive leaders are asking for help from solutions partners, from other retailers that are executing best practices out there. I would say this is one of the trends that we see out there in market.”
Simbe is positioning itself as a key partner in this transformation.
“What’s most meaningful for me is building the strategies to get this technology to be more ubiquitous. Because at the end of the day, it’s going to improve the operating models of these retailers. It’s going to create a better customer experience, a better team member experience.”