Hey boss, want to know what’s driving customers to your store?

Trakomatic introduces new technology that can map customer’s path to purchase.

Trakomatic, a company which specialises in superior video analytics technology, believes that most retailers only use the sales data to get to know their customers and customer traffic. Significantly, data would be missed without taking other metrics into account like footfall, walking-pattern, most popular shelves, and interaction with products which are not part of the sales data. Hence, the only metrics the manager collects by the end of the day is numbers of transactions and sales sum. The Trakomatic system aims to fill in those gaps to provide an in-depth understanding of what drives customer to the store at any point of sale.

Trakomatic was awarded recently as one in eight companies accredited by Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (iDA). It is founded by Allen Lin, who is at the forefront of bridging the technology with customer needs and exploring new markets, and Prashanth Ravichandran, a seasoned software engineer and lead developer. The company specialises in using Advanced Video Analytics for Visitor Counting, Path Tracking, Facial-based Age & Gender Estimation and Re-identification for various stakeholders, to optimise their manpower allocation and operation efficiency. Its data analysis claims to help business owners to make smarter, data-driven decisions.

According to the founders, Trakomatic enables the traditional “dumb” CCTV devices to become "smart" sensors. In turn, the company believes that businesses will reap the benefits of improved allocation of resources, improve conversion rates and measure accurately if their campaigns impact the intended target group.

“Our mission is to develop innovative and useful technologies, in order to improve the capabilities of businesses and lives of people in the communities that we operate in,” said the founders.

Allen argues that while there are other companies using Wi-Fi or Bluetooth for the purpose of providing mall operators and owners with consumer data, Trakomatic works by aggregating the data and are able to know every step of the customer journey.

“Instead of relying on a few parameters like footfall or demographic data, we combine every relevant data in such a way that it becomes easier to make informed decisions upon them for retailers. Our ability to measure large sample sizes accurately alongside high precision on age and gender recognition gives our product unique quality,” explained Allen.

How did it all start?

According to the founders, Trakomatic came about as a pivot from their previous company. They found themselves somewhere between a technological insight and a new market fit, which both happened to strike at the same time. In January 2013, their ideas led them into building a new company.

“We acknowledged that any location that dedicate their attention to customer impact and conversion rates were left with few or none tools to enhance their business performance other than gut feeling. We saw an opportunity for our product to bridge the gap between brick and mortar retailers and their customers, much like we see in the digital world of analytics on e-commerce,” said Prashanth.

Spring Singapore granted Trakomatic funds for Technology Enterprise Commercialization Scheme for R&D up to half a million Singapore dollars in 2013, and additional funds for CDG branding. They have also raised funds with several private investors and strategic partners. Currently, Trakomatic is currently raising Series A funding.

These grants, said the founders, have made their business able to grow into other markets outside Singapore and secure regional presence, from Thailand to New Zealand. While technology partnership with NVIDIA, IBM, SAS and Qlik is also a huge resource for Trakomatic.

As the company boasts of quickly moving into becoming an important player globally, they plan to expand into the European and US markets in 2017. 

For startups wanting to be featured, send your message to Lee Anne Babierra at research@charltonmediamail.com