On 24 October 2018, Amoobi, a spin-off of the ULB specialising in the analysis of customer behaviour in stores, announces the opening of an office in New York. Already established in Britain and about ten European countries, on the strength of its success, the Nivelles start-up is launching itself in the United States with a subsidiary that will allow it not only to widen its field of expertise but also to reinforce its board of directors.
Carrefour, Delhaize, Walmart, Aldi, MediaMarkt, Ikea, etc. all these companies have already analysed their customers' behaviour thanks to Amoobi technology. But, how does it work? Originally, the start-up used Bluetooth and Wi-Fi signals from customers' smartphones in order to geolocate them. But this technique was not very precise, therefore Amoobi found a more effective solution: installation of optical 3D sensors all around shops. It is anonymous and it allows certain indicators to be highlighted such as, for example, why customers spend time in a certain department, why they buy one product and not another, how much time they spend queuing, etc.
Although there is no doubt that this technology attracts distributors and manufacturers, it is also the efforts made by the team and the President of the Board that have allowed the Walloon company's know-how to be recognised on the other side of the Atlantic. Pierre Olivier Beckers, the former CEO of the Delhaize group and joint shareholder with the founders Olivier Delangre, Fabrice Gosselin and Laurent Dossin, managed to convince Ronald Hodge, the former CEO of Delhaize America and Craig Owens, the former CFO of Campbell Soup and Delhaize, to form Amoobi's consultative council in the USA with him, the role of which will be, among other things, to help the start-up to conquer the Big Apple. Although Amoobi increased its capital by a million euros in 2017 in order to finance its development, it now believes that it is able to increase its revenue five-fold by 2020. And, it looks like it is on the right track for achieving this goal!
