Ural-based angels invest in innovative Finnish online-offline retail analytics

Walkbase, a Finnish start-up that has developed an innovative retail analytics solution, has received a seed capital injection from Russian and Scandinavian investors.

Walkbase, a Finnish start-up that has developed an innovative retail analytics solution, has received a seed capital injection from Russian and Scandinavian investors after four years of R&D. Neither the amount of the round nor the company?s valuation has been disclosed. East-West Digital News, the international resource on Russian digital industries, reported late last week that the investors include Leonid Gluzman and Leonid Volkov, two Russian business angels, and Jan Blomquist, a board member of Scandinavian health food retail chain Life. Special sensors installed at the retailer?s premises ? the key hardware component of Walkbase?s project ? are said to capture signals transmitted from any WiFi-enabled gadget that shoppers have with them while they walk around inside or near the store. The retailer can then tap into the start-up?s proprietary cloud-based analytics platform to analyze the data and perceive general foot traffic patterns showing how shoppers move within a physical store, where they stop and for how long, whether they come back to certain areas, etc. Video- or sensor-based traffic measurement solutions for offline retailers did exist before Walkbase, but the Finnish technology, in addition to being ?tens or hundreds times more affordable,? according to Gluzman, is said to be the first ever to measure online-to-offline conversions...