Qsic Secures USD $25 Million in Series B Funding to Reinvent In-Store Audio For Retail Media

The intelligent in-store audio platform is set to expand AI capabilities for audio ad creation, measurement and advanced audience targeting to help retailers boost in-store sales and turn on new revenue streams

Qsic, the global intelligent in-store audio platform that elevates the in-store experience and drives incremental revenue, announced that it closed a USD $25 million Series B funding round led by Hedosophia. Powering in-store audio and retail media for leading retailers and QSRs like 7-Eleven, Coles Express and McDonald’s to boost in-store sales, Qsic currently reaches more than 100 million shoppers at the point of purchase monthly, with more than 70,000 speakers set to deploy across North America over the next year. The funds will be used to support the expansion of its AI-powered in-store audio platform into new retail locations, accelerate product development and scale its sales team.

“Retailers that have deployed our tech are seeing sales lifts average up to 14%, and we’ve barely scratched the surface with our technology capabilities,” said Matt Elsley, co-founder and chief executive officer at Qsic. “The demand for our solution is strong. Now, we’re positioned to accelerate product development to enhance our tech capabilities and put new resources in place to grow our network to drive even greater, measurable outcomes for our retail partners and brands globally.”

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Despite retail media’s massive growth online, research shows that 85% of all shopping still happens in-store. Yet, in-store retail media has faced more barriers to adoption, like high costs to implement, measurement challenges and difficulty scaling. Qsic enhances the in-store experience and drives incremental revenue through curated, intelligent content delivered dynamically based on shopper behavioural patterns. The proprietary intelligent audio solutions were developed to address the industry’s key challenges and lower the barrier of entry with a simple setup designed to scale with advanced measurement capabilities and automated planning tools.

To support scale and customisation, Qsic developed a proprietary generative AI model, Lucy, for the creation of custom audio ad content, including on-demand voiceovers. Lucy dynamically creates and localises ad content in real time, leveraging retailer data to include details like local pricing, inventory and weather conditions to increase engagement with shoppers. Qsic surpasses IAB standards by automatically adjusting audio volume based on ambient noise levels, ensuring each ad is heard clearly. Additionally, Qsic’s system timestamps each ad, providing unmatched validation for in-store media compliance.

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On track for its strongest year to date, the company recently announced a partnership with leading convenience store chain 7-Eleven to rollout Gulp Radio in more than 5,000 stores across the U.S. by the end of 2024 with the goal to be fully deployed in 12,000 stores by the end of 2025, which includes all 7-Eleven^®, Speedway^® and Stripes^® stores nationwide. Once fully deployed at scale, Gulp Radio will be one of North America’s largest commercial radio networks enabling advertisers to reach the world’s largest convenience chain’s 13 million daily shoppers.