The unstoppable retail media megatrend is revolutionizing the business model of brick-and-mortar retailers, who are being forced to rethink their approach due to declining retail margins. This trend promises a billion-dollar business through advertising revenue, with retailers acting as their own advertising channels and benefiting from advertising margins of up to 80 percent. With Cyreen's world's most advanced AI-based retail media technology, the company is positioning itself at the forefront of the global market. Cyreen is thus attracting enormous international interest from retailers and advertisers. According to forecasts, retail media revenues in Europe will increase to €31 billion by 2028. Retail media is already growing almost four times as fast (22%) as the overall advertising market in Europe.

The point of purchase is the most valuable place for advertising. E-commerce giants such as Amazon have recognized this and already make a large part of their profits from advertising, while retailers are unable to extract this value as normal advertising efforts are unmeasurable and untargeted, resulting in low demand from brands and profitability.

We have developed an AI-driven system, which can be installed on both existing and new digital screens in brick-and-mortar retail stores. By connecting digital screens, sensors, and transactional data, we provide retailers with a better understanding of in-store customer journeys, making in-store advertising not only targeted but also measurable. In doing so, we provide shoppers with a better shopping experience and retailers with an additional revenue stream and maximize the benefits of digitalization. This positions us in the rapidly expanding Retail Media market, which is growing at over 40% annually. Our unique system results in high demand and premium pricing from brands, as our AI-driven system ensures both effective ad delivery and measurable campaign performance for not only advertised products, but also for different product groups.

What sets us apart from other systems is our fully anonymous operation, which is fully complaint with GDPR and the AI Act. Our technology is built to operate without the collection of any personal data from shoppers. The design aspect is key: Our system is entirely independent of personal identifiers of shoppers, which is achieved by being technology-agnostic. By targeting shoppers based on their RFID-tag equipped shopping carts, or other alternative sensors, our data inputs are restricted to non-personal data only, meaning that our system only processes anonymous sensor data – data that cannot be traced back to any individual shopper. Since retail markets are standardized globally, we have developed a scalable advertising system that is both intelligent and data-efficient. In collaboration with leading universities, we have gained unique insights in advertising research, undestanding several external factors that can have an impact on campaign effectiveness and integrate them into our analytical tools. By doing so, we are able to continuously enhance and improve our system.

With the development of our AI-driven software and various system enhancements complete, our patent-protected technology is now ready for commercial deployment. Currently operational in four countries, we have successfully executed over 40 advertising campaigns in collaboration with renowned partners such as REWE. We have also secured a contract and agreements for expansion into more than 230 beverage stores and supermarkets in Germany and beyond Europe. We have an extensive customer network, including Coca Cola, Nestlé, Ferrero, Barilla, etc. To accelerate growth and seize these opportunities, we have opened a new funding round.

Founded in 2017, Cyreen set out to establish a new standard for effective advertising at the point of sale.

Long before the rise of retail media reshaped and accelerated the digital transformation of stores globally, we developed a unique, patent-protected technology that brings the benefits of online marketing into physical retail spaces. By combining shopper, media, and purchase data, we generate meaningful, data-driven insights. This enables us to provide ad impact, retail, and customer behavior analytics, helping to increase retailer profitability while ensuring a GDPR-compliant understanding of customers.

To achieve this, we have collaborated with leading international universities to create a unique referencing methodology that accurately measures advertising effects without collecting personally identifiable data. This allows us to deliver intelligent, data-driven ads in supermarkets, similar to the precision of e-commerce. The insights we gather are used to continuously improve our custom AI, enhancing data linking and the delivery of optimized ads.

Combining ambition with experience, our core team of 12 possesses all the competencies necessary to scale our system both commercially and internationally. We take pride in fostering a strong sense of belonging within our team, which has allowed us to attract and retain talent, particularly in software and AI, since our inception. Our core team is supported by a founding and management group that has led the company since 2017.

The management team includes Benedict Boos, Ciril Hofmann, and Davide Scheidegger, all of whom hold master's degrees in business administration from prestigious international business schools and have extensive experience in leadership and executing innovative projects. Werner Schubert, who oversees Cyreen's technological development, brings deep expertise in digital signage, hardware, and software development. As a former managing director of both an IT consulting firm and a global digital signage producer, he has successfully led multiple development projects.

The management team is further supported by an academic advisory board and a diverse group of industry experts.

Prior to entering the store, shoppers are a black box to us—we have no pre-existing personal data on them. Our analysis begins only once shoppers enter the store.

Our methodology was developed in collaboration with scholars and scientistsfrom leading universities, such as St. Gallen and EBS University, ensuring a balance between academic research and practical application.

1. Shopper entering the store

Upon entering the store, shoppers select a shopping appliance — either a trolley, a basket or nothing at all.

2. Different monitoring options for different shopping appliances

Our default system utilizes RFID tags to understand shopper behaviour by tracking the movement of shopping carts/baskets. In case a customer does not use one of these we do not track the specific customer at all.

3. Smart Screen Interaction

As shoppers approach the digital displays placed centrally above high frequency points our sensors detect the movement of a customer through the tagged shopping cart/basket, activating advertising for products sold in the retail store. Additionally, a directional loudspeaker is used to add sounds to the ad’s playout.

4. Data Collection and Privacy Compliance

Our sensor technologies only track the movement of customers anonymously. Shoppers are identified solely by their movement patterns, without collecting any biometric or personally identifiable information, ensuring full GDPR compliance. Shopper movements are then assigned an ID number that represent each individual’s movement pattern throughout the store. Cyreen does not have (nor does it want to) any information about identites of individuals before, during and after the purchasing process.

5. Data Analysis

Using the assigned ID numbers, we can trace the entire offline customer journey based on shoppers’ movement without focusing on personal data, starting from the trigger event at the digital signage until the check-out event at the cashier. we do not require extra effort, nor extract individual data from shoppers, as the effectiveness of our solution is built on the comparative analysis between two customer groups:

One group consist of shoppers who have seen the respective ads, and another one consist of shoppers who have not seen the ads. As we measure each digital signage interaction individually, the system recognizes which shoppers were triggered by which ad and allows the differentiation between these two groups. In addition, we link the impression made by the digital signage with the purchase data made at the check-out, which allows us to differentiate between shoppers who have bought and who have not bought the respective product. Based on this we are able to generate actionable insights and continuously improve the marketing campaigns.

Given that shoppers are chosen randomly, our technology allows distinct analyses of the differences in shoppers’ purchasing behaviour that stem from the ads playout while controlling for all potential biases.

Additionally, we differentiate ourselves from other retail media solutions in both online and offline retail format in several ways. First, we focus on content optimizing, rather than personalization. That is because our approach with digital signage works rather as a reach-focused approach, aiming at spreading the impressions to as many potential customers as possible, rather than personalized online campaign that is built on personal data. Secondly, we never share raw data in a way that would allow personal identification, which contrasts the data-driven strategy used by online retailers.

6. Alternative technologies

No matter what technologies we use for tracking shoppers’ movement, our analysis approach always stays the same. With RFID tag being the core of our solution, we also provide other sensors (Cameras, 3D Sensors etc) upon requests from different retailers, who sometimes expect a customized solution for their store layout. These alternative sensors are solely used to track shopper movements within a store to categorize groups of people for measuring campaign effectiveness, and they do not gather any biometric or identifiable data. This means we do not generate personal links or need personal identification, and we never have to analyse personal information.

Our innovative advertising system can be installed on both existing and new screens in retail stores, enabling intelligent, targeted ads to be displayed right where purchase decisions are made. By connecting screens, sensors, and external data through our in-house developed software. Here is how our system works:

1. As a customer approaches one of our screens, a connected sensor anonymously detects their presence and...
2. ...plays a targeted, audiovisual advertisement.
3. At the checkout, another sensor detects the customer, and...
4. ...our AI links the customer’s purchases to the advertisements they viewed earlier.

The unique selling point of our approach is the linking of advertising and purchasing data. This allows us to gain deeper insights into consumer behavior through a referencing methodology developed in collaboration with leading universities. The generated data is analyzed anonymously and directly informs the optimization of future advertising campaigns.

For instance, we can demonstrate that ice cream advertisements are most effective during low temperatures or that promotions for winter products are less impactful during snowy weather. With these data-driven insights, we provide retailers and brands with valuable opportunities for optimization, all while strictly adhering to GDPR regulations and employing a fully anonymous evaluation system.

Cyreen's solution consists of software that links various sensors, screens, and data points, making advertising both effective and measurable. By connecting to each customer's receipt and utilizing a wide array of standardized data points, we can conduct advertising analyses and optimizations previously exclusive to e-commerce platforms like Google and Amazon.

To facilitate this, Cyreen has developed an online dashboard that enables retailers and advertising brands to monitor the performance of their campaigns and derive actionable insights. The real strength of this tool lies in its referencing capability, which maps complete customer journeys and compares two groups (A: customers with advertising contact and B: customers without advertising contact). This approach allows us to statistically control for external factors and isolate incremental effects.

By linking the customer journey to a shopping cart, basket, or anonymous customer alias, we have created a data-friendly advertising model that, unlike common practices, does not require any personal data. The insights gained are then integrated into our AI, enabling continuous improvement of the system by displaying ads at the most opportune moments, based on factors like weather, time of day, and current events. With our technology, Cyreen gives brick-and-mortar retailers as well as brands access to the power of artificial intelligence without the exploitation of personal information.

• Measurability: Our system allows us to map the complete customer journey, enabling precise measurement of advertising effectiveness. In contrast, other systems struggle to track the impact of advertising and cannot effectively learn from it.
• Efficiency: Our contact-based system ensures accurate recording of advertising interactions, allowing us to know exactly which customers have seen an advertisement and which have not. Many other systems fail to provide advertisers with clear data on the number of advertising interactions generated.
• Data Security: Our system is GDPR-compliant as it does not require any personal data, ensuring a high level of data security that many other analytics systems cannot match, especially since some of their data must be anonymized after collection.
• Effectiveness: Thanks to our contact-based advertising mechanism, which employs both visuals and audio, we offer a highly effective medium at the point of sale. For the first time, our method enables precise measurement of this effectiveness, providing insights into the key factors that contribute to a successful advertising campaign.
• Optimization: Our AI-driven playback algorithm continuously improves, allowing us to refine our understanding of advertising effectiveness at the point of sale. This capability far exceeds what is achievable with other forms of advertising in brick-and-mortar retail. By delivering targeted ads, we help advertisers reach shoppers efficiently, minimizing waste.

In general, we employ RFID tags on shopping carts and baskets themselves, rather than any shopper-specific tags. This way, any shopper using a cart remains anonymous to the system, as RFID tagging is connected to the cart/basket, not the shopper. However, our system is also able to incorporate alternative sensor setups, such as visual sensors and 3D-sensors, which enables a completely device-agnostic solution, that can be integrated into different kind of retail formats (e.g. drug stores, cash-and-carry markets or shopping centers). In this way, we can track shoppers’ movement through the store by detecting clothing colors and general human shapes, mapping the in-store customer journey without gathering any biometric or identifiable data. Whether it is RFID-equipped shopping cart or other tracking technologies, the fully anonymous of the data set collected through out the customer journey stays consistent within our solutions. By nature, our system is designed to be sensitive only to human movement patterns and anonymous interactions with the shopping environment, creating a dataset linked only to a shopping receipt and not to any personal shopper information.

Brands like Coca-Cola primarily sell their products in physical stores, yet finding intelligent, data-driven advertising formats for the point of sale can be challenging. Cyreen provides advertisers with a platform that translates the advantages of online marketing into brick-and-mortar retail. Brands can book advertising space on screens connected to our system, either directly through us or via professional advertising agencies in our network. Additionally, brands receive performance analyses of their advertising campaigns through our online dashboard or customized reports, complete with clear recommendations for action.

The retailer is our partner, and directly benefits from the sales generated by advertisers. In addition to providing advertising space, we offer detailed retail analyses, such as shopping cart usage rates and customer dwell time in the store. In exchange, our retail partners supply us with the necessary advertising space and sales data, which we integrate into our analyses.

We position ourselves in the television and out-of-home (OOH) advertising market, which is globally characterized by high advertising expenditures and established companies. Historically, products and services have been sold in physical locations, leading to advertising strategies that focused on proximity to these products through posters, banners, magazines, and, more recently, screen advertising and radio. In recent years, sales channels have experienced significant technological advancements, largely driven by the growth of e-commerce. However, the advertising market for physical products has struggled to keep pace with this digital transformation.

While retail media-data-driven advertising at the point of purchase is already an established standard in online markets, there remains a gap for in-store retail media in brick-and-mortar settings that Cyreen aims to fill.

This segment of in-store retail media is experiencing rapid growth at 40% per year globally, highlighting the immense demand for data-driven advertising at the physical point of sale. We see our primary target group in grocery retail, which presents a substantial opportunity to leverage intelligent advertising to offset shrinking margins through additional revenue. With less than 10% of the 33,935 grocery stores in Germany (Statista, 2022), we have the potential to fully realize our business case.

The funding round will be utilized to accelerate the company’s growth both nationally and internationally, as well as to enhance our software and artificial intelligence. Our key areas of focus will include: (i) exploring specific growth opportunities in Germany and abroad, (ii) improving retail AI capabilities, (iii) facilitating third-party integrations, and (iv) advancing pilot and growth projects with additional retail partners.

Our goal is to establish our commercially ready system within the national market, starting with a major beverage retailer in Germany (ProGetränke). We will also actively pursue the acquisition of more retail partners. On the international front, we aim to expand through licensing partnerships in Europe (currently collaborating with Despar in Italy) and in South America (partnering with Unimarc in Chile).

This strategy will enable Cyreen to set a new standard in the retail media market, offering a completely data-friendly alternative to many existing intelligent and data-driven advertising solutions.

1. Successful pilot projects conducted with various renowned retail companies in Germany, including REWE, one of the largest retail groups in Europe
2. Signed contract on October 2024 with the German beverage retail chain ProGetränke to expand into 200 stores this year
3. Achieved a successful market launch and growth with our licensing partners in Italy (retail chain: Despar) and Chile (retail chain: Unimarc), along with further growth opportunities in Latin America
4. Analyzed over 100 million individual customer journeys across several markets, yielding statistically significant results from more than 100 advertising campaigns
5. Awarded the Google Award in the “Understand Your Customer” category at the Future of Retail Awards in 2022
6. Received multiple innovation grants from organizations such as the European Commission, LOEWE, Distral, Digi grant, and research grants between 2019 and 2024
7. Recognized as one of the most promising AI start-ups in Germany, which included a delegation trip to Silicon Valley and New York
8. Generated over €1.1 million in revenue since our founding
9. We analyzed over >2 billion datapoints across +100 campaigns. Our technology goes beyond the analysis for the advertised product as it enables media analytics for any product group – making the halo effect measurable. Both brands and retailers can monitor their campaign’s success effectively. We achieved significant and measurable sales increase across a wide range of brands. This includes Sweet drinks (+25%), Flour (+26%), Chocolate cream (+26%), Shower gel (+28%), Crispbread (+24%), Toothpaste (+21%), Pesto (+20%), Herbs (+38%), Prosecco (+17%), Fruit yogurt (+17%), Ice cream (+17%), Sausages (+23%).

1. Significant Problem-Solving Potential

• For Retailers: Gain a deeper understanding of their customers and generate higher revenues.
• For Advertisers: Utilize marketing budgets more efficiently and acquire a better insight into customer behavior.
• For Shoppers: Experience more relevant advertising and an enhanced shopping experience.

2. Opportune Timing for Investment

Retail media is currently a megatrend, and key decisions are being made regarding which technologies will establish the market standard. Cyreen has developed a scalable solution that, after several years of development, is entering the market at the right time. With over 100 million evaluated customer journeys and a trained AI, Cyreen has built a solid foundation.

Additionally, we have an established customer pipeline with major brands and retailers, along with extensive experience in assessing their willingness to pay.

3. Unique Selling Points

Uniqueness: Cyreen offers a tool akin to “Google Analytics for stationary retail,” providing retailers and advertisers with access to data that visualizes and evaluates customer journeys.

Patent Protection: We possess a patented process for linking media data with checkout data using sensors, with protections granted in the USA, Canada, and Japan, and applications pending in Europe.

Technological Leadership: Our AI-supported process has been developed over several years, leveraging experience with renowned retailers and more than 100 million data records. Cyreen also provides an IT and hardware analytical solution that allows for flexible and easy deployment in retail settings.

4. Strong Team with Relevant Expertise

Teamstärke: Our team is dynamic, diverse, and experienced, combining essential skills in technology, AI, retail, and media to drive the company’s success. This crisis-tested team has years of industry experience.

5. Scalable Business Model with Potential for a Hidden Champion

Market Potential: The shift in advertising budgets from TV to retail media presents significant growth opportunities. This trend enables retailers to create new revenue streams to counter falling margins.

Business Model: Cyreen operates a scalable business model featuring a hardware lock-in. Hardware investment is either covered by long-term SaaS fees or we act solely as a technology supplier under a licensing model. This allows for parallel international and global growth.

Additional Advantage: The willingness of advertisers to pay is 30 times higher compared to traditional advertising systems available in the market.

6. Sustainable Investment

Cyreen prioritizes the privacy-friendly use of data, positioning itself as a counter-model to the “data crawlers” of e-commerce like Meta or Google, which rely on personal data. Instead, we provide situationally relevant advertising targeting options (e.g., based on time, time of day, or temperature). This helps to counteract the “urban die-off” and supports regional supply chains. Our intelligent targeting, considering stock levels and expiration dates, can also reduce food waste, while enabling immediate recall campaigns on a regional basis.

7. Exit Potential

Cyreen is an attractive exit case for large retail companies, advertisers, TV broadcasters, and digital signage firms. We have already received concrete inquiries from larger digital signage companies, confirming our market relevance and interest.

1. Sales cycles in retail are often lengthy and challenging. How do you navigate this?

That is correct in principle. However, we have already completed a significant amount of preliminary work and are therefore not starting from scratch. We currently have a concrete growth case that will enable us to scale up and break even. Further projects are being driven forward in parallel. As soon as the sales cycle with the respective customer has been overcome, there is considerable scaling potential, which also protects against possible competition.

2. Is there a dependency on a potential customer, such as the beverage market?

We are currently in the process of finalizing the contract with our growth partner. The LOI has already been signed. Additionally, we are pursuing a diversification strategy and engaged in discussions with other retailers, which will mitigate the risk of dependence on a single customer.

3. How can we ensure that competitors cannot simply copy Cyreen's unique selling points?

We have developed a robust sales pipeline over time, built on a foundation of deep technical expertise and experience. This has positioned us for success, particularly with the recent materialization of our first contracts. Our competitive advantage is now well-established and sustainable.

4. Why would retailers not develop a similar solution themselves?

It is often the case that retailers lack the requisite expertise to implement such a complex system, and it would take years to build this up. We view a large retail player more as a potential acquirer or customer (e.g., as a whitelabel solution), even if the retailer wishes to run their own screens.

5. Is Cyreen's solution overly complex?

Our solution provides a comprehensive, target group-oriented, and individual communication concept enhanced by artificial intelligence. The complexity of the solution gives us a technical advantage.

6. Will advertisers proceed with the implementation of the technology beyond the test phase?

Advertisers have expressed significant interest in the technology, particularly in terms of its ability to provide insights, analysis, and optimization of advertising. This suggests a promising outlook for the long-term adoption of the technology beyond the test phase.

7. Please confirm whether Cyreen is GDPR-compliant, despite the strict data protection rules?

The GDPR does not directly apply to our system, as no personal data is collected. However, the company places great importance on the careful handling of generated data, whether it is third-party or first-party data. Since the system's introduction, there has not been a single complaint from shoppers.