The pandemic has accelerated innovation for drive-thru experiences. Before the pandemic, drive-thrus at quick-serve restaurants (QSR0) accounted for 50-75% of a store’s revenue. The pandemic caused that to jump to 90-95%. Technology is now focused on addressing the velocity of traffic and optimizing capacity. omniX Labs is an analytics platform for vehicle traffic for businesses to better understand customer behavior in and around their vehicles. Without the need for additional hardware, the platform takes a location’s existing camera systems and uses the video feeds to analyze vehicular activity using machine learning and AI. omniX can be used for things like upselling, improving conversion, optimizing efficiency, detecting fraud, and forecasting. The company has focused on servicing car washes, with over 1200 locations using omniX, but the technology is versatile enough to be used in other settings like car repair shops and restaurants.
AlleyWatch caught up with CEO and Cofounder Anoop Kanthan to learn more about how omniX Labs is focused on making vehicle analytics accessible without hardware, the company’s strategic plans, latest round of funding, which bring the total funding raised to $3.3M, and much, much more.
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
Seed, which oversubscribed, from C2 Ventures, EverWash, and Newark Venture Partners, among other investors.
Tell us about the product or service that omniX Labs offers.
omniX Labs’ delivers analytics for businesses in the physical world serving consumers in-and-around their vehicles.
What inspired the start of omniX Labs?
We were running an IoT sensor and RFID integration services company and became frustrated with the excessive cost of hardware and complexity to implement vehicle tracking and analytic solutions. If we can eliminate the hardware from the equation and make it a software play we can make this a much more cost-effective and more available solution to industries that otherwise couldn’t justify it.
How is omniX Labs different?
We think of ourselves as intelligent eyes for businesses. What we offer is a turnkey subscription SaaS solution that leverages their existing security camera infrastructure. We then layer on our advanced neural network models to analyze their location(s) and give business actionable insights and predictions in virtually real-time.
What market does omniX Labs target and how big is it?
Quick serve restaurant and retail drive-thrus, car washes, and oil & lube shops. We see the total addressable market at $219B. To date, omniX Labs has focused on the car wash industry for its SaaS subscription service, with over 1,200 installations across the US live.
What’s your business model?
B2B SaaS.
How has COVID-19 impacted the business??
We have been fortunate that it has impacted us positively. With the shift from public transport to the use of private vehicles, drive-thru commerce, and curbside pickup have grown substantially which has resulted in higher growth rates for omniX Labs.
What was the funding process like?
Seed fundraising is in the middle-type activity, larger money than a bootstrap or pre-seed but smaller than a Series A. That generally keeps you in a smaller audience of investors and ironically it can be harder to raise. We were further disrupted by the pandemic which put some would-be investors on the sideline while they figured out what was going on around them. We ultimately found the right investor group, but it was certainly more of a challenge than we originally visioned.
Seed fundraising is in the middle-type activity, larger money than a bootstrap or pre-seed but smaller than a Series A. That generally keeps you in a smaller audience of investors and ironically it can be harder to raise. We were further disrupted by the pandemic which put some would-be investors on the sideline while they figured out what was going on around them. We ultimately found the right investor group, but it was certainly more of a challenge than we originally visioned.
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
From a why you and why it perspective there is a belief in the founders and team. Secondly, the broader mission of what omniX Labs is solving, which is an analytics platform for the physical world.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
Scaling and expansion. Scaling in terms of building out the platform to meet the demands and expansion in terms of industries we are tackling and capabilities we are rolling out.
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
Continuing to build on our platform, tackle another industry vertical, grow the team, and reach profitability.
What’s your favorite outdoor dining restaurant in NYC?
Barbalu.
