Romanian startup Bob Concierge has raised €6M from US investment fund
The Romanian startup Bob Concierge has received a new investment of €6 million from American fund NCH Capital. With this new round, the total investments in the Romanian startup have exceeded €11 million.
Bob Concierge has developed an intelligent system of automated devices that provide and sell products and services within residential complexes and office buildings. The company aims to use the funds to continue to innovate and scale up the business, in order to become the major marketplace for residential services in Romania and in the European region.
Currently, Bob Concierge operates a network of 64 devices in Romania, with another 100 currently in the process of being installed. With the new funding, the company will continue to develop its network locally and internationally. The team plans to build a network of 5,000 devices in Romania and 50,000 devices in Europe in the coming years.
“Very few startups in the region dare to develop intelligent hardware solutions. We are convinced that software-only innovations are now in full swing, but in the future they will decline due to some of the limitations they face. We believe the future belongs to automated hardware equipped with artificial intelligence,” said Mihail Gîrneț, CEO at Bob Concierge.
With the limitations of the COVID-19 pandemic, the IoT solution of the startup certainly is of huge value for its users, allowing them to use the best out of the local retail market just through a mobile application.
Bob Concierge brings to residential apartment buildings automatic mini-shops, with food and drinks, complemented by the online platform Uncle Bob, with essential products and a range of home services that can be ordered for optimal convenience. The company’s devices also feature delivery compartments, in which couriers can drop off or pick up a package, and special dry cleaning compartments, in which users can leave their laundry, for the cleaning companies to pick up.
The Bob Concierge devices use the “Grab and Go” technology so that customers registered in the mobile application can be able to open the mini-shop and take whatever products they need. For this process, the customers simply need to authenticate by scanning the visible QR code, after which the products are automatically identified by the multitude of sensors, and the payment is instantly processed from the user’s account.
The project has a unique approach, by using Internet of Things technologies (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to ensure a fully integrated business chain, from logistics to product sales. All the hardware and software components of the solutions offered by Bob Concierge are currently developed and produced exclusively in Romania, with the help of local teams and talent.
