Placer.Ai Team (Company PR pic)
Placer.ai is an Israeli startup and a unicorn that offers retailers location analytics and foot traffic data. The firm just hit a $1.5 billion valuation with a $75 million raise from existing investors in the firm.
Foot traffic analytics is the process of collecting and analyzing data about the movement of people in a specific area, typically a retail location or public space. It provides valuable insights into customer behavior, allowing businesses to make data-driven decisions to optimize operations and increase revenue.
Location analytics is the process of collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data with a geographic component to derive actionable insights. It’s about understanding where things happen, and using that knowledge to make informed decisions.
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Founded in 2019 by CEO Noam Ben-Zvi, data scientist Zohar Bar-Yehuda, CTO Oded Fossfeld and CPO Ofir Lemel, Placer.ai has been adopted by over 500 customers including industry leaders in commercial real estate and retail like JLL, Brixmor, Taubman, Planet Fitness, and Dollar General. The upheaval caused by Covid, says the company, has also led to widespread adoption by other categories including Hedge Funds and CPG leaders.
The idea here is rather simple. Retailers make critical decisions every day about a wide variety of issues. These include what to stock, what to no longer offer, what to charge, where to place different items, and so and so forth. But usually these decisions must be made without having any relevant data as to what will work best. So retailers end up doing things based on the trial and error method which can lead to lost sales and opportunities for growth.
Placer provides the needed data by answering the questions of who visits a store, where do they live, or work, what other locations they frequent, what’s my churn rate, where do those lost customers go, and so forth. The company also provides information about competitors too like what are they up to, what do they charge and where are they located.
The Placer.ai Nationwide Office Building Index analyzes foot traffic data from some 1,000 office buildings across the country. It only includes commercial office buildings, and commercial office buildings with retail offerings on the first floor (like an office building that might include a national coffee chain on the ground floor). It does NOT include mixed-use buildings that are both residential and commercial.
The Index found that in July 2024 visits to office buildings nationwide were down just 27.8% compared to July 2019 – outpacing even June 2024’s “impressive showing.” Stated differently, July 2024 office building foot traffic reached 72.2% of July 2019 levels – and the highest it’s been since the pandemic. So even if some RTO mandates are intended to encourage “voluntary turnover” – i.e. make some workers quit – stricter face time policies are also having an appreciable impact on the ground.
Placer.ai also found that Miami and New York led the regional posy-Covid recovery pack in July – with visits to offices in both cities reaching about 90% of July 2019 levels. For both cities, as well as Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, July 2024 was the single busiest in-office month since 2020.
