Ksubaka offers innovation in retail tech as lockdown eases

by Startacus Admin

Retail tech innovation in a world still dealing with COVID-19, thanks to Ksubaka

With the easing of lockdown restrictions, it is easy to fool ourselves into thinking that COVID-19 is no longer a problem. Even while our logical minds tell us that it hasn’t magically vanished, being allowed to go shopping, visit family, and even sit in a pub again has the dangerous effect of allowing us to indulge in the feeling of being back to normal.

But the virus has not gone anywhere, there still isn’t a cure or a vaccine, and the danger is still very much present. What we need is common sense from the people around us, but that’s a big ask, so it’s lucky we have startups working on solutions instead.

London-based startup Ksubaka is one such startup, and they have created a range of products to check people’s temperature via infrared at the entrances to venues such as shops, shopping centres, and leisure centres, to manage occupancy of venues in order to maintain social distancing, and to keep an eye on how your staff are doing.

The temperature-sensing kiosk uses infrared to detect a customer’s body temperature in less than a second and let them know whether they are at a risky temperature that could potentially denote sickness, in which case it will tell them that they cannot enter. Whether or not this comes with an ED-209 to press the issue, we are unsure. With schools reopening, these kiosks can also be placed at the school entrance to check children as they arrive. They come in wall-mounted, free-standing, and desktop options and self-install in 10 minutes.

Ksubaka’s occupancy monitoring system uses stereovision sensors installed around the interior of a venue to measure the flow of people, monitor the distance between them, and let people know at the door whether they can enter and how long they need to wait before doing so if not.

Their Smiles check-in app allows businesses to check on their work from home staff to ensure that they are coping okay and to get to know them and their needs better. It uses a degree of gamification to ensure that the quick surveys don’t get tiresome. Operable for up to 100,000 employees, the software collects and interprets the data from your people so that you can see what action needs to be taken and where.

In June, Ksubaka announced that it had raised €1.3 million in funding from UST Global, which it will use to increase the presence of its products. With existing clients including Colgate, Tesco, Kellogg’s, Heineken, and many other big names, and a Chinese trial that placed the kiosks in 7,000 locations across more than 130 cities, we don’t think they’ll have much trouble doing so.

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Published on: 14th July 2020