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A serial entrepreneur, a musician, and Walmart’s CEO walk into an AI factory… May 15, 2025 |
In the days after the serial entrepreneur Ben Kaufman exited from his retail store startup CAMP early last year, he found himself in Walmart’s hometown of Bentonville, Arkansas meeting with a fellow tech founder he had partnered with years earlier. Before CAMP, Kaufman had also founded consumer startups Mophie, Quirky and Homesick Candles, and held exec roles at BuzzFeed. Now, he was looking for inspiration on what he might pursue next.
The fellow entrepreneur was Yoni Bloch, an Israeli musical artist who in 2010 had founded a video tech startup now known as Eko, which Kaufman’s companies partnered with in the past. In its early years, Eko (formerly Interlude) was supposed to disrupt the entertainment business by creating technology that enabled interactive features like choose-your-own adventure type customization of videos for online viewers. As a result, it attracted strategic investors like MGM Studios and Warner Music Group, in addition to venture players like Intel Capital and Sequoia Capital’s former Israel-focused fund.
But when that didn’t catch on, layoffs and a pivot ensued. Eko finally found product-market fit in a less flashy but more monetizable space: the product catalogues of online shopping sites. More specifically, by bringing more detail and interactivity to product image galleries that the startup says drive higher engagement and better conversion rates from online shoppers.
One of the biggest supporters of the reimagined Eko vision has been Walmart and, perhaps more importantly, its CEO Doug McMillon. (When I was conducting interviews for my book Winner Sells All about the Amazon/Walmart rivalry, several former Walmart execs used the same phrase to describe Eko founder Bloch’s influence on McMillon—to them, he was the CEO’s technology “muse.”)
McMillon first met Bloch on a trip to Israel, the story goes, and a $250 million investment in Eko and joint venture followed. (In what is a rare startup occurrence that might only be interesting to an e-commerce nerd like me: Amazon sits alongside its retail rival Walmart on Eko’s cap table, thanks to the tech giant’s acquisition of early Eko investor MGM.)
Now, a year and a half after the Kaufman/Bloch powwow in Bentonville, Eko is announcing that it has hired Kaufman as its president and chief commercial officer, and that he’ll oversee the buildout and operations of a new 70,000-square-foot warehouse in Bentonville—what the startup is dubbing a “capture factory.”
Inside this “factory,” AI-powered robotic cameras will shoot images of eventually hundreds of thousands of products—predominantly for Walmart at first, but eventually for other e-commerce websites and brands in the future. Eko says it’ll hire 200 local residents to run the facility.
Today, Eko’s technology helps produce “smart” image galleries—a few thousand are currently live on Walmart’s shopping site—that provide online shoppers a more realistic view of a product: What does this bakeware set look like with the lids on versus off? How does the fabric of the swivel chair come across in the real world?
But Kaufman’s vision for Eko and its robotic photo studios is much bigger. He believes that all of the product data and attributes that the startup’s proprietary camera system captures—and which the startup says is often more accurate than the details a product’s suppliers might provide—could serve as a “source of truth” in an online shopping world where AI companies like OpenAI and Perplexity need accurate data if they want to successfully popularize the AI-powered shopping recommendations and agents they’ve recently launched.
“GS1 was the standard to help computers identify products,” Kaufman told me recently, referencing the standard for retail barcodes. “In the future, Eko could become the standard to help computers understand products.”
It’s an ambitious vision—and it starts on a new type of factory floor.
See you tomorrow,
Jason Del Rey
X: @DelRey
Email: jason.delrey@fortune.com
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VENTURE DEALS
- Granola, a London-based AI-powered note taking platform, raised $43 million in Series B funding. Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross led the round and were joined by existing investors Mike Mignano, Nabeel Hyatt, and angel investors.
- Hedra, a San Francisco-based AI video generation platform, raised $32 million in Series A funding. a16z Infra led the round and was joined by existing investors a16z speedrun, Abstract, Index Ventures, and others.
- SpotitEarly, an Englewood, N.J.-based breath-based cancer screening service, raised $20.3 million in funding from Hanaco VC, Menomedin VC, angel investors, and others.
- Ravio, a London-based compensation data solution, raised $12 million in Series A funding. Spark Capital led the round and was joined by Blackbird and Cherry Ventures.
- Oath Surgical, a Portland, Ore.-based tech-powered surgical care provider, raised $10 million in funding from Oxford Science Enterprises, Black Opal Ventures, Rogue VC, and others.
- Schemata, a San Francisco-based 3D reality capture technology company, raised $5 million in seed funding. Owl Ventures led the round and was joined by a16z speedrun, Alumni Ventures, Anorak Ventures, and Time Zero Capital.
- Prediction Guard, a Lafayette, IN-based secure AI platform, raised $3.7 million in seed funding. Sovereign’s Capital led the round and was joined by Blu Ventures, Noblis Ventures, K Street Capital, angel investors, and others.
- Kovr.ai, a Reston, Va.-based AI automated cyber compliance platform, raised $3.6 million in seed funding. IronGate and Xfund led the round and were joined by Hack Factory, OODA Ventures, and McLean Capital.
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PRIVATE EQUITY
- Pfingsten Partners acquired American Cutting Edge, a Miamisburg, Ohio-based industrial knives, blades and razors company. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- Saber Power Services, a portfolio company of Greenbelt Capital Partners, acquired inoLECT, a Baton Rouge-based electrical engineering and field services provider. Financial terms were not disclosed.
EXITS
- Apollo agreed to acquire a majority stake in PowerGrid Services, a Hartselle, Ala.-based electric utility services provider, from The Sterling Group. Financial terms were not disclosed.
IPOS
- eToro Group, a Bnei Brak, Israel-based trading and investment platform, raised $620 million in an offering of 11.9 million shares (50% secondary) priced at $52 on the Nasdaq. The company posted $12.6 billion in revenue for the year ending Dec. 31, 2024. Spark Capital, BRM Group, Andalusian Private Capital & Advisory, SBT, and CM Equities back the company.
- MNTN, an Austin-based TV advertising software provider, plans to raise $187.2 million in an offering of 11.7 million shares (28% secondary) priced between $14 and $16 on the NYSE. The company posted $246 million in revenue for the year ending March 31, 2025. Baroda Ventures, Mercato Partners, Greycroft, Qualcomm, MGD Holdings, Bonfire Ventures, BlackRock, Fidelity, Peak Investment Holdings, Sylvina Capital, Anna McMurphy, Brederode, Dogwood Acquisition, George Dewey, IAG Capital Partners, Marwan Soghaier, Mohammad Hassan Afkham-Ebrahimi, and Staley Capital back the company.
- Chime Financial, a San Francisco-based mobile banking services provider, filed to go public on the Nasdaq. The company posted $1.8 billion in revenue for the year ending March 31, 2025. DST Global, Crosslink Capital, Access Industries Management, General Atlantic, Menlo Ventures, Cathay Innovation, and ICONIQ Strategic Partners back the company.
SPAC
- Churchill Capital X, a New York City-based blank check company founded by Michael Klein, raised $360 million in an offering of 36 million units priced at $10 on the Nasdaq.
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