At the “Tech for Retail 2025” trade fair in Paris, Albatross, Neuralk, POWER.xyz and Dealt were recognized for their technological innovations. The startups impressed with real-time AI, predictive analytics, generative 3D content and home-related services – solutions that make retail more efficient, more personalized and more exciting.
The “Tech for Retail Awards 2025” award ceremony took place at the Place des Innovations, a central location for the members of the four juries, who were impressed by the innovative power and agility of the startups.
“Nowadays you have to act very quickly. Juries don’t automatically choose large-scale solutions as smaller companies often address specific needs,” Mike Hadjadj, founder of La Retail Tech and organizer of the event, told FashionUnited. “We received very diverse and sophisticated applications.” What appeals to people are AI-driven innovations and solutions that can be deployed immediately and have references, concrete results and ROI (return on investment).
Innovation Prize 2025: Albatross, inspiring real-time AI that enables discovery
Founded by former Amazon AI executives and based in Switzerland, Albatross recently raised $12.5 million to develop an AI model that continuously learns from users’ browsing behavior.
“Personalization has not evolved in the last fifteen years. It is still based on three strategies: popularity, user similarity and product similarity. All of these strategies look to the past,” explains co-founder Kevin Kahn.
To combat this, Albatross highlights original and contextually relevant content in real time, turning every session into a journey of discovery.
In this way, Albatross helps to bring new products or designers into the focus of potential customers who are not yet familiar with them. This increases the attractiveness of platforms and supports creatives who recognize the value of publishing on platforms with direct user contact.
Albatross claims that the content feed generated over 400 percent increase in engagement and enabled the purchase of hundreds of thousands of items that would otherwise have gone undiscovered.
Start-up prize: Neuralk, predictive AI for data scientists
Neuralk is a predictive tool for data scientists that helps companies realize the full potential of their product, customer and transaction data.
It is built on a base model – a large-scale AI trained on extensive data – and specializes in data processing and structuring to generate structured and actionable insights.
This proprietary technology is particularly suitable for the luxury sector, where data volumes are often small. Thanks to pre-training, Neuralk opens up new use cases and significantly improves ROI.
“AI teams from corporations such as LVMH, L’Oréal and Chanel now turn to us with specific tasks, such as forecasting sales, inventory levels, repurchases or the performance of new products without historical data as they come from new collections,” explains Théo Marcolini, Senior Account Executive.
Another example: A luxury brand wanted to predict purchase intent for a second product. By analyzing the first purchase and customer history, Neuralk was able to anticipate which item would be purchased next, thereby increasing sales.
GEN AI Award: POWER.xyz, 3D and generative AI for unlimited content
POWER.xyz was founded three years ago in Angers, France and is based in the Station F incubator. The 3D Asset platform specializes in visual trading and unlimited content creation and is entirely based on generative AI. It offers brands a promising solution to visually transform their offering, produce rich, interactive and immersive content and improve the digital customer experience.
The platform consists of three complementary modules: a simplified workflow for creating and generating extensive 3D catalogs; the development of immersive experiences such as 3D viewers, interactive configurators and augmented reality tools; and a virtual studio that generates pack shots, videos and lifestyle visualizations in no time.
With just one 3D asset, a company can realize over ten use cases. “We work with brands like Saint Laurent, Gucci and Decathlon, enabling them to generate unlimited content by combining 3D and AI,” explains Clément Foucher, co-founder of POWER.xyz. “In other words, photo shoots are unnecessary. We scan a product to get a photorealistic representation. This allows the brand to generate unlimited content at any scale.”
Customer Experience Award: Dealt expands its retail offering to include home services and product insurance
Dealt offers retailers and e-commerce companies a comprehensive platform for providing home services – delivery, installation, assembly, maintenance and repair – with Dealt Home Services. The company also markets Dealt Care, a range of product insurance that includes, among other things, breakage, defect, extended warranty and home warranty protection for multiple appliances in the same household.
This positioning is particularly relevant because retailers can also offer these services in addition to selling products. This strengthens customer loyalty, differentiates the offer and increases added value. Proving its commercial potential, French company Dealt raised six million euros in June 2024 as part of its first round of financing to accelerate its growth.
“We offer an additional network of service providers (Dealt Connect) that allows brands and retailers to connect with professionals from all trades: electricians, plumbers, landscapers, bicycle mechanics, etc.,” explains Mickael Braconnier, CEO and co-founder of Dealt. “This allows them to build their own network or expand their existing one to develop new services or cover new geographical areas.”
So far, Dealt is not focusing on the fashion and accessories sector, as repairs are “often carried out in workshops and rarely at home”. However, the company serves numerous retail customers, particularly in the household appliances sector.