Dallas Innovates First Look: REVTECH's New Space

A mentor-driven retail accelerator has announced its next cohorts as it settles into its own place in a 13,000-square-foot coworking space at Dallas’ Walnut Glen Tower.

REVTECH officially celebrated its new home located about a mile from NorthPark Center Thursday. The accelerator program, which offers a 12-week program to advance technology in retail and grocery industries, has been operating from the Dallas Entrepreneur Center since it started in 2012.

Its new facility features state-of-the-art conference rooms, function areas, hardware, and software lab facilities, 18 private offices, and 44 workstations.

“We’ve had a banner year, we put out more money so far this year than we have in our cumulative history,” REVTECH Managing Director David Matthews told attendees during the grand opening event. “We’ve invested a little over $600,000 so far this year.”

“We’ve had a banner year, we put out more money so far this year than we have in our cumulative history.” David Matthews

Each of the 2017 cohorts provide technology to improve consumer experience within stores. The companies include Birdzi, Accel Robotics, and Bottlefly.

The newly-announced companies are invited to settle into the REVTECH space and collaborate on solutions for retail and grocery industries.

“We have a fund that’s largely committed for follow-on investments in companies we backed [in] 2012 through 2016, but we’ve allocated a healthy portion of that fund for doing new investments so we can continue running the accelerator year on year,” Matthews said.

California-based companies, Accel Robotics and Bottlefly, use science-based analytics to provide in-store customer service. New Jersey-based digital engagement platform, Birdzi, is designed to personalize the shopping experience to better connect retailers with customers at the “right time and place.”

“The core technology we developed is a 360 perception engine that can basically identify people, places, and products, so we understand exactly what’s going on in the space,” Accel Robotics Co-Founder and CEO Brandon Maseda said.”We’re really excited to be apart of the community here.”

“This is an affinity group around people who are very interested in what retail looks like in the future, in this new world of Amazon.” David Matthews

Bottlefly utilizes a tablet software that recommends wine in grocery aisles for customers looking to find the right bottle. The software uses taste chemistry to analyze an individual’s preferences with an exact match.

“Grocery stores love it because they say it’s like having a wine steward in the wine aisle for a dollar an hour,” CEO Katerina Axelson said.

REVTECH is looking to expand on the 2017 program by inviting up to four more mentor-nominated companies to join in and have the chance to be funded at the end of the program.

“This is an affinity group around people who are very interested in what retail looks like in the future, in this new world of Amazon,” Matthews said.