Ahorra un 25 % (o incluso más) en tus costes de Kafka | Acepta el reto del ahorro con Kafka de Confluent
2025 DATA STREAMING STARTUP OF THE YEAR
Announcing Confluent’s Inaugural Data Streaming Startup of the Year: Focal Systems
We’re thrilled to announce Focal Systems as Confluent’s first-ever Data Streaming Startup of the Year (Americas)!
Based in San Francisco, Focal Systems is an AI-powered retail automation platform tackling one of the toughest challenges in retail: keeping shelves stocked and customers happy while maximizing store productivity and controlling inventory costs.
From Y Combinator to Market Leader
Founded out of Y Combinator and backed by leading venture capital firms, Focal Systems has rapidly emerged as an innovative force in the retail technology space. Their platform transforms how retailers manage operations – combining computer vision, AI, and real-time data streaming to automate shelf monitoring, inventory tracking, and in-store task management.
How it Works
Focal Systems’ technology captures images of every shelf and every product across client stores throughout the shopping day. Using its proprietary Shelf AI, Focal allows store managers and merchandisers to understand their stores like never before, seeing true planogram compliance and product availability for every aisle for the very first time. And Focal helps stores convert insight into action at all levels of store operations: stock keeping, replenishment, ordering, staff management, labor planning, merchandising, planogram design and compliance, ecommerce, and overall estate management.
One of Focal’s notable features, called Store Walk, enables store leadership to pay a virtual visit to any section of any store at any time, even from thousands of miles away. Using Store Walk retail and merchandising leaders can see store compliance and performance firsthand, or rely on Focal’s proprietary presentability score to hone in on specific performance issues.
Built on Confluent
The game-changer lies in leveraging real-time data streaming to query, correlate, and act upon image metadata and IoT signals the moment they’re generated. That means instant visibility into stockouts, faster replenishment, and optimized store execution—all driving higher efficiency and profitability.
“Focal’s cameras underpinned by Apache Flink® enable us to handle massive amounts of retailers’ data across the chains, stores, and regions with speed and precision” said Johnson.
Single-store scale
Processes tens of thousands of daily images and events from hundreds of in-store cameras per location
Chain-wide scale
Aggregates metrics across thousands of stores and departments, delivering chain-level insights and rankings with predictable freshness
Multi-tenant scale
Supports millions of daily image and telemetry events across regions and time zones on a unified streaming backbone
Why Focal Systems Stands Out
AI-driven automation
Transforming shelf images into operational actions
Real-time streaming analytics
Heavy use of Flink to unlock low-latency IoT and retail insights
Tangible business impact
Improving product availability, customer satisfaction, and retailer margins
Setting the Pace for Data-Driven Retail
Focal Systems exemplifies how Confluent for Startups companies are transforming entire industries by putting data streaming at the heart of their platforms. By weaving AI with real-time event streaming, they’re not just solving retail’s stockout problem – they’re reimagining how the modern store operates.
Congratulations to the Focal Systems team for being named Confluent’s inaugural Data Streaming Startup of the Year (Americas). Your innovation shows the power of streaming data in action – and inspires a new generation of startups to follow. Learn more about how Focal uses AI to change how retailers operate at www.focal.systems
Empowering the Next Generation of Startups to Scale with Real-Time Data
Confluent for Startups is dedicated to empowering early-stage startups with the tools, credits, technical help, and community support needed to succeed in the fast-paced world of data streaming and AI. By providing an easy onramp to Confluent’s real-time data streaming platform, we help startups scale faster and smarter.