It's hard to believe that five years ago, WHATALOCATION embarked on a mission to revolutionize the retail industry through the power of location intelligence. Today, as we celebrate our fifth anniversary, we reflect on the incredible journey we've shared with our valued customers and partners.
First of all, let us have a quick look at what our software looked like 5 years ago:
What a crazy journey, right? From the very beginning, WHATALOCATION has been a company built on a user-centric approach. We've developed our solutions hand-in-hand with retailers, franchises, and real estate companies across Europe, ensuring that our location intelligence platform directly addresses their most pressing needs. This commitment to "retail first" has fueled our growth, allowing us to support over 6,000 locations across 17 European countries, with a combined retail turnover exceeding 33 billion euros.
The retail industry is undergoing a period of unprecedented change. The COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally altered consumer buying behavior, forcing retailers to adapt and innovate. As highlighted in a recent WHATALOCATION blog post, "The Purpose of Physical Stores is Changing" (https://www.whatalocation.ai/post/the-purpose-of-physical-stores-is-changing), the rise of millennials and Gen Z as dominant consumer groups necessitates a focus on experience and connection.
At WHATALOCATION, we believe that physical stores will continue to play a vital role in the retail ecosystem, but their purpose is evolving. Our location intelligence solutions empower retailers to select optimal locations, optimize store operations, and create data-driven experiences that resonate with today's tech-savvy consumers.
We are excited to be at the forefront of this retail transformation. Our data and AI-powered insights help retailers:
As we celebrate our fifth anniversary, we at WHATALOCATION look to the future with immense optimism. We are confident that we will continue to play a critical role in empowering retailers to thrive in the ever-evolving retail landscape.
Dear Retail, we were honored to support you for five years now. We hope you allow us to continue for at least another five years. Together, we survived crazy times, which will be noted in history books. We hope you understand the global shift into a data-driven environment where the connection between you and your customers is seamless no matter which touchpoint you meet next. Hand in hand, we can understand the customer's needs and ensure you fulfill them sustainably. Please don't lean back. You have to do something to stay relevant. Let's rock #together, Retail!
Dear partners, your support has been invaluable to us, and we are deeply grateful for your efforts to make us successful. We want to extend a special thanks to Mario Mietsch. His belief in our product and trust in us as founders have been key factors in our success today. Mario, we are truly grateful for your support. We could list countless others (e.g., Tim Weiß) who have given us extraordinary support. But at the top of the list are our wives, who have given us the freedom to do our thing with great understanding. We love you.
Not to forget our team members .. #L'familia
Well, this year, we'll invest a massive amount of resources into shifting more and more into AI-driven retail and locations analytics to provide our users with better recommendations. Everyone is talking about GEN-AI, and so do we. We will launch an LLM solution for our users, taking location intelligence to another level.
We already launched some LLM features, and the user feedback has been extremely encouraging, to say the least. As you might expect, we are also working on even bigger projects, but for now, we will keep them secret until we announce our next fundraising move. ... #Cheers