Imagine this: You enter an American Eagle store looking for a new pair of jeans. You try them on in the fitting room. But they don’t fit quite right, so you call an associate over and ask for a different size. Instead of having to go back to the shelves to check if there are any left, or page their colleague across the store to sort through the pile, all they have to do is open an app to know exactly where your preferred size and style is located—even if it’s not in the correct spot. The associate is able to quickly assist you (saving you time), and you walk away having purchased a brand new pair of pants (making them money).

All of this is possible with Radar, a sensor system that tracks the location of store items with 99% accuracy—a big jump from the less than 70% of inventory that most retailers can account for at a given moment without it. Radar’s founder and CEO Spencer Hewett says that additional knowledge has resulted in 10% or more in in-store revenue growth for Radar customers, which include nearly 1,500 American Eagle and Old Navy storefronts across the country. Around a dozen more retailers are in pilot projects.

Last week, Radar closed a $170 million Series B fundraising round valuing the company at $1 billion—adding the startup to the growing list of Under 30s that have become unicorns. Radar’s funding comes at a time of record growth in AI. And Hewett believes in-person retail is the next big opportunity for the AI craze. Because with Radar, brick-and-mortar retailers can gain access to ecommerce-levels of customer data.

“Physical retailers want to be able to measure their stores like they measure their websites,” Hewett says.

Radar is powered by a geolocation technology called RFID, or radio frequency identification. Most retailers that use RFID do it with handheld wands, where store associates walk the shop floor periodically to manually scan each item, tracking locations at that point in time. But Radar’s ceiling sensor automatically detects RFID tag locations every five seconds, keeping the store up to date. And as of February, Radar launched additional AI capabilities to analyze when and why the products are moving, allowing shops to better understand consumer habits.

“Silicon Valley is now bringing its attention to the physical world,” says John Burbank, the founder of Nimble Partners, which co-led the Series B with Gideon Ventures. He gives examples like self-driving cars, robotics and now in-person shopping. “Retailing has been in a pre-internet state for a really long time. What Spencer has done with this hardware, software, RFID chip optimization, it's like giving the internet to retail items.”

Amazon tried a similar system in 2016 when they launched Amazon Go. These stores allowed shoppers to scan their payment card, walk in, grab their items, and leave without ever speaking to (or even seeing) a store associate. But all Amazon Go stores officially closed this year due to financial struggles. The biggest difference between Amazon’s technology and Radar’s was that Amazon used cameras and computer vision to track products. Each store required hundreds of cameras to be installed for different angles, as well as weight sensors on every single shelf—both of which were expensive to install and maintain. With Radar, all they need is a few sensors installed to the ceiling.

Tracking the items was helpful, but the new AI analytics take it a step further. Those tools include Fitting Room Intelligence—which detects what items are taken into the fitting room, what gets exchanged for different sizes, and what sells. This doesn’t just give insight on best and worst sellers, but critical information like sizing or fit issues that could only be understood based on shoppers trying items on and deciding not to purchase.

Another of the new offerings is the Floor Set IQ. Based on all the data being measured, the platform can then design a recommended floor plan—and predict the percent increase in sales the new design will yield.

“Investors were surprised to see the rate at which it got adopted at the fleet scale,” Hewett says. “They're typically used to seeing technology start in one store, then it goes to 10, then to 20, then to 30. That’s not the case with Radar.” Radar is deploying to about 100 new locations per month, Hewett says.

The $170 million in new funding is a steep increase from their previous $38 million round in 2024. And it’s far larger than the $60 million Series B they sought out to raise. But as demand to be part of the round grew (investors including Y Combinator, Align Ventures and American Eagle CEO Jay Schottenstein joined as participants), so did the check size, Hewett says.

More cash means they can move faster: They’ve traditionally only had the manpower to onboard one retailer per year, but Hewett is hoping to increase that to tens of new customers annually. In order to meet that new demand, along with the 100 additional locations monthly for existing partners, Radar has to hire a bigger team of consultants, account managers and engineers.

“The company now has all the money it needs to execute,” Burbank says.