Sensei

Sensei is a Portuguese startup based in Lisbon, founded around 2019, developing computer vision technology for autonomous stores. The system uses AI-based sensors and computer vision to automatically track items selected by customers and update a virtual shopping cart in real time, enabling a "grab and go" shopping experience without traditional checkouts or barcode scanning, while preserving customer privacy through visual data anonymisation techniques. October 2024 brought a €15 million Series A led by BlueCrow Capital, with participation from LINCE CAPITAL, Explorer, Kamay Ventures, Techstars, METRO AG, Iberis Capital, Bright Pixel (formerly Sonae IM), Seaya, and angel investors Diogo Mónica and João Graça. The capital is earmarked for an ambitious goal: powering 1,000 autonomous stores by 2026, expanding the company's presence beyond its currently served markets — Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, and Brazil — into Central and Northern Europe. December 2025 brought a distinctive milestone: Sensei opened Europe's first fully autonomous healthcare store in Lisbon's Parque das Nações district under its Pharma&Go format — a 90 square metre store open 24/7, applying the company's grab-and-go technology to the pharmaceutical and para-pharmaceutical sector, a segment with particularly stringent regulatory and safety requirements. Sensei positions itself in the autonomous retail market, still in the early stages of large-scale adoption in Europe, where competitive advantage depends on demonstrating technological reliability in regulated contexts such as healthcare, in addition to traditional retail settings.