Startup will repurpose security footage for retail analytics

Despite being Wharton juniors, Yash Kothari and Pranshu Maheshwari ditched on-campus recruiting.

Kothari and Maheshwari both plan to work on their startup Prayas Analytics, a retail analytics company that uses security footage to improve operations in stores. The two recently signed a paid pilot with a top-50 retailer with over 1,200 stores nationally, although they were not able to disclose the name at press time. They also partnered with a few local businesses.

The solution focuses on three major areas: customer traffic, behavioral metrics and demographic information.

Instead of simply seeing how many people visit a store, Prayas Analytics plans to see when customers visit and what they buy to change the layout of stores. They want to determine what consumers want, and hope to help stores make the shopping experience easier.

The two areas that Prayas wants to focus on include how to make lines shorter and how to analyze cashier efficiency so stores can better train slower cashiers. The main goal of the startup is to bring data operations into the retail world by “counting in a very clever way,” according to Maheshwari.

Although legally they are allowed to use the security footage, Prayas understands that there may be some ethical concerns that concern consumers. However, the company is focusing on the operations aspect rather than on marketing.

“I am just looking at the aggregate-level information. Essentially, we are counting blobs of people and not actually identifying anyone,” Kothari said. “There is no facial recognition software,” Maheshwari added.

Because they believe that most fields can be quantified, Kothari and Maheshwari hope to expand into healthcare or other fields in the future. Their focus is on retail right now because of their success in that field.

The two came up with the idea during a Wharton Leadership Venture in Utah. Although online companies like Amazon and Netflix are becoming more popular, Kothari and Maheshwari realized that 80 percent of sales in the United States still happen in physical stores.

The pair talked to two to three Wharton alumni each day for about a year to get feedback on the idea. They believe that without the alumni, Prays would not be as successful as it is today.

Currently, Maheshwari focuses on the tech aspect of the startup, while Kothari concentrates on sales. They believe that being co-founders has helped make the idea successful, as they were able to rely on each other when running into obstacles such as a lack of experience in retail.

Coming from Wharton, Maheshwari was not completely certain he would want to pursue the startup post graduation. This past summer, he did work in finance but realized that ultimately he would rather work on Prayas Analytics.

Kothari agreed. “The entrepreneurship community here at Penn is really picking up,” he said.

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