Vori announced it raised $22 million in Series B financing led by Cherryrock Capital, with participation from Greylock Partners and The Factory, led by Stanford AI researcher Chris Ré.
The company develops an AI-powered operating system designed to automate and manage grocery store operations across checkout, payments, inventory management, ordering, pricing, promotions, and supplier coordination.
Vori said the grocery industry remains one of the largest undigitized retail sectors globally, with many operators still relying on fragmented legacy systems, paper invoices, and manual workflows. According to the company, the U.S. grocery market represents approximately $1.5 trillion annually.
The company said it has processed more than $500 million in payments since launching in January 2024, serving over one million consumers across 55 U.S. cities. Vori also reported that payment volume has doubled during the past six months while new stores are onboarding every 24 hours.
Vori’s platform combines three core systems: a system of record that tracks store operations and inventory activity, a system of action where AI agents automate operational tasks, and a payment processing infrastructure supporting EBT, WIC, HSA, and FSA transactions across different state regulatory environments.
The company said its AI systems can automatically generate purchase orders, update shelf pricing, manage promotions, and optimize store operations based on real-time inventory and sales conditions. Vori also noted that data and operational learnings from one store are used to improve recommendations and workflows across its broader network.
Vori said its long-term strategy is to become a transaction and operational infrastructure layer connecting grocery stores, distributors, brands, and payment systems across the food supply chain.
The company was founded by Brandon Hill and includes team members with backgrounds from SpaceX, Stripe, Square, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart, and Amazon.
KEY QUOTES:
“My family has been in grocery for three generations, and for most of that time the answer to ‘how do we run this store better’ was simply ‘work harder.’ That no longer works. Grocery stores require what seems like never-ending decisions and adjustments to be made every second of the day just to stay running. With AI now making it possible to automate all operations, the cost of inaction is now existential. We plan to be the platform that powers the industry-wide rebuild of the systems that run grocery.”
Brandon Hill, Co-Founder And CEO, Vori
“Grocery is an antiquated business with an enormous market, which AI can catalyze to bring growth and efficiencies. We back companies that have audacious visions grounded in relentless execution and Brandon’s team at Vori is one of them. Before writing a single line of code, the team spent four years earning a PhD in grocery, going store to store, learning the rhythms, workflows, and economics that no outside company had bothered to understand.”
Stacy Brown-Philipot, Founder, Cherryrock Capital
