Tech for Retail Awards 2025: What innovations are reinventing the retail experience?
Albatross, Neuralk, POWER.xyz and Dealt: the Tech for Retail trade show, which took place on November 24 and 25, 2025 at the Porte de Versailles, awarded its prizes to these four start-ups whose technological innovations - real-time AI, prediction, generative 3D or home services - give a concrete glimpse of the next wave of retail transformation.
The 2025 Tech for Retail Awards ceremony was held at Place des Innovations, a privileged location for the members of the four juries who were impressed by the innovative capacity and agility of the start-ups.
“Today, you have to move very quickly. The juries don’t automatically choose big solutions because, often, smaller structures meet specific needs,” Mike Hadjadj, founder of La Retail Tech and organizer of this event, told FashionUnited. “We received very diverse and highly developed applications. What appealed to them were innovations and artificial intelligence that could be used immediately, with references, concrete results, and ROI (return on investment).”
Innovation Award 2025: Albatross, a real-time inspirational AI that stimulates discovery
Founded by former Amazon AI executives and based in Switzerland, Albatross recently raised US$12.5 million to develop an AI model that continuously learns from the live behavior of users browsing the Net.
"Personalization hasn't evolved in fifteen years. It's still based on three strategies: popularity, user similarity, and product similarity. All of these strategies only look to the past," explains co-founder Kevin Kahn.
To address this, Albatross highlights original and contextually relevant content in real time, transforming each session into a journey of discovery.
Thus, Albatross allows new products or designers to be discovered by people who might potentially love them but don't know they exist. This makes the platforms more attractive and helps creators who see the value in being published on platforms that have a direct connection with users.
Albatross claims that the content feed generated over 400% increase in engagement and enabled the purchase of hundreds of thousands of items that would otherwise have remained invisible.
Start-up Award: Neuralk, predictive AI for data scientists
Neuralk develops a prediction tool for data scientists designed to help companies fully exploit the potential of their product, customer and transactional data.
It analyzes and enriches this data, enabling the production of directly actionable predictions. In practice, Neuralk transforms heterogeneous data into clear signals, ready to be used in business applications.
This proprietary technology is particularly well-suited to the luxury sector, where data volumes are often small. Neuralk unlocks new use cases and significantly improves ROI.
"Today, AI teams from groups like LVMH, L'Oréal or Chanel are asking us for specific topics such as sales forecasting, stock forecasting, repurchases or performance of new products without history since they come from new collections," explains Théo Marcolini, Senior Account Executive.
Another example: a luxury brand sought to predict the intention to purchase a second product. By analyzing the first purchase and customer history, Neuralk was able to anticipate which item would be bought next, thus accelerating sales.
GEN AI Award: POWER.xyz, 3D and generative AI for unlimited content
Founded three years ago in Angers and based at the Station F incubator, POWER.xyz is a 3D asset platform dedicated to visual commerce and unlimited content creation, entirely powered by generative AI. It represents a promising solution for brands looking to visually transform their offerings, produce rich, interactive, and immersive content, and enhance the digital customer experience.
The platform is based on three complementary modules: a series of simplified steps (workflow) that allows the production and generation of a large-scale 3D catalogue; the creation of immersive experiences such as a 3D viewer, interactive configurators or augmented reality; and a virtual studio that instantly generates packshots, videos or lifestyle visuals.
With a single 3D asset, a company can unlock more than ten use cases. “We work with brands like Saint Laurent, Gucci, and Decathlon, enabling them to generate an infinite amount of content by combining 3D and AI,” explains Clément Foucher, co-founder of POWER.xyz. “In other words, there’s no longer any need for photo shoots. We scan a product to obtain a photorealistic rendering. Then the brand has complete control to generate unlimited content at any scale.”