SES Imagotag, a global leader in electronic retail shelf labels, has completed its acquisition of Cork firm MarketHub.

The Paris-listed business will now double the Irish company’s retail data analytics team over the next 12 months to more than 30 people.

Enterprise Ireland-backed MarketHub was founded in 2013 by Mitchelstown native Roy Horgan and co-founders Chris Quinn and Dan McSweeney.

The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Horgan said the completion of the acquisition – after the Paris firm took a majority stake in the Cork company in 2017 – saw a return for the state export agency on its investment.

Former Tesco Ireland boss and fellow Corkman Tony Keohane was also an early backer.

MarketHub’s Cork office will become a strategic centre of excellence, focused on growing value-added services.

SES has grown from a valuation of about €200m, with €100m in sales, towards a €1bn valuation and €400m in sales since 2017, Horgan said.

It supplies well-known retailers including Dixons, Carrefour and Walmart, totalling 30,000 customer stores.

SES-Imagotag technology, combined with its Captana computer vision, will underpin a ‘self-learning store,’ in a world-first launch in a Dublin store in the coming weeks, he added.

The concept evolved from the team in Cork. It links point-of-sale systems and analyses sales in real time to predict sales, also enabling in-store fulfilment of online orders to enhance supply chain sustainability, as well as adjust prices to reduce food waste. 

The combination of data analytics, electronic shelf label and information displays with cameras helps grocery retailers and pharmacies improve their gross margins by at least 10pc to 15pc.

“The numerous synergies between our solutions will strengthen our leading position in the convergence of physical and digital retail,” said SES Imagotag CEO Thierry Gadou.

“I see the relationship between impact in the food supply chain and the consumer decisions at the shelf. If you can give them good information there on efficacy, supply chain, or CO2 footprint, it will materially change consumer behaviour,” Horgan added.

Also an adviser to Brussels-based impact investment firm Astanor Ventures, the former banker, whose wife is the RTÉ and BBC presenter Angela Scanlon, has now stepped into the role of senior executive vice-president of strategy, marketing and communications with SES Imagotag.

Reporting: The Irish Independent