New York smart retail company Intelo.ai has closed a $2m financing round led by venture capital firm Illuminate Ventures.

This money will be used to accelerate the development and deployment of Intelo.ai’s platform for merchandising and planning. The company is pioneering the use of AI agents that work alongside retail teams, augmenting their skills to improve forecasting, assortment planning and inventory management.

This funding will be used to expand the product and engineering teams and accelerate the company’s go-to-market strategy.

“Intelo was born from a deep respect for the art and science of retail,” said Roopesh Nair, co-CEO of Intelo.ai. “I’ve seen first-hand how pivotal merchants, planners and buyers are, and our passion is to build the technology they truly deserve. Our vision for agentic AI is to elevate these roles, transforming them from data analysts into strategic visionaries. We’re giving every retail leader a powerful AI partner to handle the how, so they can reclaim their time to focus on the what,”

Jeff Fish, the other co-CEO of Intelo.ai, added: “Retail merchandising and planning have been underserved by true innovation for too long. We are grateful for the confidence that Illuminate Ventures and our investors have placed in us to change that. This partnership validates our vision for a future where human expertise is amplified by powerful AI agents, working in concert to make smarter, faster and more profitable decisions. This funding allows us to accelerate our mission to move Intelo.ai forward and deliver a new era of collaborative intelligence to the retail industry.”

Illuminate Ventures, known for backing transformative enterprise technologies, recognised the market opportunity and the approach Intelo.ai is taking to solve longstanding problems in retail.

“Intelo represents exactly the kind of further along company Illuminate looks for; experienced founders with deep domain expertise, solving a problem that offers near instant RoI,” said Cindy Padnos, managing partner of Illuminate Ventures (www.illuminate.com). “Their deep expertise in both retail and technology gives them a unique insight into the industry’s pain points. The concept of AI agents that collaborate with planners and merchandisers is a game-changer. Intelo.ai is not just building another analytics tool, they are creating a true system of intelligence that will transform core retail operations. We are thrilled to partner with them to help build a category-defining company.”

Intelo.ai‘s platform moves beyond static dashboards and traditional analytics by introducing AI agents that can reason, recommend and automate complex workflows. This collaborative intelligence approach empowers retail teams to navigate volatile market trends, reduce waste and optimise margins with agility and precision.