Eileen raises new capital to expand AI retail execution platform

Eileen secured a strategic investment from DisPact Ventures to expand the AI retail execution platform it says already works with more than 70 brands across 49 states. The Pittsburgh-based company says its system runs on a network of more than 25,000 shoppers, data from more than 90 retail banners and coverage of 5,600 unique stores.

The June 16 deal extends Eileen’s previously announced $1 million pre-seed round led by Top Shelf Ventures. Eileen describes itself as a retail intelligence platform for high-performing consumer packaged goods teams, and says the new capital will help it scale its Performance Hub. The company’s materials say the product is built to spot shelf issues in real time, create market-by-market store audits and track inventory gaps from the aisle.

That is the part Big Lots workers should watch. Tools like this do not just tell brands whether a store is busy or a display looks good on paper. They push more of the job toward shelf visibility, photo compliance, display accuracy and faster correction when a product is missing, misplaced or sold through. If a brand can see the shelf through shopper-captured photos and AI analysis, store teams can expect tighter accountability for whether the work was done and whether the fix happened quickly enough.

For a chain like Big Lots, that pressure lands in a hard retail environment. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2024, then announced in December 2024 that it would close all remaining stores and begin going-out-of-business sales at 963 locations. Big Lots later reached a deal to transfer hundreds of stores to Variety Wholesalers, while former chief executive Bruce Thorn served as president and CEO from October 2018 to February 2025.

That kind of upheaval makes execution visibility more valuable to managers and more visible to workers. At a retailer built on closeout, overstock and value merchandising, a shelf that is not full, signed and correctly placed can mean a missed sale, especially when bargain hunters are shopping fast and stock changes quickly. Eileen’s pitch is that its platform gives brands a clearer view of what is actually happening in stores, not just what a planogram says should be there.

Andrew Merinoff, Eileen’s founder and managing partner at DisPact Ventures, backs consumer brands and technologies. For Big Lots employees, the larger signal is simpler: as AI shelf-intelligence tools spread, store performance will be judged less by the effort behind the scenes and more by what can be verified on the aisle.