My Big Idea: retail insights platform Algori

‍Hi Andrius! What's your elevator pitch?

Algori is the consumer panel redefined for the modern FMCG world. We provide near real-time, SKU-level purchase insights, powered by shopping receipts from Spain’s largest panel of more than 45,000 active shoppers. We empower brands and retailers with precise, granular data to improve distribution, sales and marketing decisions, faster and with greater clarity than traditional data providers.

Why does the market need it?

In many ways, the FMCG market is still operating in the dark. Brands are competing for shelf space using data that’s often weeks old and heavily aggregated. The reality is that most traditional panels were built for a different retail era, when the pace of change was slower and averages were enough to guide decisions. Today, that’s no longer the case. When you optimize around averages, you miss the critical signals, what’s happening at SKU level, in a specific store, with a specific type of shopper. By the time the insight arrives, the opportunity to act has often passed. Algori replaces that lag with receipt-based, cross-retailer visibility in near real time. It’s not just more data, it’s a clearer, more immediate view of what’s actually happening, so brands can react faster and make decisions grounded in reality.

Where is the business today? 

Spain is our core market, where we run the country’s largest shopper panel, with around 45,000 weekly active users. This foundation gives us SKU-level, cross-retailer visibility into roughly 25,000 shopping baskets every day. We’re already trusted by global FMCG brands, market leaders and private-label manufacturers. Our partners include the majority of Spain’s top 15 grocery chains and more than 20 leading manufacturers, including multinationals such as L’Oréal, Coca-Cola and Tetra Pak. We have a focused team of 18, headquartered in Madrid, with our engineering and data development hub based in Vilnius.

What made you think there was money in this?

When we looked closely at the FMCG data landscape, we saw companies already spend millions every year on data, yet still struggle to get actionable insights at SKU and retailer level. The problem isn’t demand, it’s that incumbent panels are expensive, inflexible and not granular enough, especially for day-to-day decisions. We saw an opportunity to deliver better, faster data with a more flexible and transparent pricing model, making high-quality insights accessible not just to the largest players, but also to brands that have traditionally been underserved.

What's your biggest strength?

Our biggest strength is the combination of scale, speed and granularity. We operate a panel that’s four to five times larger than incumbent panels in Spain, deliver insights around seven times faster, and do it at SKU and retailer level. That combination allows us to answer business questions that traditional panels simply can’t answer reliably.

What is the secret to making the business work?

The key to making the business work is removing friction at every step. On the data side, that starts with receipt-based capture that takes seconds instead of minutes, which allows us to build a much larger and more consistent panel. On top of that, we use machine learning to classify purchases at SKU level without needing integrations with retailers. But just as important is how that data is delivered: our job-to-be-done interfaces are designed to turn complex data into clear business answers, not dashboards people have to interpret. Finally, we have a category-based pricing, rather than bundled contracts, so customers pay for what they actually use.

How do you market the company?

We run webinars and reports that showcase fresh shopper insights from our data, often highlighting trends before they appear elsewhere. We amplify those insights through FMCG and retail media. We also use LinkedIn actively, both at company level and through the founders, to engage directly with the market.

What funding do you have? Is it enough?

To date, we’ve raised €7.5 million, including a €3.6 million growth round closed in December 2025. This funding is being used to scale the platform, expand internationally, and continue developing new AI-driven solutions.

Tell us about the business model

Algori operates a flexible business model. Our pricing allows brands to optimize their data spend by choosing exactly the scope of data they need to generate insights. Customers pay by category, based on the cost of collecting and maintaining SKU-level data for that specific category. This means a brand can, for example, select a single sub-category across all Algori solutions and still access the full insight-generating interfaces, at a significantly lower monthly cost. That level of flexibility simply isn’t possible with incumbent data providers, which rely on bundled packages that often force customers to pay for far more data than they actually use.

What were you doing before?

Before founding Algori, I worked as a technology and management consultant on strategy and transformation projects across different industries, including roles at EY and Samsung SDS. At Samsung, I was exposed early on to how data and technology could directly influence retail performance. I later moved into the energy sector, where I became Head of Innovation at a large Baltic energy group and launched one of the region’s first corporate venture capital funds focused on energy tech. That role brought me closer to startups and venture building, which eventually led me into entrepreneurship. Before starting Algori, I had moved to Spain to work on a startup in the energy space, where I met my future co-founders. That’s when I learned about the structural challenges FMCG companies face in measuring their markets and truly understanding consumer behaviour. I immediately saw parallels with my previous experience in retail technology and data, and that’s what ultimately led us to create Algori.

Alongside building Algori, I also invest as an angel in early-stage technology startups, particularly in data and AI.

Are there any technologies you've found useful?

We’re fundamentally a technology-driven, native company. Our ability to process around 25,000 shopping baskets per day relies on the scalable and elastic capabilities of Google Cloud. The user experience is powered by React on the front end, but our core differentiator lies in our proprietary machine learning models. These models are custom-trained to classify, process and clean large volumes of unstructured receipt data with speed and accuracy. We focus on building and using technology that creates a clear, verifiable competitive advantage.

What is the future vision?

Our long-term vision is to become the operating system for FMCG growth, serving as both the data layer and the decision interface for brands. In the near term, we’re focused on expanding beyond Spain into additional European markets, including Germany, France and Poland, as well as Latin America. At the same time, we’re continuing to scale the panel and build AI-supported solutions, to better meet the evolving needs of FMCG manufacturers and retailers.

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