Acrelec announces $223 million investment from Glory to expand in-store quick service solutions

Acrelec, the French company developing customer experience technology for “quick service” restaurants and retailers, has announced plans for a $223 million investment by Glory Global Solutions. The funding is subject to review by Acrelec’s employee representatives and certain competition authorities.

Acrelec has developed kiosks, drive-through and self-checkouts for many of the world’s best-known restaurants and retail brands including McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC, Walmart, Carrefour and Auchan. With the help of artificial intelligence, Acrelec systems aim to personalise the in-store customer journey.

Headquartered in Saint-Thibault-des-Vignes and founded in 2004, the company now has 40,000 installations across more than 70 countries.

Glory, a 100-year-old business in cash management, provides the French company with cash automation technologies and process engineering services that handle the cash flow running through Acrelec’s kiosks. Glory’s technology also provides consumers with more payment options.

“We have been working with the Acrelec team for a number of years and we recognised that there was a strong fit in our cultures and ambitions as well as complementary solutions that we bring to market,” said Akihiro Harada, CEO at Glory. “We see an increasing trend where consumers want to take more control over their in-store shopping and dining experiences. Acrelec offers consumers this control, through personally and contextually responsive self-service solutions. Our investment in Acrelec will help accelerate their pace of innovation to capitalize on this trend.”

Jacques Mangeot, Co-CEO of Acrelec, commented: “Today’s investment by Glory will power the next exciting step for our company and represents a great opportunity for our customers and our team. After many years of effort to answer in-store digital needs, we are ready to launch the next step in our innovative next generation ‘smart-store’ solutions. Our stylish, high-quality hardware will benefit from a complete suite of innovative AI software that increases revenues and leverages speed of service.”