Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand. This week he’s joined by William Chomley, founder and CEO of IMAGR.

You’ve probably stood in a supermarket queue at some point and thought about how you could be spending your short time on earth more productively, because that’s what happened to this week’s Business is Boring guest, William Chomley, who instead of shrugging off these musings started a company to solve the problem.

IMAGR is a New Zealand start-up that uses computer vision to power smart shopping carts, with the ultimate goal of removing checkouts, meaning grocery store customers never have to queue again. 

Chomley was working in an investment fund and didn’t have time to wait in supermarket lines, but he did find the time to build out and validate the concept of solving the problem. His company soon went from side hustle to full-time job, with IMAGR raising multiple investment rounds including $14 million this year in a round led by Japanese tech giant Toshiba.

IMAGR is now working on delivering the shopping experience of the future in Japan and New Zealand with a team of hardware and software experts solving a problem that Amazon and Alibaba have spent billions on.

To talk about inventing the future, operating in Japan and more, William Chomley joined us for a chat you can hear below.

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