A serial retail tech entrepreneur is returning to the sales floor with an app that in-person sales reps and their managers can use to track, and hopefully boost, their performance.
Montréal-based FrontlineIQ, led by CEO and founder Ben Rodier, has raised $3.3 million in seed financing via simple agreements for future equity (SAFEs) from Québec investors AQC Capital and angel investors with domain expertise in retail and sales. The round closed last month, and Rodier did not provide the valuation.
“Tech can solve not having a good manager.”
Ben Rodier, Frontline
Rodier has spent his career in sales technology, co-founding Adsplash, which sold to Yellow Pages Group in 2010, then Salesfloor, a retail sales platform that notched clients like Holt Renfrew and Bloomingdale’s.
In an interview, Rodier told BetaKit that the venture studio UP.Labs approached him to help with an AI sales assistance tool it was building to solve pain points for home décor brand Ashley Furniture. In partnership with UP.Labs, Rodier took a bet last fall on turning the project into a de facto sales coach for an in-person sales team. The idea was to have generative AI tools provide detailed feedback for employees while allowing management to monitor their progress.
“Tech can solve not having a good manager,” Rodier claimed. He claimed that Theo, FrontlineIQ’s AI assistant, “takes the ickiness out of working in sales” and having uncomfortable conversations about performance metrics with supervisors.
However, “It’s not replacing the fact that human coaching needs to happen,” Rodier said. Instead, he said the platform’s insights are designed to allow managers to have more productive discussions with employees, as they already have insight into how they’re doing.
The FrontlineIQ platform is attempting to “gamify” working in sales, mainly at brick-and-mortar stores. The app, available across devices, can be fed audio of sales pitches with customers (with all parties consenting to the use of their data). The AI tool then provides targeted feedback on the salesperson’s performance over time, like whether they are sticking to company sales points or upselling effectively.
As nearly every industry looks to AI tools to cut costs and improve productivity, Rodier claimed that in-person sales representatives—particularly those in physical stores, who sometimes work off commission—have been left behind. According to a study by consulting firm KPMG, 81 percent of Canadian retail executives say they must shift to a “gen-AI operating model within 12 months” to avoid missing out on potential gains.
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However, experts have warned of increasing AI use impacting jobs in the retail sector. According to Statistics Canada, a majority of retail trade jobs in Canada have “exposure” to transformation by AI or automation. Canadian e-commerce firms like Shopify and Lightspeed have indicated that they won’t need as much staff in support roles as they once did. FrontlineIQ’s product is not meant to replace roles, Rodier said, but instead to augment them.
FrontlineIQ’s customers include Ashley Furniture, SleepCountry, Dormez-Vous, Dufresne Furniture & Appliances, as well as auto showrooms for brands like Porsche and Hyundai. Rodier claimed the company is on track to break seven figures in revenue by 2026. The business model is traditional software-as-a-service enterprise pricing on a subscription basis for companies looking to integrate the AI assistant.
Kalthoum Bouacida, partner at AQC Capital, told BetaKit that FrontlineIQ is solving a key problem in sales: “how to consistently coach and motivate large, distributed teams.”
“We’re excited to back a proven team with deep expertise that’s using AI not to replace people, but to elevate their performance and impact at scale,” Bouacida said.
Rodier said FrontlineIQ will use the funds to work on product development, grow its sales, engineering, marketing, and customer success teams to land more customers across North America.
Feature Image courtesy Unsplash. Photo by Headway.