Gail Chiasson, North American Editor
Long Island-based Vengo Labs has been selling and perfecting its wall-mounted vending machines since it was founded in 2012.
We’ve seen them in Yotel in New York City, and we’ve heard that they are also in the Grand Hyatt Hotel, and in Planet Fitness gyms.
Under an agreement with Backstone LaunchPad, which promotes entrepreneurship on campuses, they have now been going into college campuses where 25 are already installed, due to increase to 45 by year end. They’ll be found at, eg., New York University, University of Southern California and the University of Central Florida.
The vending machines sell a variety of products, including personal care items, snacks, and especially tech accessories. The streaming ads are show on 41 ½” high definition digital screens.
“We use our own proprietary content management software for the ads,” says Brian Shimmerlik, Vengo Labs co-founder and CEO. Shimmerlik is majority shareholder of the privately-owned company that has several investors. It didn’t hurt that Vengo Labs made a $2 million deal early this spring on ABC’s ‘Shark Tank’ from investors Kevin O’Leary and Lori Greiner.
“We are always open to talk to investors,” says Shimmerik, who launched his first company at age 19. His background includes J.P.Morgan’s Treasury department, quantifying the firm’s interest rate risk and responsible for valuing Emigrant Bank’s investments in VC and hedge funds. He also served as a pro bono consultant for The DOME Project, a non-profit on the Upper West Side helping at-risk teenagers, where he assisted in transforming the organization’s financial practices. He also interned for the CEO of Conductor, a NYC- based Search Engine Optimization platform.
With real-time analytics, Vengo Labs can provide services from simply monitoring customers’ gestures and purchase behaviors to sharing a ton of learnings with other Blackstone LaunchPad members.
The company is a member of the Digital Place-Based Advertising Association.
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