Bath native Mike Brackett has announced the launch of his company Centricity, with backing from New York venture capital fund Bowery Capital, Silicon Valley investors, and the founder of a major east coast grocery conglomerate, according to a news release.

Brackett grew up in his family’s grocery store, Brackett’s Market IGA in Bath, before continuing on to the executive level at
Hannaford Supermarkets, where he managed its $650 million dairy portofolio.

Brackett founded Centricity alongside Jason Nichols, the former head of artificial intelligence at WalMart, to close a gap in the customer data market in grocery and in retail at large, the release states.

“Today’s retail market has been aggressively disrupted by major ecommerce and digital native players such as Amazon, as well as direct to consumer companies that cut the physical retailer out of the transaction,” the release states, in part. “Centricity’s solution monitors almost a billion points of internet traffic daily, and using AI, can predict product trends in physical retailers’ markets helping them make proactive decisions that are aligned with customers’ desires – now, and in the future.”