Carttec

What Carttec does

Gatekeeper Systems Inc. is a privately held US corporation founded in 1998 and headquartered in Foothill Ranch, California. It designs and sells patented, shopping-cart-integrated loss prevention technology to major retail chains worldwide, claiming more than 10 million enabled carts protected and a customer base spanning the majority of global retailers. Core offerings include Purchek® (invisible pushout-theft prevention), FaceFirst® (facial recognition-based violence prevention), CartControl® (cart containment on premises), CartManager® Ultra (cart collection/management), and a Business Intelligence platform that aggregates video, cart, and theft telemetry into dashboards and investigative services. The architectural backbone is the SmartWheel® device — a wheel-mounted hardware unit installed on shopping carts that powers both CartControl® containment and Purchek® pushout-prevention, enabling a common platform to serve multiple product SKUs. The company holds patents on its core technologies and has earned the 2025 Ecovadis Bronze Medal for sustainability.

The business model combines one-time hardware revenue (SmartWheel installations, CartManager Ultra deployments) with recurring or add-on service revenue (Business Intelligence subscriptions, theft investigation, ORC analytics, classified video evidence). Pricing is quote-based, structured as multi-year enterprise contracts sized to store count, cart count, and theft-risk profile, with ROI calculators on the public site (defaulting to $250 average pushout amount and 150 pushouts per week per high-risk store) framing the value proposition around sub-one-year payback. Go-to-market is direct enterprise field sales targeting loss prevention executives at grocery, mass-merchant, specialty, and DIY chains, supported by a multi-language website (English, French, German, Spanish, UK English), a Find A Sales Rep channel, and a Storeport G2 integration portal. The company's stated defensibility rests on its patent portfolio, installed SmartWheel base, and aggregated telemetry data across thousands of stores.

Name

Carttec

Legal name

Gatekeeper Systems Inc.

Website

https://carttec.de

Company type

Private

Founded year

1998

Operating status

Operating

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Retail Loss Prevention Systems

NAICS

Security Guards and Patrol Services (561612)

akta.pro primary industry

Retail Cash Handling Controls & Safe Management Support (BPAKAJAK)

Keywords

• Retail loss prevention
• Shopping cart systems
• Anti-theft technology
• Store security solutions
• Shop fittings

Headquarters

HQ city

Eislingen

HQ country

Germany

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Hardware or Manufacturing

Cost components

Supply Chain, Technology or R&D, Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Hardware and Software Systems Sales: Gatekeeper Systems generates revenue through the sale of their loss prevention hardware systems (Purchek, CartControl, CartManager Ultra) and associated software/services. The company provides systems that protect shopping carts with patented technology, offering different solutions for cart containment and pushout theft prevention.
2. Optional Services and Add-ons: Additional revenue streams include high-resolution event reporting with transferrable videos and classification services, theft investigation services for flagging repeat offenders and ORC activity, and trend analysis data services.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

Carttec is a service company for innovative shop fittings, anti-theft and shopping cart systems. The company provides retailers with patented loss prevention technologies integrated into shopping carts, including pushout theft prevention, cart containment, cart management, facial recognition-based violence prevention, and business intelligence analytics for shopper and theft behavior insights.

Product overview

Gatekeeper Systems offers a portfolio of intelligent loss prevention and cart management products. The core offerings include Purchek® for pushout theft prevention, FaceFirst® for violence prevention, Business Intelligence for theft behavior insights and video analytics, CartControl® for cart containment, and CartManager® Ultra for cart collection. The SmartWheel® device serves as a common technology component enabling both CartControl® and Purchek® solutions. The products share a common technology platform and can be deployed individually or in combination to address different retail loss prevention needs.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Purchek®: Pushout theft prevention technology that retains merchandise, deters theft, and enhances safety while promoting an open and inviting shopper experience.
• FaceFirst®
• CartControl®
• CartManager® Ultra

Products and services

• Purchek®
• FaceFirst®
• Business Intelligence
• CartControl®
• CartManager® Ultra

Quantifiable outcome

• Up to 80% reduction in pushout theft attempts after system installation
• +3 more outcomes

Segments2 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability2 records

Feature4 records

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• Our PartnersunspecifiedOthersThe company references a 'Our Partners' page on their website indicating partnership relationships, but specific partner names and details are not provided in the source content.

Scale indicators6 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Broad incumbents

• NCR Voyix: Enterprise retail and restaurant technology provider (POS, self-checkout, back office). Comparable as a broad retail-tech incumbent whose self-checkout and loss-prevention adjacencies overlap with Gatekeeper's domain.
• Sensormatic Solutions (Johnson Controls): Long-established leader in retail loss prevention, offering electronic article surveillance (EAS), RFID, and inventory intelligence. Directly comparable as the dominant incumbent in the same retail loss-prevention category Gatekeeper serves, but with a much broader product portfolio.
• Diebold Nixdorf: Major provider of retail point-of-sale, self-checkout, and connected commerce solutions. Comparable as an enterprise retail technology incumbent serving the same large retailer customers.
• Checkpoint Systems (Avery Dennison): Global retail loss-prevention and apparel RFID solutions provider. Closely comparable as a category incumbent in EAS/RFID-based loss prevention targeting the same enterprise retail customer base.

Direct peers

• Caper (Instacart): Smart shopping cart company using computer vision and sensors to enable frictionless checkout. Directly comparable as a technology-enabled cart platform targeting grocery retailers, with overlapping loss-prevention and shopper-analytics use cases.
• Shopic: Smart-cart vendor attaching a device to existing shopping carts to enable in-store recommendations and checkout. Directly comparable in targeting the same enterprise grocery channel with cart-based technology.

Emerging players

• Trigo: Computer-vision platform enabling cashierless grocery stores. Adjacent and partly overlapping—addresses the same in-store retail technology market and could substitute for cart-based solutions over time.
• Standard AI (Standard Cognition): Autonomous checkout provider using ceiling-mounted cameras. Operates in the same retail-technology adjacency but competes via a fundamentally different (cartless) architecture.

Others

• Zebra Technologies: Provider of retail RFID, barcode, and asset-intelligence solutions. Comparable as an enabling infrastructure provider in retail loss prevention and inventory visibility.
• Inseego (CART/IoT cart-tracking vendors): IoT and asset-tracking vendor whose cart-tracking solutions overlap with Gatekeeper's CartControl containment and CartManager cart-collection offerings.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Carttec