Fashion Tech Lab NYC

Summary

Fashion Tech Lab NYC was launched in 2014, in partnership with leading fashion & retail brands, targeting women-led early & growth stage companies developing innovations at the intersection of fashion, retail and technology.

Through a competitive process, the lab’s fashion & retail partners, Springboard Enterprises, and lab team members review every submission and invite a number of companies to in-person interviews where ultimately six to ten companies are selected to enter the program.

Program

The New York Fashion Tech Lab program takes place March-June. Through a competitive process where the Fashion and Retail Partners, Advisors, Springboard Enterprises, and the Lab team members review every submission, we select six to ten women-led companies to enter the program, who receive:

1. Mentorship and collaboration with participating fashion retailers, venture capitalists, and the Lab’s Expert Network.

2. Access to senior leaders at fashion retailers for product feedback and potential deployment of proofs of concept.

Each selected company will participate in:

1. Meetings with senior business executives, investors, and experienced entrepreneurs.

2. Workshops and panel discussions on issues relevant to fashion technology companies, such as data optimization, proofs of concept, technology architecture and scalability, privacy, security, and broader industry trends.

The program concludes with each founder presenting to fashion and retail executives, investors, and media representatives at our Tech Runway Demo Day.

The Lab was co-founded by Springboard Enterprises and The Partnership Fund for New York City.

Network

The New York Fashion Tech Lab Expert Network is comprised of industry leaders, investors, and seasoned entrepreneurs who have successfully launched and scaled fashion technology or industry-related companies.

The Expert Network acts as informal advisors for companies accepted into the New York Fashion Tech Lab, providing guidance on the broad range of issues addressed by entrepreneurs in this space. Lab advisors leverage both their expertise and network to provide connections, perspective, content and strategy.

Current cohort (examples)

EverThread

As reported in Forbes, EverThread renders product images at a fraction of the cost of producing images manually. “There aren’t enough images of products shown online because of the cost and time it takes to produce those images,” says founder and CEO Nicole Mossman.

EverThread’s technology allows retailers to merchandise products in a way that resembles a real-life, at-home experience. In one example, a couch, carpet and set of cushions laid out in a living room can be toggled by the customer to visualize different color combinations.

“If a product is available in many configurations and colors, and retailers want to show each product from three different angles, this can yield over 22 million unique images which cannot be produced using traditional methods,” Mossman says.

Before NYFTL, EverThread raised approximately $650,000 over three years.

Cherrypick.ai

Founded in 2017, Cherrypick.ai “tracks product intent across social media which is the new metric to understanding business performance, because the intent is predictive of sale,” says co-founder and COO Melissa Munnerlyn. Cherrypick.ai is growing the biggest data set of consumer intent in the beauty industry, offering clients real-time insights into the products within the sections that they are competing with.

As written in Forbes, “using natural language processing software to decode the thousands of comments left on brands’ Instagram posts each day, Cn other words, the heart-eye emojis you posted on a cult beauty brand’s latest Instagram on your lunch break might just be responsible for the email that just landed in your inbox”.

“There is so much value trapped in these comments and it is difficult for a brand to extract it at scale,” says Munnerlyn. “Tracking product intent is the key to unlocking the true value of social media.”

References

• https://www.digital.nyc/incubators/new-york-fashion-tech-lab
• https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/new-york-fashion-tech-lab#section-overview
• https://www.forbes.com/sites/veenamccoole/2018/07/09/the-top-five-startups-from-new-york-fashion-tech-lab-2018/#9aea824654ff
• https://nyftlab.com/press