Awesome Lab

Awesome Lab

A new ecosystem for collaborative innovation emerges: Awesome Lab, the first accelerator in Spain to be backed by a fashion brand. Awesome Lab is an acceleration programme that will support the selected startups through mentorships, training, providing resources and tools, and funding. A commitment to promoting digital advancements aimed at boosting the development of technological solutions that are able to address the major challenges faced by the fashion industry. Operating through an open innovation model, it was created to promote a culture of change and disruption while imparting knowledge and expertise, identifying opportunities and swiftly implementing solutions.

The Challenges

Off-line & Online: Improvements to the user experience and interactions at the store through the development of technologies like virtual and augmented reality. E-commerce: Improvements to the customer experience with virtual avatars, a holistic personal assistant and personalised size guides.

Data Analytics for Clients & Product Performance: Data oriented towards the customer (emotional business intelligence, personalised promotions, etc.) and predictive modelling oriented towards creating successful products. Price Level: A challenge oriented towards optimising the average of the prices and their potential personalisation.

Access to innovative talent: Optimisation and efficiency as part of the proactive search for talent, resources and designers. Creative booster: Systems, technologies and tools that will nurture the creative talent of designers.

New advanced payment methods: Solutions or developments aimed at facilitating customer payment and security for their purchases.

Last mile deliveries and returns: The challenge of optimising the logistics channels and innovating with customer-oriented services.

Communication from the garment: New applications for RFID technology as a method for contact and direct communication with the customer.

End of life: The challenge of assigning a new use to garments, materials or fibres so they can have a second life. Technological solutions and innovation at the service of the circular economy.

The Partners

Desigual

Our fashion brand came into being in 1984 with the aim of using fashion to bring positivity, authenticity and uniqueness to those who want to express the best version of themselves. Today, the company employs more than 2,700 people and operates in 107 countries through 10 sales channels. Since the very beginning, we have been committed to creativity, innovation and collaboration, which are embedded in our DNA. With Awesome Lab, we are going a step further. We are promoting an innovation model that presents a creative and entrepreneurial spirit as a corporate culture and drives it beyond the organisation itself, enabling us to become a company that turns collaboration into a key and differentiating competitive tool.

Plug and Play

The world's leading open innovation platform, with more than 35 locations across five continents. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, the company connects startups with corporations, venture capital firms, universities and government agencies. Plug and Play provides corporate innovation programmes and supports its corporate partners through every stage of their innovation strategy. At the same time, it organises startup acceleration programmes and is one of the most desirable VCs in the world, with successful investments in companies like Dropbox, PayPal and Honey, among others.

Las startups

Vestico

Headquarters: London / United Kingdom Founded in: 2020 Field of action: Phygital

Vestico combines artificial intelligence and the content generated by users to show buyers how garments will look on them before they make a purchase. To accomplish this, Vestico's engine matches the data from the buyer and images published by other people with a similar body shape who bought the garment. The buyer's data are compiled to continually improve their shopping experience, thus helping to reduce product returns.

https://vestico.co/

Syrup Tech

Headquarters: Boston, United States Founded in: 2020 Field of action: Product interactions. Traceability. Inventory Systems

Syrup Tech is a machine-learning engine for stock optimisation. The goal is to increase direct sales of stock at full price, prevent stock shortages, decrease unnecessary excess stock and, with it, reduce over-production.

https://www.syrup.tech/

Swearit

Headquarters: Madrid, Spain Founded in: 2020 Field of action: Product interactions. Traceability. Inventory Systems.

SwearIt transforms traceability in transparency. By integrating a SwearIt QR code, you can directly share anything that consumers want to know about the organisation, its products and its services, and everything is verified with blockchain technology.

https://www.swearit.io/

Personify XP

Headquarters: Madrid, Spain Founded in: 2018 Field of action: E-commerce tools. End-to-end commerce journey.

Using artificial intelligence and machine-learning, Personify XP anonymously analyses and interprets the behaviour of visitors in real time. By doing so, it identifies their preferences automatically and shows the content most relevant to them from the first interaction.

https://personifyxp.com/

Resortecs

Headquarters: Brussels, Belgium Founded in: 2017 Field of action: End of life. Circular economy.

Resortecs® makes recycling easier thanks to its large-scale automatic disassembling system for garments. Its patented system is 5 times quicker than any existing methods, which allows up to 90% of the original fabric to be recycled and for classification and recycling to be done in a smart way at a global scale. Driving circularity in the fashion industry, without compromising on quality or creativity.

https://resortecs.com/

Exonode

Headquarters: Munich, Germany Founded in: 2021 Field of action: Last mile delivery and returns. Traceability. Inventory systems.

Exonode is launching a new customer-centric solution aimed at minimising return rates. Thanks to its machine-learning algorithm, it identifies the offers that make customers change their minds and incentivises the customer in a personalised manner when they request a return, taking into account their browsing and shopping history.

https://www.exonode.ai/

SXD

Headquarters: New York City, United States Founded in: 2021 Field of action: End of life. Circular economy.

Thanks to artificial intelligence and a patented design model that allows designs to be optimised from their creation, SXD succeeds in reducing fabric waste to 0 and cutting costs by 55%.

https://www.shellyxu.design/

Collaboration events

Events organised to promote the company's innovation initiatives. Their content includes startup introductions, panels and expert speakers from the sector.

Learning sessions focused on specific topics related to startups, with relevant content that will directly impact the development of their projects, such as analysing best practices, trends, Design Thinking sessions and corporate breakfasts.

The main event that brings the 2021 Awesome Lab Programme to a close. The startups will present their progress to an audience made up of investors and players from the innovation ecosystem.

Contact

For more information about the project and future programmes follow us on LinkedIn

Contacts from the Innovation Department: Javier Fernández Technology Innovation Leader Desigual [email protected] Ricardo Álvarez-Cienfuegos Partner Success Associate Manager Plug and Play [email protected]

Press contacts: Sandra Rikic Head of Global Communications Desigual [email protected] Angie Besoaín HK Strategies [email protected]