Member Article

Made-to-order tech brand PlatformE secures $12 million funding

PlatformE, the new standard for made-to-order (MTO) production announced an investment of $12 million (€10.5 million) to the business. The financial injection will help PlatformE’s mission to power, at scale, customisation and digital collections across fashion, footwear and accessories industries. This will showcase how digital transformation can progress the world’s transition to waste-free and full sustainability. The latest funding round will accelerate the development of the technology across these industries as they look to tackle overproduction.

This is where PlatformE’s technology comes in, offering brands the tools to launch personalised MTO experiences across their ecommerce and in-store assets. The entire end-to-end MTO process is digitally reimagined by PlatformE, powering at scale everything from sampling and concepts to e-commerce integration and production – something no other company has dared to take on from start to finish. So far, brands are seeing a 42 per cent uplift in average order value for MTO products using PlatformE’s technology.

A trusted name in MTO and customisation PlatformE is relied upon to create MTO experiences digitally and in-store by some of the biggest marketplaces and fashion houses such as LVMH, Kering, as well as independent groups – including Gucci, Dior, Fendi, Emilio Pucci and Nicholas Kirkwood. Its technology can adapt to specific brands’ existing ecommerce systems, including product customisation, manufacturing and delivery. PlatformE is helping fashion, footwear and accessories brands transition to digital collections and MTO where they can expect this to account for an estimated 10-20 per cent of total business generated.

With its latest funding round, PlatformE will look to grow its client category within fashion and to other industries in the retail sector. In the last year, PlatformE has launched projects with more than 25 brands, creating over 10 product categories and more than 150 digital products, resulting in one billion available product combinations for MTO. This digital catalogue reducing the need for fashion houses to produce physical products (including samples) before selling, which contribute to unnecessary waste.

Spotlight on sustainability The fashion industry is rightly under the spotlight on sustainability. With luxury labels a particular focus for anti-fashion industry pacts, bringing attention to waste problems in key consumer industries. Governments around the world are involved, too. Most recently, France passed a legislation banning the destruction of unsold products like clothes and textiles.

To combat this sustainability issue most brands resort to heavy discounting or destruction of stock, which isn’t sustainable. The outdated, manual methods of fashion merchandisers are a large driver of this problem. But even with discounting, there still remains trillions of units worth of waste or ‘dead stock’. These measures also only tackle the problem rather than the cause: serious ongoing waste and overproduction issues within the industry, which PlatformE’s technology aims support brands’ plans to remediate.

Ben Demiri, CEO at PlatformE said: “We’re on a mission to boost profitability in fashion using MTO technology to purposefully capitalise on inventory through digital collections. We know that product digitalisation results in few or no physical products needing to be pre-created. And with our technology, brands can take advantage of their under-utilised intellectual property and their existing stock by enabling customisation and personalisation across physical stores and on e-commerce sites. Thanks to our solutions and services, brands will be able to reduce waste and meet their goal of becoming fully sustainable. More than 25 major brands have already launched successful projects with PlatformE because they trust in our proposition. And we’re showing no signs of slowing down.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ben Demiri .