NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The New York Fashion Tech Lab (NYFT Lab), the leading Fashion-Tech innovation lab, announced the nine women-led entrepreneurial companies selected for this year’s program. Beginning its fifth year, the program has been at the forefront of retail and fashion technology innovation and integration. This year, the selected companies have developed market solutions focused on the outcome of the customer experience that harness the power of artificial intelligence, fit tech, visual search, RFID tracking, and related technologies.
“Moving into our fifth year, we’ve brought a renewed, global value to the program, providing a collaborative environment for these innovators and iconic retail and fashion brand partners – returning and new – who aim to address the industry’s most pressing issues,” said Kay Koplovitz, Co- Founder of the Lab and Chairman of Springboard Enterprises. “To better benefit our women-led companies, we’ve also increased the program’s tech prowess through the return and expansion of our technology partners, all of whom bring a unique perspective to the process of taking these emerging technologies further toward becoming mainstream.”
Returning to work with this year’s class are NYFT Lab Founding Members Global Brands Group, LVMH, and Macy’s. Second and Third year veteran partners Bloomingdale’s, Kohl’s and MATCHESFASHION.COM retake their seats at the table, while newcomers Lands’ End, Perry Ellis International, and Tory Burch add their unique perspective.
The12-week program involves a working collaboration between the Lab companies and iconic fashion retailers, brands, technology partners and well-known industry experts. The fifth class showcases a range of technologies, expressly developed by women-led companies, designed to help retailers improve the customer experience and overall business margins. The 2018 Lab companies, selected by the participating retail, fashion and tech partners, include:
Microsoft – the NYFT Lab’s first formal technology partner returns for its third year, as Flex returns for its second year. The NYFT Lab also welcomes Avery Dennison to the program as well as a new partnership with Accenture, previously announced in August 2017. All technology partners will work with the lab companies to enable iteration, validation, and acceleration of their technologies to advance their businesses and the industry.
“We believe organizations that embrace emerging technologies, such as AI, will have a significant advantage in delivering the next generation customer experience, which is the new battleground for competitive differentiation,” said Jill Standish, senior managing director and head of Accenture’s Retail practice. “At Accenture, we are passionate about advancing diversity in technology and our role is to help these exciting women-led companies more rapidly pilot their solutions to drive innovation in the fashion industry.”
The 2018 cohort will again be in residence at Spring Place: an innovative collaborative workspace and business club launched by the team behind renowned cultural hub and creative group Spring Studios.
The 2018 NYFT Lab will culminate with Tech Runway Demo Day on June 7, 2018 at the Meredith Corporation in New York. For more information, or to request an invitation to Demo Day, please visit www.nyftlab.com.
ABOUT THE CO FOUNDING & PRODUCING PARTNER, SPRINGBOARD ENTERPRISES
Since 2000, Springboard Enterprises (http://www.sb.co) has served as a global resource hub of influencers, investors and innovators engaged in helping women entrepreneurs build transformational businesses. Springboard sources, coaches, showcases and supports women-led growth companies seeking investment of financial and human capital for product development and expansion.
The 685 Springboard portfolio companies have raised more than $8 billion, created tens of thousands of new jobs, and generate billions of dollars in annual revenues. 84% of Springboard companies are growing as independent or merged entities, including 15 IPOs and many that are the technology engines of publicly traded companies.
