LVMH presented its Innovation Award to Save Your Wardrobe, a tech-enabled clothing care and repair platform, yesterday at tech show VivaTech, which is taking place in Paris this week. Save Your Wardrobe also won the award in the Omnichannel & Retail category. The company has developed a digital platform for care and repair of clothing, as well as digital wardrobe management to increase the lifespan of customers’ garments.
Chairman and CEO of the LVMH Group Bernard Arnault, who presented the Award said: “Save Your Wardrobe perfectly illustrates our ambition in creative circularity, a pillar of our environmental roadmap, LIFE 360. I am convinced that their solution will very quickly resonate with the aspirations of our maisons and the expectations of our customers.”
The LVMH Award recognizes startups in France and abroad and is open to any company created within the last five years with a valuation of under $100m and fewer than 50 employees, and whose solutions are relevant to the LVMH Group and its 75 brands. This year, the seventh edition of the Award received applications from 1,320 candidates from 75 countries. Some 18 companies were shortlisted for the awards from six categories, in addition to a Special Mention for Data and AI and the Grand Prize.
This year 20% of applications this year were in the Sustainability and Greentech Award category. Winners in the area of sustainability included Woola, which makes sustainable postal packaging out of waste wool as an alternative to plastic bubble wrap, and Living Packets, which produces reusable, recyclable smart packaging that eliminates waste.
In terms of digital, winners of the awards included Absolute Labs, which claims to have created the first blockchain analytics and Web3 marketing automation platform; VidMob, which uses AI to analyze digital ads and provide recommendations for better ad performance. Chatlabs, which was awarded the Data and AI Special Mention prize, uses AI to allow brands to create a personalized customer experience on social-media channels, all of which are integrated and managed on one platform.
Each year, finalists are invited to showcase their solutions at the LVMH booth during the VivaTech show. The finalists present pitches to a jury of recognized digital experts, which then selects the winner. The winning startup receives support and advice from LVMH Group investment specialists and develops a partnership with LVMH and its brands. Both the winner and the finalists will also be part of the group’s acceleration program at Station F: La Maison des Startups LVMH.
During the Award ceremony LVMH Managing Director Toni Belloni highlighted the Group’s new partnerships with Epic Games and Apple Tap-to-Pay. He said the Group now has over 5,000 people working on technology and innovation.
The Award winners are as follows:
LVMH Innovation Award 2023
Save Your Wardobe: Tech-enabled clothing care and repair platform
Omnichannel and Retail
Save Your Wardrobe: Tech-enabled clothing care and repair platform
Sustainability and Greentech
Woola: Packaging made from leftover sheep wool to reduce plastic waste
Employee Experience, Diversity and Inclusion
Neobrain: Internal mobility-oriented AI talent planning suite for HR teams
Image and Media for Brand Desirability
VidMob: Video analytics that provide recommendations for better ad performance
Operations Excellence
Living Packets: Smart reusable, secured and connected packaging with tracking, insurance and payment features
Immersive Digital Experiences
Absolute Labs: Web3 CRM platform that analyzes blockchain for NFT pricing definition, Web3 marketing and wallet messaging
Data and AI Special Mention
ChatLabs: AI-powered social media platform for personalized customer experiences