Launched in 2021 as a startup accelerator and then transformed into a real innovation hub, Desigual has now announced the fourth edition of its “Awesome Lab” program. In this round, the Spanish fashion company is also looking for up-and-coming companies with the potential to positively influence and revolutionize the industry and its own development.
One of the most important innovations in this edition is the change to the “Open Call” procedure. While the Open Call played a secondary role in the previous edition in 2023 and focused on the targeted search for startups by Desigual itself, it will be prioritized in 2024. The application deadline has been extended and runs from January 16th to April 20th, 2025. During this period, all interested startups, especially from the areas of technology, data processing and artificial intelligence – Desigual’s focus in this issue – can apply .
The Spanish fashion brand will review applications and select participants for the “Awesome Lab” in collaboration with Wayra, Telefónica’s startup investment arm. For the fourth time in a row, Desigual would like to enter into collaborations with the most disruptive and promising startups through this program in order to help shape the future of the fashion industry. Desigual encourages startups in the seed phase or in the Series A financing round to apply.
“With this new edition, we want to expand the impact of ‘Awesome Lab’ within the company and in the startup ecosystem,” emphasizes Thomas Meyer, founder and president of Desigual. With the new edition of the program, carried out with Wayra for the third year in a row, “we want to reach the startups with the greatest innovation potential for the fashion industry and attract the most diverse projects”.
With an “Open Call” and three “Scouting Sprints”
Looking back, the last edition of “Awesome Lab 3.0” in 2023, just like the fourth edition in 2024, took place in two phases: an open “Open Call” phase, which has now been strengthened, and three phases of exploration and analysis of the most innovative solutions on the market, the so-called “scouting sprints”.
In these two phases, over 400 startups were analyzed, over 300 in the “Scouting Sprints” and almost 100 in the “Open Call”. Pilot projects were then started with four selected startups. These were selected from 15 startups from the “Scouting Sprints” and six startups from the “Pitch Day” as part of the “Open Call”.
The four pilot projects from 2024 complement the ten initiatives from previous editions. Desigual continues to closely monitor the development of the startups involved and examines options for expanding business relationships. The aim of the program is to identify new ideas and solutions that have the potential to significantly shape the future of fashion and the company.
In addition to the “Awesome Lab”, Desigual is also pursuing this goal with the “Create the Future” initiative. This was launched by management to develop the company over the next two years into a data-driven company that optimally uses the possibilities of data management and artificial intelligence to achieve a competitive advantage in both the creative areas and in management. Desigual will focus on precisely these areas in the three “Scouting Sprints” of the fourth “Awesome Lab” edition. The first sprint will focus on “Marketing and the opportunities to accelerate and increase creativity through AI-generated content and optimizing asset management.”
“Over the last three editions, we have improved our ability to identify and promote innovative technology solutions that help us improve in the company’s focus areas and the industry as a whole,” emphasizes Juan Sánchez Ramirez, IT Governance & Innovation Manager at Desigual . “This puts us in the privileged position of continuing to have access to the most disruptive startups, offering them the knowledge, people and international reach of a company like Desigual to test their ideas and develop tools that can make the difference .”
This process is “closely linked” to Desigual’s “ambitious “Create the Future” project. According to the management of the Spanish fashion company, the aim of this initiative is “to make Desigual a data-driven company over the next two years that makes optimal use of the possibilities of artificial intelligence.”
Opportunities have already been identified in the areas of “Improving internal processes through automation and artificial intelligence”, “Integrating innovative tools for advanced analysis and creativity” and “Using digital assistants”.
This article previously appeared on Fashionunited.es and was created using digital tools translated.
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