THE ANGELS, August 25, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — VIAVIA, a new video-first e-commerce platform, announces 8 million dollars seed round to launch a debut fashion retail destination catering to Gen Z shoppers. Funding is co-led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and Basis Set Ventures, with participation from Exor seedsBackend Ventures, and Andrew Ng’s AI fund. Funding follows a 1.15 million dollars preliminary round that the company announced on February 2022. VIAVIA seeks to modernize the fashion e-commerce experience by marrying creator-driven live and short-form video content with AI-powered end-to-end technology infrastructure for the fashion supply chain.
Carmen Changgeneral partner and manager, Asia at New Enterprise Associates (NEA), says, “Over the course of my career, I have observed several changes in consumer behavior across the U.S. and Asia. I’m particularly fascinated by the role technology has played in “exporting” content and commerce trends – we’ve seen this with TikTok in the way Gen Z engages with social media, and VIAVIA is poised to inspire the same behavioral change in the e-commerce space.”
“Fashion retail is undergoing a radical transformation,” says Sixuan Li (who goes by Six), Co-Founder and CEO of VIAVIA. “Asian export-focused supply chains have warped the traditional timeline from an emerging trend concept to wearables. To understand this speed and volume of production, Gen Z consumers expect brands to communicate with them through authentic, creator-led. first content.” VIAVIA believes that existing e-commerce platforms are ill-equipped to respond to this shift in consumer behavior and plans to change this paradigm by representing creators and influencers through an in-house talent team and heavily indexing video and streaming. directly to bring the brand story to life.
In addition to the e-commerce platform, VIAVIA will provide a state-of-the-art technology infrastructure for fashion brands and supply chains, starting with Made in Ital. VIAVIA believes Italwhich accounts for around 70% of all luxury apparel production, represents a massive untapped opportunity for brands outside of traditional ultra-high-end fashion houses. Luigi (Gigi) Hunta VIAVIA Co-Founder and the company’s Head of Supply Chain, says, “of Italy Garment manufacturers are the world’s best at their craft, but limited access to liquidity and fairly antiquated business practices mean most manufacturers stick with a small number of tried and true customers, leaving facilities them idle the rest of the time. I would estimate that with the right tools, most manufacturers could increase their production by 50% without additional capital… the room for optimization is huge.”
VIAVIA’s technology solution increases order flow for local manufacturers, reducing costs for brands and shortening production times. Andrea PasinettiVIAVIA Co-Founder and Chief Engineering Officer says, “we are starting with a new AI-powered Product Lifecycle Management tool, and using this to efficiently connect designers and brands with manufacturers in Ital and beyond. Our mission is to use technology to eliminate process friction for creators at every level of the fashion industry.” VIAVIA believes this infrastructure will effectively scale to other manufacturing hubs across Europe and comes as record amounts of capital flow into global e-commerce supply chain and logistics companies, with the latter expected to grow in 3 trillion dollars in the year 2028.
Xuezhao Lan, Founder and Managing Partner of Basis Set Ventures, says, “VIAVIA has a big and bold vision to modernize luxury e-commerce for a new generation of consumers, rethinking the entire value proposition from supply chain to sales. The team’s experience at every layer of this process, from production to content to software engineering, is unmatched. Fashion tech is primed for a change, and this is the team to make it happen.”
About New Enterprise Associates
New Enterprise Associates, Inc. (NEA) is a global venture capital firm focused on helping entrepreneurs build transformative businesses across multiple stages, sectors and geographies. I’m ready 24 billion dollars in cumulative capital committed since the firm’s founding in 1977, KMA invests in technology and healthcare companies at all stages of a company’s life cycle, from seed stage to IPO. The firm’s long track record of successful investing includes more than 230 IPOs of portfolio companies and more than 390 mergers and acquisitions.
www.nea.com
About Basis Set Ventures
Basis Set invests in early-stage startups that are leveraging artificial intelligence to allow humans to perform more productively across four themes: infrastructure scaling, intelligent collaboration, automated workflows, and autonomous cars.
www.basisset.com
About VIAVIA
VIAVIA is a premier online video fashion retail platform that caters to the Gen-Z consumer. As an online shopping destination, VIAVIA brings an expertly curated selection of culture-making brands from around the world, along with its Italian-made line of fashion and streetwear. The platform channels the power of creators by leveraging live, short-form video content to create a modern fashion shopping experience backed by confidence-inspiring styling tips. In addition to its shopping platform, VIAVIA is building a cutting-edge technology stack for fashion brands, including AI-powered product lifecycle and supply chain management to retail integrations.
www.viavia.live
Contact: Jennifer Walker
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SOURCE VIAVIA
