For more on that venture, read “The rise of the social enterprise”. It went to co-founders of the online teacher development program 1 Million Teachers: Hakeem Subair, MMIE’17 Rizma Butt, MMIE’17 and Eric Zhang, MMIE’18. The online format extended the competition’s reach with participants and attendees from four continents.Īlso new this year: a $5,000 People’s Choice award. While the competition is usually held in Toronto, this year’s event was virtual due to COVID. Typical customers do around £700 million (CDN$1.2 billion) in annual sales.īoth Barr and Fisher say they appreciate UPStart’s support and judges’ advice. Sparkbox works with both online and bricks-and-mortar retailers in Europe. Sparkbox increased a retailer’s profit per unit sold by 85 per cent in a recent pilot, she says. But with artificial intelligence, “we can help them understand the trends in real time and use data to drive their decisions,” says Fisher. The company (which won $25,000 at UPstart) uses machine learning and natural language processing to help fashion retailers and seasonal businesses optimize pricing.įashion shops traditionally rely on previous year’s sales to set prices. Price is rightįisher worked at Target before moving to England where she launched Sparkbox over two years ago. So, “we see a lot of potential to grow,” Barr says. Venture Building VentureForGood Grant RAISE X QUEST VENTURES SUSTAINABLE IMPACT ACCELERATOR raiSE Impact Finance (RIF+). The ready-to-drink protein category is expected to see annual compound growth of eight per cent from 2020 to 2027. “Instead of a coffee and a donut or muffin, grab a Brüst for a healthier mid-day snack,” he explains.īrüst is sold online and in Canadian grocery stores. The result is Brüst, a protein-packed cold-brew coffee to help people fuel up on the go. Why not combine the two into a tasty beverage? Sometimes they’d have a shake in one hand and coffee in the other. Barr, a triathlete who worked in beverage marketing at Nestlé, and Gupta, a competitive squash player, both regularly drank protein shakes after a workout. The annual competition is hosted by Smith’s Centre for Business Venturing and Queen’s Venture Network.īrüst, which took home $30,000, was started in 2018 by Barr and Amar Gupta. Alumni judges could split the prize money among as many teams as they wished. They were among eight teams that pitched their businesses. Her company, Sparkbox, is based in England.īoth earned a share of $55,000 in funding at the UPstart Venture Challenge in December. Lindsay Fisher, BCom’12, saw how artificial intelligence can help fashion retailers earn higher profits. Josh Barr, BCom’10, set out to make a tastier protein drink as co-founder of Brüst Beverage Company in Toronto. The winners of the UPstart Venture Challenge at Smith can attest to that. These are the ingredients that take businesses from startup to success. “I’m looking forward to working with the team and sharing some of the lessons I’ve learnt from my time at Apple and the other tech businesses I’ve been lucky to work closely with over the years.Sweat, toil, perseverance. “We know how much potential there is for AI and machine learning to improve profits and reduce waste in retail, and we are thrilled to have Prateura join us on our mission to modernise merchandising and put data behind the important pricing and inventory decisions our users make every day.”Ĭolin Greene, Operational Partner at Praetura Ventures, comments: “Sparkbox’s approach to inventory optimisation has the power to bring about massive changes in fashion and home retail, which is clearly behind the times when it comes to technology adoption within merchandising.” The company was co-founded by Forbes 30 Under 30 inductees Lindsay Fisher and Matthew Wong, and Kevin Blackmore, who prior to Sparkbox was VP of Customer Insights at Best Buy and a retail analytics partner at Accenture.įisher says: “As a team of former retailers, we’ve seen first hand how the retail industry is advancing in many areas but falling behind when it comes to making data-driven decisions.” attracting early-stage venture capital investment from Movac, Sparkbox, Cure Kids Ventures and K1W1, and accessing Callaghan Innovation grants to fund. to quit our jobs and launch this as a full time venture, says Reynolds. It will use Praetura Ventures’ investment to double its team and onboard further fashion, home and seasonal retailers. the New Zealand-based VC Sparkbox Ventures) the product has been refined so. Launched in 2019, Sparkbox works with the likes of River Island and MATCHESFASHION, enabling them to forecast demand, optimise their pricing and promotions and plan inventory to reduce waste and the need for big discounts. Praetura Ventures has invested £1.5 million into Sparkbox, a UK-based startup that uses AI and data to help retailers’ merchandising teams make better stock buying and pricing decisions.
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