Many large companies want to incorporate the way startups work into their daily lives, with the desire to modernize and find new approaches. The Barcelona-based Desigual wants to do this with Awesome Lab, an acceleration program that will select between five and seven fashion startups to respond to the challenges it faces. "We want to promote an innovation model that allows us to introduce the creative and entrepreneurial spirit that exists beyond our organization," says Desigual's managing director, Alberto Ojinaga, about this new initiative, which should also help them become "a company that makes collaboration its key and differentiating competitive tool."
Improve the phygital experience or its e-commerce channel, develop big data solutions to better understand consumer behavior and predict trends, find tools that allow prices to be set automatically, create new payment mechanisms, identify talent in advance, enhance designers' creativity through the use of technology... These are some of the ten challenges that Desigual has launched hand in hand with the open innovation platform Plug and Play, based in Silicon Valley.
To launch this accelerator, Desigual has invested almost one million euros. In the next three years, it plans to allocate 15 million more, both to give it continuity and to finance the participating companies.
The call for applications to participate in Awesome Lab opened this Tuesday. Startups from all over the world will be able to submit their solutions to the challenges posed by Desigual until September 15. Plug and Play is expected to select up to a total of 150 startups as candidates to participate in the accelerator. From these, a jury made up of members of the fashion brand, the founder himself, Thomas Meyer, and experts will choose the best proposals, which will go on to participate in the program.
Acceleration from the Catalan capital
Desigual's headquarters in Barcelona, located near the W hotel, will be the setting for this program. The selected companies will receive support to develop and grow their projects, through mentoring and the provision of the necessary resources and tools to make it possible. Desigual employees, experts, and entrepreneurs will be in charge of guiding them. The program will start in September and will last between six and nine months.
In parallel to the accelerator, a financial investment vehicle will be created that will serve to identify the startups in which to invest. Its capacity is yet to be determined.