FashionTech: The Future of Fashion in Sweden

FashionTech is where the fashion industry and tech industry converge.

Investments in FashionTech startups grew from $50 million to $2.8 billion in just five years, and it seems to keep growing.

The fashion industry itself is worth $2,4 trillion, so there is bound to be plenty of room for technical innovation.

Sweden is home to leading fashion brands such as H&M, Acne Studios, WeSC and Filippa K.

On top of that, Sweden’s capital Stockholm has a widely recognized tech community that is making headlines around the world. In a city that has the highest percentage of the workforce that work in tech and where programmer is the most common job there is an interesting combination of tech and other industries. Fashion is no exception.

Here are some of the leading FashionTech startups in Sweden:

Neue

• Neue is a FashionTech company that connects clothes, wearables, and accessories to the internet.
• Neue’s core product is Automat, a miniaturized electronics device for the fashion industry.
• Automat packed with sensors, communication ports, a built-in charger, Bluetooth, and much more — all within a 1 cm x 2 cm area.

Virtusize

• Virtusize is the leading fitting solution for fashion e-commerce sites.
• The platform allows online shoppers to compare the size of items they already own with items in the online store. By doing that they help e-commerce sites reduce returns by 30% and increase the customer experience by 90%.
• Japan is currently the biggest market for Virtusize and Japanese e-commerce platform BBF is one of their investors.

NA-KD

• NA-KD is a fast growing e-commerce platform and fashion brand.
• The company has grown 1,500%+ in it’s first two years and claims to be one of the fastest growing companies in Sweden, ever.
• Key people behind NA-KD are tech and fashion veterans Magnus Emilson och Jarno Vanhatapio who have backgrounds in Nelly, Zoo-Zoo and Tradedoubler.
• NA-KD raised 140 million SEK in 2017 and continues to expand in the US and UK markets.

Apprl

• Apprl is a monetisation tool for style influencers and premium lifestyle media. With Apprl, you can create shoppable content for your blog, app and social media.
• Fashion influencers such as Elle and Isabella Löwengrip use Apprl to monetize their blogs and online content.
• Apprl has raised capital from key figures in the fashion and tech industry such as Jonas Meerits (previous CEO of J. Lindeberg) and Spintop Ventures.

Ivyrevel

• Ivyrevel is a fashion brand and e-commerce site co-founded by famous blogger Kenza Zouiten.
• The company has partnerships and investments from major fashion companies such as H&M and Zalando.
• Ivyrevel also has a Tech Lab for fashion where the first public project was a partnership with Google on a “high-tech dress” that is automatically designed based on your own unique behaviour data.

Reve

• Reve is a personalized fashion & smart shopping app.
• On the Reve platform you find items from some of the worlds leading fashion brands in one place.
• The flow and user experience in Reve is very similar to other popular apps like Instagram and Facebook instead of a traditional shopping site.
• Some of Sweden’s leading tech investors have invested in Reve, such as Wellstreet, Daniel Pilotti och Paul Fischbein.

Stylistas

• Stylistas is a social media app where young women meet, connect and engage in content and expression within fashion and lifestyle.
• Previously named It’s My Styl, a fashion app with 65,000 members.
• Founded by Josephine Eskilsson och Felicia Åkerlind.

Clique

• Clique aims to be the worlds leading marketplace for second-hand fashion.
• Users can create their own stores on the platform and sell their vintage or used fashion items.
• The company brings a unique twist to the industry in the form of cliques, which are groups for sellers that sell similar items or styles. Cliques are created and run by a leader who gets a percentage of items sold in the clique shop.

Volumental

• Volumental’s mission is to transform the footwear industry by combining 3D foot scanning and AI to generate highly personalised footwear.
• The company was founded in 2013 and has high-profile clients like Adidas, New Balance and Bauer.
• Volumental is now in 700 stores worldwide and generates close to $2M in revenue.

Vinnova

Vinnova, Sweden’s Innovation Agency, recently funded a number of FashionTech projects and startups. A total sum of 13 million SEK (about $1,5M) was awarded to 7 projects. The projects include wearables, smart textiles and new types of fitting solutions for e-commerce. A full list of the projects can be found here (in Swedish).

The Global Change Award

Using leftovers from winemaking to create vegan leather, making vegan leather made from algae, using byproducts from citrus juice to create a new textile.

These are just some examples of the winners of The Global Change Awards in Sweden. The Global Change Award is an innovation challenge by H&M Foundation, in collaboration with Accenture and the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.

The annual Global Change Award is one of the world’s leading challenges for early stage innovation, and

It’s the largest initiative of its kind in the fashion industry aimed at early stage innovation, sustainability and social impact.

Read more about Global Change Award here.

You can find more articles about Stockholm based startups on my Linkedin article page.