LVMH Innovation Award Winners At Viva Tech: Sustainability, AI, Web3
Bernard Arnault and the finalists of the LVMH Innovation Award at Viva Tech in Paris.
The LVMH Innovation Award ceremony, the tech version of the LVMH Prize, took place today at the Viva Technology show in Paris.
The Award acts as a conduit for creating and accelerating collaborations between LVMH Maisons and promising startups. Divided into six categories, a winner is selected from each with an overall winner receiving the Grand Prize. This year there was an additional special prize for hot topic of the hour, Artificial Intelligence.
The Grand Prize was awarded to Save Your Wardrobe, a tech enabled clothing and repair platform which also won the Omnichanel & Retail category. It supports companies in the way they offer care and repair services, making the experience as effortless and luxury focused as the purchase itself says founder and CEO Hasna Kourda.
The platform features integrated automated logistics, operational management, fluid customer communication and live data reporting and can be integrated omnichannel: in-store, online or with brands’ existing CRM. The platform is able to onboard any inhouse service providers or leverage a network of vetted clothing care specialists around the world.
According to Bernard Arnault, Chairman and CEO of the LVMH group, the company perfectly illustrates the Group’s ambition in creative circularity. This is evinced by LVMH maison, Rimowa’s recently announced Re-Crafted service whereby the house refurbishes pre-owned Rimowa aluminum luggage, guaranteeing the service with a two-year warranty.
Mr Arnault added that successful startups share many attributes with LVMH Group as a whole, citing innovation and creativity, quality of execution, entrepreneurial spirit and engagement via diversity, fairness and a concern for the environment.
“LVMH was a startup some years ago,” he quipped, continuing that the group still maintains a startup ethos due to its family spirit: “The group is controlled by my family but every employee is also a part that family.”
The AI prize went to Chat Labs which creates hyper-personalized and highly-converting social commerce experiences with storytelling at their heart. It uses AI to optimize conversion rates from social engagement. Currently working in the APAC region where brands use integrated social platform WeChat, the goal now is to explore how the tech can be deployed for the more fragmented Western system says SVP Sales and Marketing Michel Tjoeng.
In addition to winning the Immersive Digital Experiences category, Web3 CRM platform Absolute Labs was also notably a player in Louis Vuitton’s recent Treasure Trunks NFT project.
Absolute Labs has created the first blockchain analytics and Web3 marketing automation platform. It helps brands drive nonfungible token pricing strategies based on relevant blockchain analytics, plus, by identifying market trends and carrying out relevant customer segmentations, it enables the automation of marketing campaigns to these customers via their wallets.
CEO and founder Samir Addamine, compares his product to a Web3 version of Salesforce — working with wallets as opposed to cookie data and emails. “It’s all about the experience and creating deeper relationships. Web3 wallets give you that. They’re the future of marketing,” he said.
Elsewhere AI powered talent management solution Neobrain won the Employee Experience & D&I category; Woola which helps companies replace plastics with sheeps’ wool waste products won the Sustainability & Green Tech category. Prize for Image & Media for Brand Desirability went to Vid Mob which uses AI to analyse and improve ad performance while Living Packets which creates a packaging experience that’s reusable, secured and connected won the Operations Excellence category.
While the overall winner will have a chance to benefit from personalized support for a full year at La Maison des Startups, LVMH’s business acceleration program at Station F in Paris, all the finalists are invited to joing the Group’s innovation incubator, where they will receive mentoring to help them develop their offering in liaison with LVMH and its 75 Maisons.
Last words to Laetitia Roche-Grenet, LVMH Directeur Open Innovation: “Becoming an entrepreneur is not an easy game but being part of LVMH Maison Des Startups is a game changer .”