The global Covid 19 pandemic is forcing clothing retailers both online and off to be more creative in meeting the needs of their concerned customers. As the way consumers shop is rapidly being reshaped to avoid interaction, the Ukrainian tech startup 3DLOOK has positioned itself to take advantage of this new developing trend.
The company was founded in 2016 in Odesa, Ukraine, by Alex Arapov, Ivan Makeev, Vadim Rogovskiy and Whitney Cathcart. Rogovskiy is a serial entrepreneur and investor with several earlier startups including Clickky, an online platform for advertisers and publishers offering programmatic, performance and video solutions.
“I decided to invest my own money, about $150,000, to actually create the technology that can enable any human being who has a smartphone with any camera to quickly create his or her own digital passport,” Rogovskiy says.
This digital passport offers a 3D model of your body measurements extracted from just two photos taken by the customer. The ‘Size and Fit Recommendations’ feature is used to recommend what size of a specific fashion brand would fit best, while ‘Mobile Tailor’ generates more than 65 measurements for businesses that create custom-made clothing for each customer based on these measurements. Both features facilitate contactless garment fitting.
3DLOOK can also be used in-store to develop contactless body measurements. “We just recently launched with a big US fashion retailer in 100 stores. And we are going to launch in all their more than 1000 stores within months,” says Rogovskiy.
The company’s clients include major retailers selling jeans, like 1822 Denim, made-to-measure companies, health and fitness companies, and uniform manufacturers.
To date, 3DLOOK has raised $4.2 million in seed capital with the most recent round of $1 million coming from an effort led by the Ukrainian financial group ICU Ventures with participation from several other angel investors from the US and Eastern Europe. Under plans, the startup will raise a Series A round in 2021.
3DLOOK has won several awards including the LVMH Innovation Award and the IEEE Retail Digital Transformation Grand Challenge both in 2019. The company is currently registered in the USA with offices in San Mateo, California (it is registered in the U.S.), Kyiv (Kiev) and Odesa. There are plans to open an office in New York to be close the capital of the fashion and garment industries.
You can listen to an interview with Vadim Rogovskiy here in a Made in Ukraine Tech Startup Edition podcast.
