Fits.me, a virtual fitting room for internet clothing retailers based on robots (yes really) has won the European startup competition in Brussels, Plugg.
It’s actually even cooler than it sounds. By creating robotic shape-shifting mannequins and testing how people reacted by seeing clothes on the robot with their dimensions, sales actually went up.
Only 7% of all clothing is sold online today, a $36bn market It’s $20bn for computers), because you can’t see how the clothes look on a human body. The fits.me trial with partners showed these pictures of adjustable mannequins wearing clothes increased sales three times and dramatically reduced returns by 28%.
Fits.me means customers can try on clothing before buying from internet shops. They can see how different sizes fit their standard size – like in real-world fitting rooms.
The main reason why people do not buy clothing on the internet is the inability to try it on – the virtual fitting room solves this and increases sales. It also reduces returns associated with bad fit, increasing the profits. The cost of returns for a retailer is enormous because of the delay in receiving the returns – most returns are received back after the season has ended. The virtual fitting room solves this single most important problem for the retailers.
Fits.me wants to raise bridge financing of 700k Euro. Check out Fits.me on CrunchBase and DotOpen.
The audience award went to RazWar (Dotopen profile). The razor blade market producers higher and higher prices. RazWar is a slightly crazy but fun ecommerce startup selling shaving equipment to men which is quality but affordable.
You can check out all the videos and presentations from Plugg here.
RUNNERS UP:
“Inbox2 is a premium, connected lifestyle application that brings communication and the people you communicate with into a single, synchronized application on the desktop, web or mobile.”
NOTES: Email is a mess. Social Networks are a mess. inbox2 integrates social networks and email in one with powerful search. It’s launched a desktop app recently and had 25,000 downloads. An iphone app is coming out out. Very nice interface to email and links with social networks. It’s a desktop app but also a web interface. Not Facebook yet but can add easily. Sharing, search, prioritization.
Distimo (website - CrunchBase profile)
“Distimo offers tools and reports to make distribution of mobile apps easy and transparent.”
NOTES:This is a platform for app store analytics. There are now over 35 app stores and no end in site. Mobile developers don’t know which to choose or which one their consumers like. They connect to all app stores and analyse the data. Provide free analytics for app stores with a premium version for proferssionals. No surveys or panels, but market data. No code insert. Free app store analytics for developers. Currently have Blackberry, Ovi, Windows, Plam data Apple Android. Later adding carrier and indie app stores.
In alphabetical order, these are the rest of the companies that presented.
Anewsme.com: “Tired of one page readers at your news site? aNEWSme personalized recommendations engine is here for you!”
Apprupt (website - CrunchBase profile)
“An affiliate network for mobile apps that offers developers the chance to increase downloads, while publishers are enabled to monetize their traffic with relevant content.”
NOTES: This is an affiliate network for mobile apps. App stores have problems as uers can’t find apps and it’s hard for developers to promote their apps. So Apprupt stores feature selections of apps in niches, like financial content. Talking to lots of publishers across Europe.
Collibra (website - CrunchBase profile)
“Collibra brings together social software and semantic technology to close the gap between business and IT, reducing application integration complexity, mis-implementation risks and mis-communication.”
NOTES. Enterprise software company. Large companies use it to define the meaning of their key business concepts. The lack of shared business concepts leads to confusion in large businesses. Social and semantic tech allows companies to agree on the meaning of these defintiions creating a closed loop governance. Works for fast growing sectors like server management companies. Raised 850k Euro so far, Oracle and Deloitte are first customers.
Datpresenter (website - CrunchBase profile)
“Datpresenter provides learning and training software for professionals. Our platform is a hosted (SaaS) or installable next generation WebTV and Intranet TV presentation platform for delivery of rich media programmes & webinars.”
NOTES: Powerpoint presentations do not let you see the presenter. So this lets yo have a live presenter. For learning and training. Syncs with any video format.
English Attack (website - CrunchBase profile)
“English Attack! is the world’s first 100% entertainment-focused, 100% free online method for learning English.”
NOTES: 2 billion people what to learn English right now. Most are 15-35 years old. They are the new generation but don’t pay for content and like to do everything in short bursts. They are taught in an old fashioned way. EA is based on entertainment. Very adolescent friendly.
Gigswiz (website - CrunchBase profile)
“GigsWiz, a startup based in Helsinki, Finland is building set of statistics and analytics tools for the music industry.”
NOTES: Analytics tool for the live music industry. Sales of recorded music is going down but revenue from concerts is going up. Market is growing 10% annually. But bands have to make music and travel so they are limited on time. Often venues too big or small. So the idea is to use GigsWiz and choose a place that fits and optimise the time of musicians.
Hipui (website - CrunchBase profile)
“Hipui redefines mobile user experience and app development. We enable sensor interaction and advanced graphics outside native apps. Cross-platform code runs in cloud, which delivers the UI to devices.”
NOTES: Mobile are simple but apps are moving to the vloud. Hipui wants to build cloud computing for phones and let them access the native sensors on the phone, with rich interaction. Then you can build bigger apps. Cross platform. Works as a thin client. Experienced team. 3 patents pending. Product in Alpha.
“Lumo Flow is a seamless collaboration environment for businesses. Share documents, have discussions and get projects done. Secure and reliable.”
NOTES: Team collaboration made simple.
“Sclipo offers affordable & easy web learning apps integrated with social tools for millions of teachers & small organizations, who can not afford expensive and complex eLearning solutions.”
NOTES: Creating elearning web academies with video and live people. You “Rent” a Web academy and teahc people. Aim to make $100m from 1,000 academies.
Shotools (website - CrunchBase profile)
< "We help professionals to embrace social media as part of their organization."
NOTES: Another platform for social media analysis.
Smarkets (website - CrunchBase profile)
“Smarkets is a simple, smart way to bet on your favourite events.”
NOTES: Simple social gambling web site. Political site going live soon. See here for an extensive review.
– Stupeflix (website - CrunchBase profile)
“Stupeflix brings groundbreaking innovation to the online video world by providing the fastest, most scalable, flexible and affordable way to create high quality video content on a massive scale.”
– Submate (website - CrunchBase profile)
NOTES: Engage your users with a movie. Embed video created from content on your site. You have titles, ratings, revies, descriptions. Just add some small javascript code and you can create a video from the content. Great conversion rates on existing content and increases engagement. Fascinating.
“SubMate is social commuting: save your regular commutes and discover all the people you see everyday.”
– TweetMeme (website - CrunchBase profile)
NOTES: Foursquare gowalla are all very well but this is simpler. You just save the regular commuting trips you do and you are done. Its Foursquare for the rest of us. Launching today.
“TweetMeme provides the top retweeted stories as shared by users on Twitter & aggregated by category or channel. We also have the most used retweet button on the web! To find out more visit our site.”
NOTES: Customomised channels. Creating an advertising panel. Ad tweets are tweets inside videos or images. Sponsored definitions – define a product or brand. Featured tweets ads.