Liz Bacelar
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Fashion GPS, a software and services startup focused on fashion, said it is merging with Augure, a French-based global influential marketing company.
Under the new holding company name Launchmetrics, the Fashion GPS platform will add social influencer data and insights technology. The combined entity now works with 1,700 brands and agencies in over 70 countries.
The terms of the merger were undisclosed.
“It is now critical for brands to stay ahead of trends, quickly bring product to market, create exposure with the right timing and be able to measure how it impacts their business. Our new mission is to streamline these launches, and enable intelligent decision making backed by analytics,” explains Eddie Mullon, former CEO of Fashion GPS and newly appointed President of Launchmetrics.
Since 2006, Fashion GPS has completely revamped the way New York Fashion Week is run. Pasteboard invitations and long cues have been replaced by digital seat assignments, expedited barcode check and an app organizing show schedule and allowing editors, buyers and bloggers to capture their favorite looks. Fashion Week was just the beginning for Mullon.
While working with KCD Worldwide and designers like Marc jacobs, Fashion GPS has updated the way brands manage their product samples, distribute look books and track sales. Today, over 90% of New York Fashion Week shows use GPS Events and 250 of the world’s top brands and agencies are powered by Fashion GPS. That success was enough to attract the attention of Ironfire Capital, which invested $4 million in the company in 2013.
Augure, on the other hand, pitches an influencer marketing platform to help brands identify the right influencers according to their campaigns objectives, provide them guidance on the best combination of contents, channels and timing to use for their engagement strategies, as well as predict their impact.
Over one thousand brands have used Augure, including Nestlé, Renault, Jaguar and L’Oréal. Last year, after announcing the acquisition of social analytics startup Wiselytics, the company closed a new round of $16 million led by previous investors Serena Capital, Ventech, OTC Agregator and Amundi private equity funds along with new investors Seventure Partners and Bpifrance International.
Fashion GPS’s platform will gain a new dimension by integrating with Augure’s social influencer data and insights technology, under the guidance of KCD Digital. Using the merged software and services marketing and communication professionals within brands and agencies will be able to identify and influencers from a search engine of over 4 million contacts, while also creating visual showrooms.
“Simply listening to consumer discussions is not enough today, brands need to understand who is leading this conversation and taking consumers to action,” said Michael Jais, former CEO of Augure and newly appointed CEO of the combined entity. .”With the correct data, creating momentum in product launch becomes an exact science.”
Launchmetrics will remain strongly centered on fashion and luxury, boasting an impressive 74% market penetration to the top seventy fashion and luxury brands such as L’Oreal, LVMH, and Richemont Group. The company will be headquartered in New York with offices in London, Paris, Los Angeles, and the Spanish cities of Madrid, and Girona.
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