Retail’s leading Digital ID platform, EON, has raised £7.3 million in a Series A investment sponsored by IMAGINARY Ventures. Natalie Massenet, Founder of Net-a-Porter and Co-Founder of IMAGINARY, will join EON’s board of directors.
Natasha Franck introduced EON in 2017 with the goal of connecting products, such as fashion clothes, to a Digital ID to make them “interactive, intelligent, and circular.”
According to EON, the technology will lay the groundwork for “connected commerce,” allowing businesses to improve consumer interactions and develop circular business models. The Digital ID is powered by EON’s Product Cloud, an enterprise software solution for digitizing and connecting physical products.
Natasha Franck launched EON in 2017 with the goal of giving every product a Digital Identity (ID) and accelerating sustainable business model transformation across retail. Simple products become interactive, intelligent, and circular assets with a Digital ID that may connect to other applications, business models, and services. In doing so, EON enables long-term customer relationships, new business models (such as resale and online gaming), and prepares the road for decentralization, the metaverse, NFTs, and beyond.
EON has been preparing brands for the future of commerce since its beginnings, beginning with fashion and apparel and now expanding into consumer packaged products, beauty, furniture, home goods, and beyond.
EON has collaborated with some of the world’s largest and most prominent retail companies, including Target, Zalando, H&M, PVH Corp, and YOOX-NET-A-PORTER GROUP, and will announce many more in 2022. Last year, Franck steered a commitment from the CEOs of fashion’s leading luxury brands, including Burberry, Stella McCartney, Brunello Cuccinelli, Giorgio Armani, Mulberry, and many more, to implement Digital ID across all products by 2025, in collaboration with His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.
Natalie Massenet, Co-Founder and Co-Managing Partner, Imaginary Ventures, said that they’re at a critical inflection point in retail when every product will soon be connected, and Digital ID provides the essential basis for companies to win in fashion’s new economy. EON’s technology enables essential new customer-centric services, adding value to the entire ecosystem and altering the future of commerce in ways they have only begun to conceive. EON’s track record of effectively altering the business models of some of retail’s most powerful players attests to the team’s expertise and vision for pioneering the convergence of their digital and physical worlds.
Natasha Franck, Founder and CEO, EON, said that this is a significant milestone for EON, and they are grateful for Natalie’s support. When Natalie created Net-a-Porter in 2000, she transformed luxury retail, ushering the industry into e-commerce and web 2.0. They’re now in the next phase of transition, and they are only now beginning to see the vast potential of this technology and its impact on the future of trade. With this finance, EON is expanding its cloud connectivity to connect every physical product, allowing clients to boost the value, revenue, data, and customer relationships generated by each digitized product. With each Digital ID, they accelerate the change of the fashion industry’s business models to be circular and sustainable.
