We couldn't be more excited to announce our latest investment in Tekyn. Tekyn is the first on-demand textile production platform for brands, taking on the multi-billion dollar fashion waste problem.
The push-manufacturing model is broken. Under the current paradigm, long production lead times push retailers to make buys months in advance. Forecasting is still relatively unoptimized and does not account for sharp changes in demand. Consequently, brands either over-forecast or under-forecast sales volumes and lack the flexibility to react to fresh performance data. Large orders with quantity minimums have historically generated massive waste and pushed brands to heavily rely on discounting. Every year, 30B units are never sold or worn.
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Tekyn enables brands to massively shift to on-demand production while improving their environmental footprint, agility, and bottom-line. To do so, the company offers a turn-key solution to help apparel manufacturers streamline the ordering and kitting process, to enable production lead times of less than a week. With an on-demand system, brands can link their production buys to sell-out data, thus optimizing working capital and reducing overall waste.
Pierre and Donatien, Tekyn's co-founders, have showcased impressive execution skills, creating agile production lines from scratch and partnering with some of the largest French brands in under 24 months. The apparel manufacturing market has historically been underserved by technology - Retailers have traditionally relied on offshore production, enabled by a cheaper workforce in developing markets, which has consequently undermined innovation in the space. With the potential of on-demand production, near-shore manufacturing will become a more sustainable solution for retailers.
