Imagine being able to try on clothes online before ordering them from an e-store.
That’s exactly what a Ukrainian tech company is working on at the moment: a technology that can create a digital version of a person and allow it to find the size of clothes that fit.
The demand for such a technology has especially soared during the coronavirus pandemic, when stores were closed and people had to buy clothing online — a tricky task for the market of custom-made clothing.
Ukrainian tech startup 3DLOOK seems to have solved this problem: it has developed a mobile application that calculates the body measurements of a person by scanning photos of them and creates an avatar, a virtual model of a human. Then the avatar can try on different clothes and show what fits and what doesn’t.
The avatar has the same arm and leg lengths, waistline and hip size as the person whose photos were scanned by the app. After taking all the measurements, the photos are deleted from the app for security reasons, but the avatar stays for future use.
Some examples of how the 3DLOOK digital tool works on a smartphone. The technology analyses photos by using special computer algorithms to take measurements of a human body: arm and leg lengths, waistline and hip size. Based on these calculations 3DLOOK creates a virtual model of a human and allows it to find the size of clothes that fit. (Courtesy)
The 3DLook app’s appearance was so timely that many foreign investors wanted to put their money into it. The startup has attracted $1 million from a pool of investors, including Kyiv-based venture capital firm ICU Ventures and several other angel investors from the U.S. and Eastern Europe.
The startup will use the money to hire more tech specialists to its current 50-person team, which works from its U.S. office and two research and development centers — in Kyiv and Odesa.
Founded in Odesa just four years ago in 2016, the startup worthed $10 million in 2018.
The startup’s founder, Vadim Rogovskiy, told the Kyiv Post that 3DLook was the first company in the world to offer clothing retailers to use body scanning tech to boost their sales.
“In the very beginning, most people didn’t believe that we’d be able to solve this problem, but we proved them wrong,” Rogovskiy said.
But the startup doesn’t only work with stores that sell ready-to-wear clothes. In fact, some of the startup’s biggest clients are businesses that sell tailor-made clothing, like U.S. women’s clothing store Red Thread.
To use the technology, these retailers just add 3DLOOK’s widget to their own app or website and ask customers to upload two photos taken by any smartphone.
Rogovskiy said that those businesses that use his startup’s tech have shown a 7% increase in their revenue per customer, because the retailers were able to design and sell better-fitting clothing for their customers.
A retailer can use the 3DLOOK services by subscribing to it for $10,000 a month. But smaller made-to-measure businesses can use it for $99 a month.
Currently, Ukraine’s 3DLOOK works with over 25 retail businesses around the world, including New York-based jeans brand 1822denim and a U.S. multi-billion retailer, whose name Rogovskiy couldn’t disclose. Nevertheless, he said that his tech is already used in 200 shops owned by this client and 1,000 more shops will be connected in the future.
In Ukraine, the company has partnered with fashion brands that have “global ambitions,” Rogovskiy said. Among them is fashion brand Una Terra that creates clothing made of recycled materials for pets and people.
Rogovskiy is a serial entrepreneur, who, apart from 3DLOOK, has created and run the 6.5-million-euro startup Clicky, an online tool for mobile app developers. In 2018, it was recognized as one of the fastest-growing companies in Europe by U.S. magazine Inc. 5000.
