LVMH group to recognise most promising tech start-up with LVMH Innovation Award

By

Anne-Sophie Savenier

Translated by
Nicola Mira

Published
Jun 16, 2017

The LVMH group will recognise the most innovative tech start-up operating in sectors linked to the group's business with the LVMH Innovation Award. The award’s winner will be announced at the second edition of the Viva Technology trade show, dedicated to transformative digital technology and scheduled in Paris on 15th-17th June. From more than five hundred applications, the award's jury has picked a shortlist of 32 start-ups from around the world.

For the show's entire duration, the thirty two finalists of the competition's first edition will be able to present their cutting-edge tech ideas at the Lab LVMH, the French luxury group’s 500 m2 showcase within the event.

Among the emerging tech start-ups vying for the prize, we noted G°emotion, which works on picking up customer feed-back feelings and transforming them into indicators and forecasting data; Loomia, which has engineered a smart fabric; Osmose, a system for tracking the online and offline behaviour of consumers; and Optiwine, which has patented a jug capable of optimizing the taste of wine, revealing all of its gustatory qualities thanks to the principles of nano-aeration.

The LVMH Award winner will be announced on 16th June at the Viva Technology show, after a series of pitching sessions to a prestigious jury chaired by the group's President and CEO Bernard Arnault. The jury panel will include business angels, top managers of innovative corporations and entrepreneurs, among them Angela Ahrendts, Senior Vice-President at Apple, Daniel Zhang, the President and CEO of the Alibaba group, and Alexandre Arnault, the joint boss of luggage brand Rimowa.

The winner will have the opportunity to meet the LVMH group's senior directors in charge of investment, and of working towards potential partnerships with the group and some of its labels.

The competition was created with this perspective firmly in mind, as underlined by LVMH's Chief Digital Officer Ian Rogers: "At LVMH, we work with start-ups on a daily basis and in many different ways. The LVMH Innovation Award is a way of discovering, supporting and identifying the best start-ups within our industry.”