John Lewis has joined with retail accelerator and investment fund TrueStart to fund pioneering products, services and technologies.
The Eureka Initiative aims to allow start-ups to gain exposure to the partnership’s retail experience and to bring the best ideas to fruition.
One such start-up is Photospire, a platform which allows retailers and brands to make real-time, personalised video content for customers. Photospire is now in discussions with John Lewis to create tailored video content on product recommendations for individual customers.
The initiative runs alongside John Lewis’s tech incubator JLab, which has helped the department store chain find solutions to some of its operational challenges.
John Lewis Partnership group development director Tom Athron said: “The John Lewis Partnership began life as a brave entrepreneurial experiment. By collaborating with TrueStart we will be supporting the future growth of our company by partnering with like-minded entrepreneurs and fast tracking their ideas.”
Matt Truman, chief executive of True Capital, the private equity firm which owns TrueStart, added: “By joining forces we can lean on our joint expertise to ensure that the retail industry keeps innovation at its core, transforming the fashion, home and technology sectors in these rapidly changing times.”
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