Peter Jeun Ho Tsang unpacks his top 5 key takeaways from the VC Series in conversation with Rohan Bansal. He unpacks: No set path into fashion and retail tech venture capital – success requires building relevant experience and perspective rather than specific qualifications. The power of networks and relationships, crucial for both founders and investors to opening doors for funding and partnerships. Creating a winning pitch deck is essential when investors spend just three minutes reviewing it ...
May 06, 2025•14 min•Ep. 71
Lack of Fashion & Retail Tech Funds: The fashion tech sector raised nearly $3 billion in 2024, yet there's a surprising lack of specialised VC funds focusing on this growing market despite proven exits and significant market potential. In this final guest episode with Rohan Bansal, he chats with Peter on what some of the blind spots are for many investors. The Struggle with Specialised VC Funds: • Generalist VCs lack specialised expertise in fashion industry dynamics and operations. • Tradit...
Apr 29, 2025•17 min•Ep. 70
The Perfect Investor Pitch Deck: The perfect investor pitch deck combines storytelling, market understanding, and founder credibility to stand out in the competitive venture capital landscape. Venture capitalists typically spend just over three minutes reviewing each deck, with only 1% securing funding. In this episode Peter and Rohan breakdown what makes a great deck and the red flags that investors see. Tips & Tricks Explored in this Episode: • Storytelling is crucial as humans connect wit...
Apr 22, 2025•18 min•Ep. 69
The Lifecycle of Fashion Tech Startups: This episode with guest speaker Rohan Bansal, he discussed with Beyond Form CEO Peter Jeun Ho Tsang the differences between early stage and growth stage companies and what it takes to secure funding at each level. Early-stage v.s. Growth Stage Fashion Tech: • The lifecycle: Pre-seed rounds typically fund companies with just an idea, while seed rounds support those with early traction and some revenue. • Series A represents a critical graduation point where...
Apr 15, 2025•22 min•Ep. 68
Rohan's journey into the VC industry: Rohan Bansal shares his journey into the venture capital world, sharing how his nomadic childhood across eight countries equipped him with the global perspective crucial for successful investing in fashion and retail tech. What you'll hear about VC investing: • Living in different countries provided Rohan with unique insights into market idiosyncrasies and consumer behaviours. • VC roles are highly competitive: over 450 applications for each associate positi...
Apr 08, 2025•23 min•Ep. 67
As we close out 2024, this year's final episode is joined by Yoobin Jung, a VC at Plug and Play, where she along with our host Peter break down the fashion tech booms and busts that happened throughout the year. They discuss: • AI's transformative impact on fashion design: Generative design tools are accelerating prototyping and reshaping brand identities, but raise ethical concerns about potentially replacing junior designers. • The sustainability challenge: AI could help align production with ...
Dec 31, 2024•45 min•Ep. 66
We wrap up our 'Build It' podcast series with a reflective finale. Host Peter Jeun Ho Tsang tell us his top 5 key takeaways from navigating business growth, how to get through challenging times as a fashion tech startup, through to tech and humans coming together. This episode highlights the passionate voices featured throughout the series and how the call for a strategic collaboration between brands, investors, and innovators to not only sustain emerging technologies but to also foster their gr...
Dec 17, 2024•12 min•Ep. 65
Setting Up a Fashion Store in the 90s: Today's episode we're with Afsal Koya, CEO of Raza Clothing which is a fashion store and label in the USA that uses AIMIRR's virtual try-on technology. Afsal's transformation from a computer scientist to a streetwear brand founder is an unusual one. We hear his journey that started in a small Ohio store back in 1992, Afsal shares how he navigated the evolving landscape of fashion trends to launch his own brand, emphasising the importance of learning and tea...
Dec 10, 2024•29 min•Ep. 64
Fashion's Fit Dilemma: Today's episode features fashion garment technologist and fit expert Katy Schildmeyer. As online shopping increases, the challenge of ensuring accurate garment fit remains ever-present. Katy and Peter Jeun Ho discuss the pressing need for enhanced fashion education, particularly in the communication of fit and the creation of garments that cater to all body types, including the aging population. They reflect on the historical transformation from shopping experiences of the...
Dec 03, 2024•34 min•Ep. 63
What Failing in Fashion Looks Like: We welcome back Beatrice Newman, Head of Education at Beyond Form, where we discuss what it means to fail in fashion, what failure looks like, lessons that can be learned, and why it's still a taboo subject. Beatrice shares her personal failures whilst building her brand, Korlekie, from mis-understanding the customer to financing a commercial collection. Lessons Learned Whilst Failing: From funding challenges to the art of effective go-to-market strategies, we...
Nov 26, 2024•30 min•Ep. 62
MODE Pivots into Beyond Form Education: Beatrice Newman, the creative force behind online fashion education platform Mode, chats in this episode what it means to pivot a fashion business. Exclusively on today's episode she reveals the launch of Beyond Form Education, a groundbreaking initiative bridging the gap between academia and the fashion industry. Data-Driven Pivoting in the Fashion Industry: We discuss how data-driven decisions and user feedback are revolutionising fashion education in a ...
Nov 19, 2024•28 min•Ep. 61
Inheriting a traditional fashion factory in Pakistan: Raised amidst the rich tapestry of a family-owned garment production business, Shahid Butt now helms his father's empire Shahkam Industries in Lahore, Pakistan. This episode offers a unique perspective on the balancing act between maintaining cultural heritage and embracing the cutting-edge transformations shaping the garment industry today. Shahid challenges preconceived notions of Pakistani manufacturers and invites listeners to reconsider ...
Nov 12, 2024•41 min•Ep. 60
From Mumbai to Microsoft to Body Sizing: Today's episode feature's Pritesh Kanani, founder & CEO of AIMIRR. From his early days in Mumbai to steering technological advancements at Microsoft, we hear Pritesh's journey to developing virtual try-on solution. Initially kickstarted by his mother's wish to see his future wife in a wedding dress remotely, the solution came to life that is now deployed by fashion retailers online and offline around the world. Patenting the AI-Powered Body Scanning S...
Nov 05, 2024•32 min•Ep. 59
Launderd's Fundraising Journey: 12 months on since we heard how Chelsea Van De Kamp, founder of Launderd, planned to launch her fashion repair and restoration platform, she's now back on the show but this time with all guns blazing as she begins her fundraising journey. Chelsea shares why fundraising now is the right time for the company and her strategies for using storytelling to captivate investors. Her candid reflections on Launderd's progress offer a compelling look into the evolving landsc...
Oct 29, 2024•27 min•Ep. 58
The Financial Scam: Have you ever found yourself tangled in a financial scam, when all you were trying to do was fuel your entrepreneurial dreams? Brian Yurachek, the founder and CEO of New York Culture Club, reveals his own unfortunate experience with an advance fee scam during his quest for a business loan to finance his fashion tech startup. We unravel the emotional turmoil that Brian endured and the resilience he had to muster up to get through it, a cautionary tale underscoring how startups...
Oct 22, 2024•31 min•Ep. 57
From Wall Street to Fashion Tech: What happens when a Wall Street finance pro decides to revolutionise the fashion industry? Join us as we chat with Brian Yurachek, the CEO of New York Culture Club, who ditched the stock exchange for the fashion industry. His journey is not just a career pivot, but a demonstration of how most entrepreneurs find their internal power of creativity and courage to step outside their comfort zone and build something they're passionate about. In this case for Brian fa...
Oct 15, 2024•33 min•Ep. 56
Producing Knitwear in Karachi: Today's episode takes us to knitwear manufacturing straight from Karachi with Ahmed Altaf, CEO of AM Group, who shares his invaluable journey from academics to leading a family-run knitwear facility. Gain insights into what life is like in Pakistan's largest city and learn why Pakistan is a critical player in the global apparel market. Ahmed debunks common myths about working with knitwear manufacturers and highlights the benefits of a vertically integrated factory...
Oct 08, 2024•37 min•Ep. 55
We're back with a brand new series 'Build It', digging deep into how fashion tech startups are building their companies from the ground up. Join Peter as he sits down with Abdul Moiz Sajjad, CEO of WeMetrix, to explore how data can change the way fashion factories can be infinitely more efficient. Abdul shares invaluable insights into how AI solutions like his are reshaping one of Pakistan's most vital economic sectors, textiles and garments, which contributes a massive 59.5% to the nation's exp...
Oct 01, 2024•36 min•Ep. 54
Wrap Up with 5 Key Fashion Tech Takeaways We wrap up our 'Applied' podcast series with a reflective finale. Host Peter Jeun Ho Tsang tell us his top 5 key takeaways from navigating business growth, how to get through challenging times as a fashion tech startup, through to tech and humans coming together. This episode highlights the passionate voices featured throughout the series and how the call for a strategic collaboration between brands, investors, and innovators to not only sustain emerging...
May 14, 2024•9 min•Ep. 53
Why Agricultural Waste? Shikha Shah, with her rare blend of scientific expertise and compassionate leadership, tells us her transition from consultancy to building biorefineries to turn plant waste into textiles usable for the fashion and beyond. Coming to the realisation that if there's enough food in the world, then there's also enough waste in the world that can be reusable in some way. For Shikha after several years of research cracked the scientific formula that enables plant matter to be b...
May 07, 2024•39 min•Ep. 52
Incubating Inside Microsoft's Garage When host, Peter Jeun Ho Tsang, first met Dr. Kitty Yeung she was a quantum physicist by day and a fashion technologist by night. Kitty's fashion tech journey was structured via a global Microsoft hackathon where she and a group of intrapreneurial colleagues decided to take on the mammoth task of solving fashion's overproduction problem by developing a software enabling on-demand production with a minimum order quantity of 1 unit. But is that even possible? F...
Apr 30, 2024•44 min•Ep. 51
AI & Pattern Cutting Whilst the art of fashion pattern cutting is still rooted in flat drawings done by hand, artificial intelligence is bringing the practice into contemporary design and produce development processes. N-Hega is a company that taps into AI to help brands to achieve results such as lay planning optimisation, waste reduction, and bringing the physical into the digital. In this conversation, host Peter Jeun Ho Tsang, speaks to Marketing & Product Development Director of N-h...
Apr 23, 2024•27 min•Ep. 50
Building Tech Better Retail Experiences Joining Von N. Ruzive and Peter Jeun Ho Tsang, co-authors of Fashion Tech Applied, are Hillary Littleton, Head of Marketing at FIT:MATCH, Elina Minina, CBDO at Cappasity, and Charles Wilders, CEO at Showcase X, to discuss how retail experiences are being augmented by technologies. The panel unpacks how tech like 3D modeling, AI, and augmented reality are reconfiguring the online and offline retail experiences. From creating your digital twin to find that i...
Apr 16, 2024•33 min•Ep. 49
Turning Ideas into Fashion Storytelling Diamonds Jonathan Chippindale made his luxury marketing name in the world of fine jewellery at De Beers prior to launching his creative tech studio, Holition. The magnetic pull of Jonathan's "Willy Wonka-esque" genius, has allowed him to tap into the transformative power of digital storytelling in the luxury space. His philosophy of 'human connections first, technology second' champions Holition's digital campaigns that tug at the heartstrings. In this epi...
Apr 09, 2024•48 min•Ep. 48
From Engineering to Fashion Imagine a world where your clothes are as easy to recycle as paper and plastic. That's the vision Cedric Vanhoeck, founder and CEO of Resortecs, is turning into reality, and in this latest episode, host Peter Jeun Ho Tsang and Cédric discuss how Cedric's original career path of engineering led him to sorting out one of the fashion industry's biggest problems: products designed and destined for the landfill. Dismantling Products Stitch by Stitch Resortecs' proprietary ...
Apr 02, 2024•31 min•Ep. 47
Becoming Dean of Academic Strategy at London College of Fashion The North West of England is not necessarily associated with fashion, but the small town where John Lau grew up is where it all began. From reading his first copies of Vogue, to working in America and China in John's early fashion career, to now becoming the Dean of Academic Strategy at London College of Fashion, John shares how he uses all of these experiences to shape the future of fashion education. Embedding Tech & Innovatio...
Mar 26, 2024•37 min•Ep. 46
Building Virtual Fashion Stores The promise of an £80K deal that would never have happened until Olga met her technical co-founder on LinkedIn. Emperia was born. Specialists in building virtual stores for fashion brands, Olga and Peter dig deep into the retail, marketing, and creative strategies necessary to bring virtual spaces to life that resonate with a new generation of shoppers. Olga tells us firsthand how Emperia is not just adapting to the digital age but actively shaping its future, esp...
Mar 19, 2024•34 min•Ep. 45
Fashion's Big Fit Problem This episode features Vadim Rogovskiy, CEO of 3DLOOK, in which he takes us through how he discovered that fashion is the industry with the biggest pain to get body measurements and fit right. Starting from a tech perspective, in which he confesses is not necessarily the best process for starting a business, Vadim takes listeners though why fashion brands are struggling with fit. AI Powered Body Measurements 3DLOOK's patented AI technology has the potential to reduce con...
Mar 12, 2024•29 min•Ep. 44
Turning Textile Waste into Recycled Fibres: Pauline Guesné, co-founder of Refact, once a corporate consultant now turned entrepreneur shares her story of a little French girl dreaming big. Those dreams developed into the desire to do something for the world and in this case fashion, having been shocked by the industry's wasteful nature. Pauline and her team have invented a novel process that utilises a combination of mechanical and chemical recycling processes to break down used garments into re...
Mar 05, 2024•37 min•Ep. 43
Human Creativity & Technology Joining Von N. Ruzive and Peter Jeun Ho Tsang, co-authors of Fashion Tech Applied, are Yigit Alp Elmas CEO of T-Fashion and Koen Warmerdam co-founder of Aware, to discuss how tech is impacting the creation of fashion products. The conversation unpacks how human creativity is still a vital part of the design process and tech will not replace humans, but rather how the individuals with the tech skills will be the ones thriving. We confront the industry's resistanc...
Feb 27, 2024•48 min•Ep. 42
