We are excited to announce that REFASHIOND Ventures, the pioneering, New York-based early-stage supply chain technology venture firm that we launched as REFASHIOND Seed, an AngelList Rolling Fund in July 2021 to invest in early-stage technology startups refashioning global supply chains, has raised $2 Million in committed capital and has already made 36 investments in 34 startups.

We have reached this milestone with a minimum commitment of $25,000 for individual accredited investors wishing to invest in the fund, and have won the backing of 45 individual limited partners. It is thanks to them that we have reached this milestone a full 3 months earlier than we originally anticipated.

When we first met one another in June 2016, we realized that we shared two beliefs: First, we were convinced that increasing geopolitical tensions, the worsening Climate Crisis, and more demanding consumer expectations would put enormous pressure on supply chains and force a reckoning at every level of society; Second, we believed that this created an opportunity to invest in the early stage technological innovations that would be required to refashion global supply chains as the world adapts to these unfolding macro forces.

Lisa has been obsessed with how things are made since childhood. She had the pivotal and career-shaping opportunity of pioneering mass-customization, personalization, and on-demand manufacturing across beauty products at a P&G and Redpoint Ventures backed startup called Reflect.com, in 1999. When we first met in 2016, she had just spent a year studying the apparel supply chain and developing her own thesis around localized on-demand production tied to circular materials infrastructure as the paradigm shift required for the industry to achieve meaningful sustainability.

I had just spent a year studying supply chain logistics, and would soon start writing a series of 4 very long blog posts that others described as being of Masters Thesis length and quality on early-stage software technology startups in freight trucking and maritime ocean freight as I was making the shift from being a generalist early-stage venture capitalist to becoming a specialist. We realized in very short order that we are both equally #ObsessivelyEnthusiastic about Supply Chains.

Rather than just looking backward at “best practices” we had been individually and independently forming our own hypotheses about digitized value chains and the technology innovations that would drive transformation in global supply chains.

Coincidentally, we arrived at identical conclusions. This became obvious at our very first meeting.

The graphic below shows a summary of our current portfolio (as of April 12, 2023).

REFASHIOND Ventures investments from September 2021 to March 31, 2023.

Our Investment Thesis

REFASHIOND Ventures invests as the first institutional check in early-stage startups refashioning supply chains across Data & AI, Advanced Materials, Advanced Manufacturing, and Next Generation Logistics; Defensible through economic moats.

Supply chains make everything human beings do possible. In fact, one might say the world is a supply chain. This means that Supply Chains and Climate Change are opposite sides of the same coin; Supply Chains are the cause of Earth’s disease, and Climate Change is the collection of its symptoms.

For the first time in history, physical things can “talk to” other physical things. This digitization requires an entirely new operating system, which is why we believe that we are on the cusp of a Golden Age of Supply Chain Platforms. We are at a unique inflection point in history when all the innovations and advances that we take for granted in the world of software and information technology will be applied to solving problems in the physical world through supply chain platforms, networks, and ecosystems. The most consequential advances will occur at the intersection of bits and atoms, this is where the magic will occur. If you believe that software is eating the world, then you have to agree that supply chains and value chains are where most of the action is going to occur.

Supply Chains form the operating system on which societies run.

Through the startups that are already in our portfolio, and others that are still in our investment pipeline we believe the future of global supply chains has never looked brighter. Thanks to the people building the startups in our portfolio and others in our investment pipeline, we are optimistic that global supply chains will undergo a major upgrade as the world comes to grips with all the problems unfolding now. Our ambition has always been to become the investor every early-stage supply chain technology founder wants to meet when they decide to raise capital from venture capitalists.

Opening Address: #SCIT2019 in NYC, June 19 and June 20, 2019 at Microsoft Times Square. Photo by Ray Neutron.

Leading Indicators - Our Growing Portfolio

Our growing portfolio of pre-seed and seed-stage investments includes:

An investment in the $85M+ Series B round for Natural Fiber Welding;
An investment in the $37M Series B round for Leaf Logistics;
An investment in the $26M Series B round for Denim;
An investment in the $8M Series A round for Lynq Technologies, and;
An investment in the pre-series A bridge financing for Arcstone, a manufacturing execution and supply chain visibility platform that's establishing its global headquarters in Michigan, after having been based in Singapore.

We are also investors in:

Stimulus - a relationship management platform that gives sourcing and procurement teams superpowers;
Simplifyber - a revolutionary and new approach to making garments of all types;
Sortile - an internet-of-things and data platform to enable textile recycling, and;
Greenscreens.ai - a dynamic pricing platform for the logistics industry - which raised its Series A just 10 months after closing its seed round and growing its revenues by 550% over the course of 2022.
You can find our full portfolio listed here, with links to additional information and more.

Founders make room for us in the funding rounds they are raising because we improve their odds of connecting with other highly relevant industry partners and potential investors, and we work hard to help them win early prospective customers when they might not otherwise have access.

Corporate executives trust our judgment. They trust us to help them connect with the startups we believe are doing the best work in early-stage supply chain innovation and technology because of our excitement, effervescent energy, and enthusiasm for what supply chain startups are building and our natural eagerness to invest considerable amounts of time to understand the problems their potential customers have been living with in granular and excruciating detail.

Other investors have used our research and writing to help them quickly become familiar with the areas we focus on, leading them to sometimes invest in the same rounds that we commit to, or to invest in rounds following those in which we have already made an investment.

Other researchers, academics and book authors, have used our writing and analysis, and our investments, as a starting point for their own research about emerging trends in early-stage supply chain innovation and technology.

Research and Analysis: Core to our Ability to Connect Theory with Practice

Research and analysis is core to our ethos as investors. That is how we identify the early, emerging and significant signals at the fringes before others do. That is how we identify the problems buyers of supply chain innovation and technology will pay startups to solve before even those buyers realize the full extent and cost implications of the problems. It is also how we identify the early-stage startups that are actually solving the problem in a way that will stand the test of time as opposed to those that are focused on their idea of a quick solution at the expense of truly understanding the difficult nature of most of the problems that can be solved profitably in supply chains.

Research and analysis is how we figure out what we do not yet understand, how we take inventory of our knowledge, how we learn. It is how we connect the dots between theory and practice, between the future and the present. Research and analysis is how we connect the dots between the BUILDERS & BUYERS of supply chain innovations and technology.

We are confident in what we are building because we are building the venture capital firm Lisa sought while she was a founder in Techstars Boston working to take Shopsy from zero to one, and I wake up every day trying to be the thought partner to our founders that my mom and dad desperately needed to harness and scale their genius as gifted teachers. And we spend every hour thinking about how we can become better, and then doing the things we need to do to get there.

Our existing investor base of limited partners includes prominent and experienced executives across a range of industries, including some top supply chain executives and investors, as well as some of the world’s leading established and emerging early-stage venture capitalists in software and deep technology. We would not be here without their belief in us and we are immensely grateful for their support and trust. It is thanks to them that we are living our dream of building the world’s early-stage supply chain technology investor of record.

Because, Climate Change and Supply Chains are opposite sides of the same coin, we are in the early-stages of the largest sector-driven investment opportunity of our lifetime - the technology-driven refashioning of global supply chains in order to confront the climate crisis.

We are #ObsessivelyEnthusiastic About Supply Chains, Innovation & Technology

As REFASHIOND Ventures approaches the beginning of its third year of existence, we intend to do what has worked for us since we first met in 2016; We look for the people we believe are doing the best work in early-stage supply chain technology. Then we go all-in on them with obsessive enthusiasm.

No matter the time of day, our founders know they can count on us to be there when they need us most. Our founder-centric ethos is borne of Lisa’s experience while she was building Shopsy - a contextual search engine which she took through Techstars and for which she raised venture capital but eventually had to shut down, and my experience watching my mom and dad build small businesses at home without the benefit of an experienced thought partner who could harness their genius and surround them with talented people possessing complementary skills.

REFASHIOND Ventures ‘2022 Year-End-Review

It is our obsessive enthusiasm that led us to start The New York Supply Chain Meetup in 2017, and The Worldwide Supply Chain Federation not long thereafter to serve as a grassroots-driven, open, supportive, collaborative, and multidisciplinary network of meetup communities focused solely on supply chains, innovation, and technology. We are the community where the builders of early-stage supply chain innovations know that their nascent, crazy ideas will be given a fair and highly engaged hearing: We have had speakers from as far away as Boston, London, Ljubjana, Cologne, and San Francisco for our meetups in the past. We have had people from nearly every continent attend at least one of our past events.

In January 2018 we caused a scene at the SAP HQ at Hudson Yards in NYC when, as one speaker put it, we somehow got “300 people” to show up for a supply chain meetup in NYC; In April 2018, we had, Silvio Micali, a distinguished professor from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab as the keynote at the blockchains in supply chains meetup we hosted that month - Professor Micali is the founder of Algorand, a leading blockchain platform built with enterprise applications in mind - prompting another speaker to remark, “How on earth did you get Silvio to be your keynote speaker for this meetup, I couldn’t get him to respond to me.”

At our inaugural global symposium, #SCIT2019 we had a representative of the Government of Singapore as one of our speakers - for a 15-minute spot, just like every other startup that presented on the second day of that event. We have had senior executives from some of the world’s biggest companies attend or speak at our events, and we have also had speakers from startups that no one else has ever heard of attend and present at our events. Some of the startup founders we have had speak at our events have told us that participating in one of our events served as a critical inflection point for them.

That same obsessive enthusiasm led us to create REFASHIOND OS (rOS), when a large, global fashion and apparel brand approached Lisa in October 2019 and asked if she would consider collaborating with them on executing against her vision, described in many speeches and presentations at various public events, for a distributed network of connected, small batch, quick turn, and on-demand apparel manufacturing facilities in the USA.

We jumped at the opportunity.

Those specific plans were upended when the COVID19 Pandemic broke out 6 months later, but the rOS team continues to execute on that vision and has become a useful means for us to keep our ears to the ground in terms of what buyers of these early-stage supply chain tech innovations need, and makes us more effective at assisting the startups in which we are an investor.

Our Upbringing is the Source of Our Passion and Obsession With Supply Chains

We share an innate and visceral understanding of the direct causal relationship, and strong positive correlation between the state of supply chains and general quality of life. On the surface, it would seem as though a Puerto Rican, Afro-Latina from the Bronx would have very little in common with a Black man who was born in northern Ghana and raised in northern Nigeria. However, the environments in which we both grew up gave us a deep and shared appreciation for the role supply chains play in society’s well being and resilience.

Our upbringings give us a unique take on supply chains, innovation, and technology.

We understand the problem in a way our peers do not. We are excessively eager and obsessively enthusiastic, completely-self taught students of technology, innovation, supply chains, early-stage startups and venture capital. There are very few early-stage funds specializing in end-to-end supply chain innovation and technology, most of those that exist focus on logistics, or manufacturing, or specific industry verticals like fashion and apparel, or food and agriculture. It is not an accident that our small team has started to garner external validation from supply chain industry publications and trade groups.

Lisa lives in the future and thrives when building and fostering systems and solutions that have never existed before. My calling card is research and analysis; I thrive when grappling with ill-formed theoretical or practical problems. The supply chains our world is built on must be refashioned to continue to sustain human life. We have dedicated the rest of our lives to investing in, catalyzing, and helping these critical innovations achieve efficient scale.

Other people may think we are doing too much, but for us this is energizing and it is all supply chains, innovation, and technology. We believe this is what we are meant to be doing. We wake up thinking about our work. We fall asleep thinking about our work. We dream about our work and we wake up with ideas we can’t wait to share with each other, and with the founders who have won our backing and support, or with whom we are in conversation.

Some Highlights From Our First Two Years in Business

In addition to fundraising, sourcing investments, making investments, and monitoring our growing portfolio here are a few other highlights;

Lisa was a speaker for Session 3 at Business of Fashion Voices 2022 - Technology & Innovation: How Technology Can Power a Better Future; Lisa's talk starts at 21:21
Brian was a guest on the Diverse Tech Founders Podcast. Here are links to Part I and Part II
NAIC Member Profile: REFASHIOND Ventures: Investing in Tech to Strengthen Weak Links in Global Supply Chains
REFASHIOND Ventures is on the inaugural #Emerging50 list: The announcement by Signature Block - arranged alphabetically by name of the fund.
We wrapped up 2022 by putting together a review of all that the 28 startups we had backed through December 31, 2022 accomplished in 2022. It’s a look into the future of global supply chains through the lens of our portfolio companies. You can check it out here: REFASHIOND Ventures - The State of Supply Chain 2022. Each startup has its own section broken out and available on our portfolio page
Brian is featured as the only Expert Perspective for Logistics, Supply Chain, + Warehousing in Tech Trends 2023 published by Future Tomorrow Institute. This is the 16th annual installment of Tech Trends.
Brian participated in a panel discussion for Morgan Stanley’s Multicultural Innovation Lab, now the Morgan Stanley Inclusive Ventures Lab, and some of his comments were featured in How to Thrive in a Changing VC Landscape
Supply and Demand Chain Executive has previously named Lisa to its 2022 and 2020 cohorts of Women in Supply Chain, including being named to the #1 spot of the 2022 Cohort.
Lisa was also named to Supply Chain Digital’s Top 100 Women in Supply Chain in 2021.
Brian has been named to Supply & Demand Chain Executive's Pros to Know 2023 cohort.
Brian was a guest on Cheddar’s Juneteenth coverage on June 20, 2022
We are featured in this article by Geri Stengel at Forbes: A Rolling Fund May Be Just What Women And BIPOC Venture Capitalists Need To Raise Funding
Both of us are featured on this list published by Flexport: 55 Supply Chain & Logistics Experts You Should Follow on Social
Our research report is featured in an article published by Family Capital: Family offices should forge partnerships with venture capital firms, says former FO senior manager
We are participating in Cohort 6 of Coolwater Capital’s BUILD program for emerging venture capital managers. Coolwater is run by Winter Mead, and the BUILD program has been described as “YC for emerging VCs” by others.
We are part of Revere VC’s initial cohort of managers. You can check out the initial Ratings Report they published on REFASHIOND Ventures here: REFASHIOND Ratings Report link.

You get the idea.

As Nilay Parikh of Arvist put it in his April 2023 Investor Update, “Lisa and Brian, partners at REFASHIOND are forces to reckon with in the supply chain industry . . .”

The Outlook For Early-Stage Supply Chain Innovation & Technology

Ever since our first meeting in 2016, the preponderance of independent evidence to support our investment thesis has been increasing consistently, day after day. Here are some recent articles in the news that make our case;

So you think you know your supply chain? - Sarah Murray, FT, March 24, 2023
A new technology boom is at hand - Rana Foroohar, FT, March 27, 2023
A difficult pivot looms for venture capital - Michael Casey, FT, March 29, 2023
David Craig: Our economic system is completely dependent on nature - FT, March 31, 2023

The argument underlying our investment thesis for REFASHIOND Ventures: Supply Chains and Climate Change are opposite sides of the same coin; Cause and Effect. We can’t solve the Climate Crisis without refashioning Supply Chains. Our only hope is to invest aggressively in the technologies that will enable us to refashion man-made supply chains such that we cause less harm to the environment.

Warren Buffett says the threat of war was a ‘consideration’ in his decision to dump the bulk of his $4 billion stake in chipmaker giant TSMC - Christiaan Hetzner, Fortune, April 12, 2023
Warren Buffett says he intends to add to Japanese stock holdings - Makoto Kajiwara, Kazuaki Fujita and Mitsuru Obe, Nikkei Asia, April 11, 2023
The Federal Government is finally waking up to the implications of an observation we make often; Supply chains are the basis on which enduring and strategic competitive advantage is won or lost. This is true for countries, societies, companies, and extends down to individual citizens.

U.S. is ‘absolutely’ behind on supply chain independence from China, Biden advisor says - Natasha Turak, CNBC, February, 7, 2023
United States–China semiconductor standoff: A supply chain under stress - Jeremy Mark and Dexter Tiff Roverts, Atlantic Council, February 23, 2023
What friendshoring means for global supply chains - James Gordon, Raconteur, March 30, 2023
DHL Digs Into Trade Data to Track US-China Decoupling - Bryce Baschuk, Bloomberg, March 15, 2023
US Worries China Will Use Supply Chains As Weapon - Barron’s, March 8, 2023
Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community - February 6, 2023

“China is central to global supply chains in a range of technology sectors, including semiconductors, critical minerals, batteries, solar panels, and pharmaceuticals. In a speech in April 2020, Xi noted his intentions to increase global supply chain dependencies on China, with an aim of controlling key supply chains and being able to use those supply chain dependencies to threaten and cut off foreign countries during a crisis. China’s dominance in these markets could pose a significant risk to U.S. and Western manufacturing and consumer sectors if the Government of China was able to adeptly leverage its dominance for political or economic gain.”
See: Brian’s OpEd published by Morning Consult on February 26, 2021 Biden Administration Needs an Agency to Lead Technological Innovation in Global Supply Chains

Naval Intelligence admiral: ‘Naïve’ American public has a ‘China blindness’ problem (Video) - Justin Katz, Breaking Defense, February 15, 2023
The Art Behind Supply Chains Is Front and Center at a Museum Exhibit - Liz Young, WSj Logistics Report, January 25, 2023

As we have said before; We are in the early-stages of the largest sector-driven investment opportunity of our lifetime - the technology-driven refashioning, transformation, and reinvention of global supply chains. With respect to Climate Change, our only hope is to invest aggressively in the technologies that will enable us to refashion man-made supply chains such that we cause less harm to the environment.

At most venture capital firms, early-stage supply chain technology is a tiny, emerging “area of interest” . . . At REFASHIOND Ventures, it’s our entire world.

Join us. We’re just getting started.

#TNYSCM002: January 2018 at SAP Hudson Yards, NY, New York

Additional Resources

About REFASHIOND Ventures

REFASHIOND Ventures is an NYC-based, early-stage supply chain technology venture firm that is being built to invest in startups refashioning global supply chains. The founders’ goal is to build the world’s early-stage supply chain technology investor of record. Background Information about REFASHIOND Ventures’ rolling fund is available here: https://www.refashiond.com/seed. Potential accredited individual investors who wish to visit REFASHIOND Seed’s page on AngelList can do so here: https://angel.co/v/back/refashiond-seed, and the firm’s manifesto is available here: REFASHIOND Ventures - Our Manifesto. Investors who want to learn about the firm’s traditional institutional fund should reach out to the founders to request more information. Further information about the existing portfolio is available here: https://www.refashiond.com/portfolio.

About The Worldwide Supply Chain Federation

The Worldwide Supply Chain Federation is the collaborative, and mutually supportive coalition of open and multidisciplinary grassroots communities focused on supply chain, innovation, and technology. Founded in August, 2017, The New York Supply Chain Meetup is its founding chapter. The networked-community boasts more than 2900 members in its New York Chapter, and more than 4700+ members around the world in 12 chapters. The Worldwide Supply Chain Federation’s Manifesto is available here: The Worldwide Supply Chain Federation - Our Manifesto.

“The world is a supply chain.” is a trademark owned by The New York Supply Chain Meetup (The Worldwide Supply Chain Federation).

About REFASHIOND OS (rOS)

REFASHIOND OS (rOS) is the digital agent for profitable Made in the USA fibers to finished goods textiles and apparel manufacturing, offering a one-stop-shop for brands looking to reshore with visibility, agility, sustainability, and profitability.