Fashion Metric’s team in Austin, courtesy photo
The startup created software, which it calls a virtual tailor, to help online shoppers find clothes that fit by calculating their detailed body measurements. It does this by simply asking a few questions online and then processing that information through its proprietary algorithm and database to come up with the correct size and fit.
“What we’ve been focused on building is a really strong data science team in Austin,” said Morgan Linton, co-founder of Fashion Metric.
Fashion Metric moved from Los Angeles to Austin last year to participate in Techstars Austin. But the startup decided to make Austin its home after the program ended. Daina Linton is Fashion Metric’s CEO and co-founder with her husband Morgan Linton.
In January, the company raised $1 million in financing, bringing to $1.4 million its total funds raised to date. And Fashion Metric has moved into 1,500 square feet of office space downtown at the IBC Bank Building and it has hired seven employees and has two job openings.
And recently, Fashion Metric hired two senior heavy hitters in the Austin data science community: Andy Terrel as chief technology officer and Travis Brady, director of data science, to build out its products, Linton said.
Terrel, who previously worked as chief science officer at Continuum Analytics, says he joined Fashion Metric for the opportunity and the team.
“The idea that the fashion industry hasn’t embraced the data revolution is a bit shocking,” Terrel said in a statement. “As we move to an online economy with almost instant delivery, the world is moving on from the brick and mortar stores. Yet, there is a major gap in serving the average shopper’s clothing need. The fashion industry as a whole is losing money because of it. Fashion Metric has the opportunity to completely change the way we buy clothes and create markets not tapped due to the clunkiness of the status quo.”
Brady, who previously worked at People Pattern, Mass Relevance and Zynga, said machine learning is at the core of Fashion Metric’s business and it’s driven by a real need in the massive apparel market.
“Fashion Metric is introducing recent advances in machine learning to problems that have existed in a huge industry for decades,” Brady said in a statement. “This technology genuinely has an opportunity to make a revolutionary change to one of the world’s largest industries.”
Fashion Metric has 20 paying e-commerce customers since launching its virtual tailor product in June. Its customers include Custom Shirts Monthly and Menguin, an online tuxedo rental shop. Menguin has seen its exchanges drop from 50 percent to 10 percent after using Fashion Metric’s technology, Linton said.
Fashion Metric has also expanded internationally with customers in the Netherlands and Singapore.
“The technology that we have can be used anywhere in the world,” Linton said.
Since its launch, Fashion Metric has been focused on men’s fashion. But it is going to be rolling out the virtual tailor product for women later this year, Linton said.
Fashion is at the core of what Fashion Metric does, but it doesn’t have a dress code at its offices, Linton said. Most people wear jeans and t-shirts, he said. But Linton likes to wear button down shirts from the companies Fashion Metric work with, he said.
