Today, fashion retail’s leading Connected Product Cloud, EON, has redefined the competitive landscape in retail when it revealed that SML, one of the world’s largest retail technology companies, has participated in the company’s recent $2.1 million investment round.
For EON, a software company that enables brands to connect to their products through Digital IDs, the strategic investment and partnership of SML, who pioneered retail’s existing product identification systems, is a powerful signal to the industry. Many of retail’s largest brands are already digitizing their products on the EON Cloud, which provides the technology essential to connect directly to customers through each product, and scale new applications, business models and services. Now backed by SML, EON is well-positioned to usher in a new era of retail – connecting brands and customers in ways never-before-possible and powering industry’s at-scale transformation to sustainable and circular commerce.
EON Network for Connected Products
“We’re most excited about what this partnership means for our customers, and for the impact it has on accelerating fashion’s sustainable business model transformation.” shares Natasha Franck, EON Founder and CEO. “Together, EON and SML extend the digital foundation of retail beyond the point of initial sale — radically redefining the relationships between brands and customers, and unlocking the intelligence, systems and transparency essential for sustainable and circular commerce.”
EON’s vision is to power the Network for Connected Products. Its platform functions as the ‘operating system’ for physical products, connecting brands to their products, customers, and partners across the value chain. The integration of technology into physical products is radically changing the way people buy, sell, own, use and engage with physical items. Defined as the third wave of digital transformation in retail, the rise of connected products, is poised to unlock trillions in additional revenue via new business models, customer services, big data and sustainable and circular systems.
Many leading global brands and retailers already leverage SML as their solution partner to manage their item-level product identification, tracking and labeling of products in retail and the supply chain. Annually powering over 25 billion item-level RFID transactions on their retail software solution across thousands of sites globally and delivering billions of digital carriers, SML’s footprint will accelerate the digitization of products on the EON Cloud and turn end-to-end connectivity in retail into the new normal. Each product will be brought online with a digital passport, and connected through customer use, resale, reuse & recycling.
“Together, SML and EON are now positioned to provide brands and retailers with the industry’s first truly end-to-end solution for product lifecycle connectivity and next-generation retailing,” said Dean Frew, Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President of RFID solutions at SML Group. “Our focus is to provide retailers with world-class technology, solutions and service to help brands thrive in the new digitally connected world.”