VF Corporation’s new incubator launches innovation competition

VF Venture Foundry invites Entrepreneurs to develop new commercial applications tailored to consumer needs and market opportunities in the apparel industry

The EIR Innovation Challenge is looking for smart, creative, and resilient entrepreneurs to help build the future of active and sustainable living by solving the challenges related to:

• Overcoming Obstacles to the Outdoors
  

• Preserving Unstructured Play in Nature
  

• Enable Sustainable Movement
  

• Personalizing the Process
  

U.S. based founders and entrepreneurially minded leaders from diverse backgrounds who have the creativity and curiosity to ignite change and disrupt industries are encouraged to apply.

“We’re excited to invite entrepreneurs into the collaborative environment we’ve built around Venture Foundry,” said Kent Bassett, VP and Head of Venture Foundry. “Venture Platforms along with Venture Foundry was created to help build new, disruptive businesses in high-growth spaces with the ability to rapidly experiment and validate new market opportunities. We want to continue to incubate and invest in new, leading-edge, consumer-led ideas that will serve both our brand portfolio and new markets that we find worthwhile.”

The newly created Entrepreneur-in-Residence role will have access to the resources needed in building an early stage startup business, but with the backing of VF’s larger infrastructure to develop and commercialize new business models, marketplaces, platforms, and ecosystems. All Innovation Challenge proposals should center around new forms of consumer engagement that deliver against or outside of VF’s current portfolio of brands.

The EIR Innovation Challenge follows the recent announcement of the launch of Venture Platforms, an innovation capability that will focus on identifying, developing, and investing in new, future-focused opportunities for VF and its portfolio of brands.

Built with the backing of the world’s most iconic brands, Venture Foundry is a new incubator under Venture Platforms focusing on new or evolving business models, platforms, experiences, and services. VF Venture Foundry is interested in ideas and approaches that meet broad-scale consumer needs, advance fast-growing technologies, and create new and innovative business models. To learn more about Venture Platforms, check out Venture Foundry here:

https://www.vfc.com/our-company/venture-foundry