USourced 📦

Setting the Scene

• What if you could prompt AI to generate a product and automatically find a manufacturer to produce the item? 🤯

• Prompts could include:

  • “Design 30 glow-in-the-dark teddy bears for my kid’s space-themed birthday party.“

  • “Produce 50 coffee mugs that change color with heat, revealing our company's logo.”

  • “Make me a pair of custom slippers that look like giant avocados.” 🥑

• Individuals and businesses seek high-quality custom products, yet, they struggle to effectively find and communicate with reliable manufacturers.

• This week’s company is an AI platform that makes it easier, faster, and more reliable for anyone to create unique products.

In a Sentence

USourced is an AI-powered platform that generates and designs custom products and connects customers with manufacturers..

• AI-powered: Usourced’s AI chatbot interprets user prompts, creates custom designs, and generates 3D mockups.

• Manufacturers: USourced directly sources from a global network of trusted suppliers, ensuring quality, reliable, and affordable products.

The Basics

• Industry: AI, E-Commerce, Supply Chain, Marketplace

• Headquarters: Remote 👩🏻‍💻

• Year founded: 2022

• Employee count: 4

• Investors: Neo, Rebecca Zamolo

• Currently raising: $2.5m ($2m committed)

• Business model: Commission on orders

• Early traction: Pre-product pilot with $500k in GMV in 6 months, over 55 paying clients, $3k average order size, and 100+ orders.

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH

• This disruptive venture studio has opportunities for you. The team at Summit Venture Studio has an innovative approach to scaling companies and delivering investor returns – by partnering with universities to commercialize revolutionary technologies.

  • Think of the innovation happening in the classroom, the lab, or even in the stadium.

• For venture investors: Explore Summit’s portfolio of rapidly growing companies transforming education, healthcare, and elite athlete performance.

• For builders: Summit is recruiting entrepreneurial leaders to operate and scale their portfolio companies while leveraging their connections, capital, and expertise.

• For LPs: Summit offers a unique opportunity to diversify investments with proprietary, first-of-its-kind deal flow and access to untapped, innovative seed funding opportunities.

Due Diligence

WHAT WE LIKE

• 📈 Market trends: The custom products market is massive yet highly fragmented, and existing players struggle to efficiently and transparently connect users with trusted manufacturers.

  • USourced offers a comprehensive solution for fully customized products while eliminating the need to navigate complex sourcing and manufacturing processes.

• ↔️ Competitive differentiation: USourced AI technology gives the company a competitive edge throughout the design and product sourcing process by cutting down on manual steps, increasing product customizability, and enabling competitive pricing.

• 💥 End customer: USourced serves an expansive end market, including individuals, creators, small businesses, and large brands wanting customized products.

POTENTIAL RISKS

• ✋🏼 Quality control: USourced’s fully-automated design and sourcing process may lead to manufacturing mistakes or quality issues throughout the complex supply chain.

  • The company must have a dedicated customer support team to ensure effective coordination between international suppliers and buyers.

• 🌿 Environmental concerns: As consumers and businesses seek to purchase more sustainably, USourced must consider climate-friendly alternatives for buyers wanting to avoid the typically large carbon footprint of the product supply chain.

• 🏁 Competitive market: With legacy custom products players and new creator-focused entrants, USourced must effectively market its solution to take share from competitors.

Founder Profiles

• Julia Xu, CEO: Previously founded Multitasky and served as the former Chief of Staff at Alibaba.

• Mandy Chow, COO: Previously worked at Airwallex and Goldman Sachs.

• Frank Luan, CTO: Previously worked for Meta’s AI team and founded the social app SketchOff, which received $25m in funding.

• Frances Feng, CMO: Former project leader at Cricut.

Comps

• Pietra: Backed by A16z, Founders Fund, M13, and others.

• Gembah: Backed by Silverton Partners, ATX Venture Partners, and more.

• Gemnote: Backed by Y Combinator and others.

• Printify: Backed by Index Ventures, H&M Group Ventures, Virgin Group, and others.

📌 Bulletin Board

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH

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• 📈 This week in venture: Steve Job’s son Reed launched a new $200m VC fund to back new cancer treatments

• 💡 The innovation situation: Are hundreds of self-driving Taxis coming to San Francisco?

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🗳 Cast Your Vote

Last Week Today

• The results are in: Benjamin, a platform that enables credit card holders to optimize their rewards and merchants to engage shoppers, had a split vote.

• Subscriber feedback: "Despite a crowded market with slim margins, achieving massive scale could lead to substantial success.'“

✍️ Written by Brett 

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