Antonio Nuño, Fatima Alvarez, and Enrique Rodriguez have been buddies since they have been 5 years outdated. As youngsters, they turned volunteers serving to indigenous communities — first in Mexico, then in different international locations — and noticed that most of the ladies have been artisans.
The trio got here to understand that these artists “made very beautiful things in a very sustainable way,” Nuño recollects, and by the point they have been 25, the thought for a enterprise had germinated. They imagined connecting these artists, “their techniques and their stories with the supply chains of global companies looking for more sustainable ways to create products.”
So in 2016, Somebody Someplace was born. In the present day the Mexico Metropolis-based startup works with tons of of rural artisans in seven of Mexico’s poorest states to use conventional handcrafts on clothes and niknaks, with the mission of making “quality, on-trend products.”
The startup helps artisan teams arrange as cooperatives or small companies, formalize, entry a checking account, and construct communitary financial savings accounts. The artisans are paid for every product they make. Somebody Someplace provides the supplies, and pays 50% upfront and 50% as soon as they end every product.
A viral put up
In its first few years, Somebody Someplace landed contracts with some bigger firms equivalent to Ben & Frank (the Warby Parker of Latin America) and Rappi. However in 2023, the trio realized they might use AI — notably Secure Diffusion’s textual content to pictures mannequin — to assist the corporate scale even additional.
They fed their databases of all the varied supplies and methods the artisans used into Secure Diffusion’s mannequin and started designing AI-assisted ideas, produced as photos, of well-known merchandise. The thought was to “show companies how some of their most iconic items could look if they were made with artisans from different regions.”
They posted the ideas on websites like LinkedIn and Instagram, tagging the businesses. For instance, they created photos for Crimson Bull and Dealer Joe’s.
Nevertheless it was after they posted their idea of an adidas-branded Mexican Nationwide Workforce soccer jersey on LinkedIn in March that modified their enterprise without end. That put up went viral, in the end receiving greater than 1 million views, with individuals tagging adidas staff for visibility.
Within the put up, Nuño estimated that every shirt would “generate six months of fair work for more than 3,000 artisans” and “allow more than 15,000 people, including families, to break the cycle of poverty.”
He wrote: “We can imagine what would happen if Mexico’s next jersey was made in collaboration with Someone Somewhere, and incorporated elements hand-embroidered by various communities in the country. It would be the first time that a national team launches such an initiative, and it would undoubtedly inspire dozens of other countries to replicate it since crafts are the second largest source of employment in all of Latin America, Africa and Asia.”
Simply someday after the put up went up, Nuño says that adidas reached out and requested for a gathering. Inside weeks, his firm had an settlement to launch a bodily product made out there to adiClub members, in addition to to Mexican soccer gamers and content material creators.
All informed, the advertising put up reached greater than 50 million individuals, and was coated on nationwide TV and over 100 media retailers, in response to Nuño. On June 21, the businesses introduced the brand new assortment of Mexican Nationwide Workforce jerseys, hand-embroidered by ladies artisans from the Sierra Norte of Puebla, Mexico.
Every shirt represented greater than 11 hours of hand-embroidery work, symbolically representing the 11 gamers who proudly represented Mexico within the Copa América.
“Through these jerseys, both adidas and Someone Somewhere seek to honor the work of Mexican artisans and continue embracing the cultural heritage of the country, both its roots and the seeds it leaves for future creative generations,” mentioned Pablo Cavallaro, senior director, Model Activation at adidas, in a press release. “This collection is inspired by the communities where the artisans create each of their pieces, the space they call ‘home’.”
The shirts out there to the general public embrace Somebody Someplace’s signature element: a QR code in order that the consumer/purchaser can be taught extra in regards to the artisan who helped create it.
“Now we are working on more things with adidas that we will launch next year,” Nuño mentioned.
AI helps create jobs
Nuño credit advances in AI for his startup’s current progress.
“We found that creating products with AI shows companies the potential so it’s easier to move forward,” Nuño informed TechCrunch. “It has allowed us to develop partnerships with a lot of companies, based in the U.S. mostly,”
The technique is working so nicely that Somebody Someplace went from designing 10 merchandise a month to five,000.
“This has helped us accelerate, and it’s an amazing way of showing that AI can take away jobs but also create them, if used creatively,” he added. “Just in the last 12 months alone, we’ve made more than 10 million products with this model.”
In the meantime, Somebody Someplace’s income has grown 36x within the final three years. This 12 months, the 75-person crew is working with triple the variety of manufacturers than it did final 12 months, largely because of the usage of AI to co-create merchandise.
The Secure Diffusion mannequin that Somebody Someplace is utilizing got here out final 12 months and permits customers to fine-tune the idea photos it creates.
“You can control the silhouettes of products,” Nuño mentioned, including that this permits his startup to experiment with materials and embroideries when creating an idea product.
“Before our main bottleneck was showing companies the potential of what we could do together. We had to make physical products, which takes a lot of time. This technology opens doors — they say an image is more than a thousand words. Now we’re able to connect with these big brands and that makes the conversation go way faster,” he mentioned.
That’s led Somebody Someplace to offers like a co-branded sustainable equipment line with Gator Circumstances, and with firms equivalent to Google, Uber, Stripe and Amazon (amongst others) to make merchandise for his or her staff, occasions and advertising campaigns.
QR codes land a cope with an Apple provider
AI just isn’t the one factor answerable for Somebody Someplace’s progress.
The corporate additionally by chance landed a deal, by way of its use of these QR codes, that positioned a few of its merchandise in Apple shops worldwide and on-line. The merchandise are made by way of a partnership with an organization referred to as Nimble, which makes sustainable digital equipment. Somebody Someplace sells its merchandise to Nimble, which in flip sells it to Apple.
Nimble CEO and co-founder Ross Howe is a Delta One enterprise class buyer, and on a flight final 12 months the airline gave him an amenity package made by Somebody Someplace.
“The items were neatly packed in this fabric bag, which immediately caught my attention,” he recounts. “It was very high-quality, and had a QR code to meet the artisan who made it. By the time the plane landed, I learned everything I could about the company behind it, and wanted to explore an opportunity to work with them.”
Nimble already had some ideas for brand new merchandise that included a carrying case however “just needed the right partner to help create it,” Howe mentioned. “Aside from their apparent design capabilities, Someone Somewhere’s mission and status as a fellow Certified B Corp checked so many boxes for what we look for in a partner.”
So the corporate reached out to be taught extra.
In the present day, its new Apple-exclusive assortment encompasses a sequence of PowerKnit Journey Kits with USB-C charging cables. Every features a journey case made in collaboration with Somebody Someplace. The pouches are being bought in Apple shops in 30 international locations, together with the U.S. and most of Europe.
“After years of researching potential companies to collaborate on this type of project, we hadn’t come across anything quite like what Someone Somewhere is doing,” Howe mentioned. “We are exploring additional projects for potential future release.”
All of this progress has come after elevating a complete of simply $1.7 million in funding from traders equivalent to Dila Capital, GBM Ventures, Kalei Ventures, Louis Jordan, Troopers Subject Angels, and Unreasonable Capital, up to now.
Somebody Someplace has been worthwhile since 2022, and is within the means of elevating a brand new spherical “to take advantage of the nearshoring and sustainable procurement trends that are clearly growing,” Nuño mentioned.
