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Mila Banerjee

Pronti AI is revolutionizing the way we shop and get ready. Pronti is a smart wardrobe assistant app that gives users recommendations on what to wear and what to buy based on the clothes they have in their closets, their choices, and their moods. The app’s AI and Machine Learning technology understands the user’s unique style to give accurate outfit and shopping suggestions.

Pronti’s mission is to unlock the potential of millions of apparel brands by revolutionizing the way we understand billions of individuals and personalize for them. We believe personalization can impact fashion sustainability and enable self-expression.

Tell us about yourself?

Mila has been an entrepreneur for over a decade, creating and selling businesses in five countries – including an online retail company in Europe. She has a love for technology and business that started with programming in the late 1990s. Her passion for understanding visual data and experience with the online retailer’s struggle to be found online led her to found Pronti AI, a wardrobe assistant that is changing the way we dress and shop.

In Mila’s career, she has worked in corporate positions spanning: Consulting, Pharmaceutical Sales, Training, Corporate Merger projects, Management, Market Research, and Automation & Analytics. Mila has seven-plus years of board experience from four different Board of Director roles. Mila also has a passion for coaching and has been a startup Business Advisor – Deeptech/AI with the University of Waterloo’s Velocity Incubator.

She holds a Bachelor of Science with an English minor from the University of Alberta, and an MBA from Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto.

Why did we found Pronti? Andrea and Mila had both founded online retail businesses and noticed the pain of gaining share of voice online and being found in an ocean of choice.

If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?

Trust that all the iterations and experimenting will lead to the user growth, it just takes a little time

What problem does your business solve?

The Pronti AI App
The Pronti AI App

Getting personalization right for Retailers is a $1 trillion dollar (McKinsey) opportunity but retailers do not have the data needed for this. We built the Pronti mobile app as a way to bridge the gap needed to hyper personalize while maintaining privacy and choice.

What is the inspiration behind your business?

Both Andrea and Mila had built retail businesses and experienced the struggles that most small and medium retailers face in gaining online share of voice and being found in the ocean of e-commerce. Additionally from the consumer side, Mila’s coaching exposed her to the time and energy individuals spend in getting ready. This was also the inspiration for the name – Pronti means ready in Italian.

What is your magic sauce?

Pronti uses a lot of machine learning to personalize and lift the burden from users and retailers. With over 3 million clothing items uploaded we have been able to train and develop our algorithms to move past a lot of existing bias. We approach machine learning in an agile and user focused way which means it is constantly improving and we are taking a very human approach to what we build.

What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?

We envision a world in which you are ready quick and easy, feel confident, and can self express. For us, this means empowering consumers with what to wear and what to buy.

What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?

Resources – as a start up you are always fighting for resources to build the company. We have been very thankful for the government grants and programs like SRED which allowed us to invest in the Machine Learning we needed.

How can people get involved?

Retailers that would like to get recommended can visit www.pronti4retail.com to connect with us. If you are a clothing wearer, you can find us on the App or Play store or on social media and all these links can be found at www.pronti.app