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.
Bulleted Version:
- USourced is a fully customizable, AI-driven version of Custom Ink combined with Alibaba's product sourcing strategy to offer personalized, affordable, and efficiently sourced products. 📦
The Basics
- Headquarters: Remote 👩🏻💻
- Employee Count: 4
- Investors:
- 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.
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 Profile
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.
Why USourced
With an AI-driven platform that takes unique product ideas and instantly matches them to an extensive network of manufacturers, USourced is positioned as the go-to source for e-commerce customization. 🤝