Based in Canada

Powered by People

A For-profit with social mission

How This Works

As part of the TRANSFORM Support Hub, you will learn how to advance your career while getting hands on experience with organizations like this one.

Organization Details

(PBP) is a B2B wholesale platform that seamlessly connects independent brands in over 70 countries with 10,000s of retailers in North America - addressing a $1T market opportunity. 

PBP offers independent brands access to markets and financing to scale their businesses. While making it easier for retailers to buy from independent brands from around the world, introducing a whole new class of brands, and exclusive products all via our trusted transaction platform. In this way PBP is accelerating the rise of independent brands and retailers around the globe. With team members in the US, Canada, Kenya, Turkey, India, Colombia and Mexico, PBP connects all the dots, providing financing for the brands and makers, facilitating orders and identifying the emerging trends that retailers want on their shelves. When small and emerging businesses thrive, they provide not just for themselves, but also our global communities.

Impact Story

Hundreds of millions of people are left out of the global economy, driven by building corporate rather than social equity. This is no longer a problem that can be ignored or put off to a later date. Buyers increasingly want their purchases to have a positive impact; makers are eager to find new markets beyond their borders. 

To this end, we have elevated and connected brands from all over the world to buyers such as West Elm, Pottery Barn, Indigo, Banana Republic, The Gap and many others by removing any friction and risk from sourcing off the beaten path - and we are just getting started.
To date we have facilitated $15 millions in orders to makers and producers around the world and financed $11 million worth of orders. We have 750 makers and producer brands on our marketplace transacting with international buyers - impacting over 400,000 individuals. This is a sector whose time has come, see our full sector report here: https://reports.poweredbypeople.io

 

The objective of Powered by People is to build an ecosystem around the handmade and small batch production sector capable of delivering digital tools and services to strengthen the community; and make it more accessible to mainstream retail and financial players.

We work with makers in 59 countries as well as with trade associations and chambers of commerce in many of these communities. We partner with relevant sector players such as Nest, Trade + Impact, The Challenges Group, By Hand Consulting, Aid to Artisans, Trade Facility Office Canada, AOW Handmade, ITC Shetrades, Challenges WorldWide and MADE51 and have recently embarked on two large projects with Unilever (TRANSFORM) and the Mastercard Foundation to expand digitalization and access to financing for makers globally.

Diverse Social Enterprise

The TRANSFORM Support Hub is committed to accelerating diverse owned and led enterprises to build more equitable and resilient supply chains.

Women
Owned & Led