Kearney

Caraa targets niche sports with USA Fencing collection

Caraa, a direct-to-consumer bag brand co-founded by Aaron Luo, released a Caraa x USA Fencing collection earlier this summer featuring three pieces (backpack, insulated tote, sling) priced $100–$315 and debuted at the Summer Nationals (June 27–July 6). Luo — a competitive fencer and adviser to the CEO of USA Fencing since 2023 — sees white space for premium fashion brands to partner with niche National Governing Bodies (NGBs). The collection exceeded Caraa’s initial one-week sell-through expectation (40% vs. expected 30%). Profits from the collection go to the USA Fencing Foundation. Industry commentators cited by Modern Retail say niche-sport collaborations can reach smaller but highly engaged and affluent audiences. Caraa plans further product innovation and category expansion, including a Caraa Kids launch in July and a gym collection in the fall of 2026.

AI Delivers Targeted Gains in Supply Chains

Modern Retail summarizes findings from Kearney’s 2026 State of Logistics report (sponsored by Penske Logistics) showing that AI is producing concrete, narrow wins across supply-chain operations even as full automation remains aspirational. Examples include C.H. Robinson using proprietary AI to read shipper emails and auto-book roughly 3,000 appointments per day across 26,000 locations, and ArcBest reporting about $15 million in route-optimization savings. The report and a May Gartner survey recommend incremental, use-case-led adoption: Gartner found 17% of supply-chain organizations are pursuing transformational redesigns while roughly 83% apply AI incrementally. Kearney warns against over-investment and stresses the need for clean data and workflow redesign to scale benefits. The newsletter also includes related retail updates on tariffs, Prime Day seller sentiment, and regional retail expansion.

Levelpath's Growth Fuels Giardina's Engineering Leadership Role

Levelpath, an AI-native procurement platform, appointed Charles Giardina as Vice President of Engineering as the company builds on a breakout year of growth, product expansion and enterprise adoption. Levelpath reported 4x year-over-year growth, raised more than $55M in Series B funding, added 100+ employees, opened a New York office and released hundreds of product features. Recent launches include AI Front Door (conversational intake), Pipeline (project visibility layer), agentic AI capabilities (AI Agents) and Invoice Automation. Giardina joins from Airbyte, where he was VP of Engineering, and previously held engineering roles at LiveRamp. Levelpath will host its LevelUp AI procurement conference in San Francisco to showcase customer success and product roadmap updates.