Overview
Laurent Mainil is co-founder and CEO of Markmi, a Ghent company that sells an AI-driven price markdown assistant to fashion retailers. The product recommends how deeply and when to discount end-of-season stock, forecasts how price points will affect sales volume, stock and margin, and lets teams configure markdowns for thousands of products at once under their own business rules. Markmi BV was registered as a Belgian private limited company on 20 February 2025 and works from Rodelijvekensstraat 28 in Ghent, the address it shares with the data and AI agency Crunch Analytics. Markmi was spun off from Crunch Analytics, where the markdown work with fashion retailers began during the COVID period and ran for four years before the spin-off. On 2 April 2025 Markmi announced it had raised 1.1 million euro to expand in Belgium, the Netherlands, the Nordics and the United States. Named users include C&A, G-Star, ZEB, Schoenen Torfs, Zizzi, Scotch & Soda, New Yorker, Gina Tricot, MS Mode and e5. At C&A the software covers around 5,000 items and 170,000 markdown decision points across 17 countries. Mainil studied at Ghent University between 2006 and 2011.
Mainil studied at Ghent University from 2006 to 2011, writing a master thesis titled "Designing and evaluating an optimal business model for a mobile application provider", and taking part in the Flanders Youth Society for Entrepreneurship. He spent four years working with fashion retailers under the Crunch Analytics banner before Markmi launched. Crunch Analytics is a Ghent data and AI agency with a second office in Rotterdam, founded by Louis-Philippe Kerkhove, who is its CTO and who is listed as technology advisor at Markmi. Markmi was spun off from Crunch Analytics as a separate tech company and registered on 20 February 2025. Mainil is co-founder and CEO. The team around him includes Benoit Germonpré as head of product, Nils Roelandt as head of marketing and communications, Kenny Denolf as senior algorithm engineer and Céline Loots as customer success manager. He is based in the Ghent Metropolitan Area.
As founder and CEO of Markmi, Laurent drives product development, sales, and growth strategy for the platform, targeting marketers and marketing teams.
Career history
In the news
- With many fashion players experiencing a tough year, Schoenen Torfs just closed another record year 🇧🇪 In today's papers Lise Conix explains: She describes the stores, and the fashion offer. More choice for customers who are already hooked, some at higher margins, a broad catalog. Selling trust. But the store is the part you see. Warm, calm, familiar. What you don't see is the rhythm behind it: "Our strength over the past 75 years is that we hold on very tightly to who we are: our DNA, our values, our social engagement and
- On 12 October, Markmi.ai co-hosts an evening at the Belgian Ambassador's Residence in London 🇧🇪🇬🇧 Turns out we had help..:) I think we discovered a gem 💎 When you grow internationally, you are often so focused on the big event organisers and the local market specialists who claim to guide you straight in.. that you forget organisations like FIT - Flanders Investment & Trade and the Belgian Embassy. Their mission is to work, day in and day out, on the internationalisation of the Flemish economy and its innovation. And yes, that
- What? A markdown solution from Ghent 🇧🇪 ?" Exactly! :) So grateful to partner with Lauretta Roberts, Antony Hawmann and TheIndustry.fashion for their UK 🇬🇧 fashion retail summit.. The past months were a lot of Ghent. London. Ghent. Manchester. London. Ghent.. Meeting some of the loveliest people in UK fashion retail. In person. One conversation at a time. Explaining, with a lot of conviction ànd enthusiasm, why markdowns deserve better than spreadsheets. More than once, our coffee.. sorry, tea.. went cold before
- A government minister, a CTO calling out her own industry, and two new EU laws that just changed the rules for every fashion retailer in Europe. That was my day yesterday at Transformation Conference Stockholm, organized by Scandinavian MIND at Stockholm Fashion District. Here's what's still on my mind. 𝐀 𝐠𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐝 𝐮𝐩. Benjamin Dousa, Sweden's Minister for International Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade, opened the day. When a minister shows up for a fashion-tech conference, that
- Fashion #summersales are on! 🛍️ We got out, walked the streets of Ghent, an catched a glimpse of the work we've been part of with Markmi.ai.. Today it's out there. On the street, in the windows. After a challenging season, with international uncertainty, unpredictable weather and consumer confidence under pressure, this is where the last ounces of squeezed margin are won. Good luck to every merchandising team out there. Especially the teams at C&A - Markus Krenn | @Schoenen Torfs - Lise Conix, Stijn De Knop, Luc De Baets |
- T‑1. 🛍️🚨 #Summersales in fashion start tomorrow. Somewhere out there, a former spreadsheet champion is cracking his knuckles, ready to prove he's still got it 📈🏆 And make no mistake, he's a worthy champion. His pivot tables are flawless. Always have been. But the weapon that won him the title has quietly lost its edge. The ground keeps shifting under it. Shorter lead times. A narrower full-price window. Margin squeezed before the season even opens. Across the industry, merchandising teams are rethinking #markdownmanagement.
- 𝘚𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘢𝘷𝘷𝘺." My favourite line of our morning, breaking—eh—avocado on toast with UK fashion leaders on Tuesday at The Hide, London. 🇬🇧 🥑 🍞 It was an off-the-record roundtable with fashion leaders sharing the exact same realities. Without piercing the veil, these decision-makers reiterated the challenges we’ve all been hearing all year: 👉 A challenging season in the UK. 👉 More pressure to markdown earlier, every single year. 👉 A customer who knows exactly what she wants, and exactly what she is willing to pay..
- Busy weeks..the good kind! 🙏 Today, Shoptalk Europe in #BCN 🇪🇸. Next week TheIndustry.fashion in #LON 🇬🇧 ànd handpicked for @VivaTech in #PAR 🇫🇷. :) With a tip of the hat to FIT - Flanders Investment & Trade for facilitating startups like Markmi.ai to be present at such a big event like #Vivatech. Booth right next to the Mainstage, can one ask for more? :) 👉 Around for any of the three? Let's talk. @TheIndustry.fashion breakfast 🇬🇧 → https://lnkd.in/eHKSBq9w @VivaTech 🇫🇷 → https://lnkd.in/eRHvz56D With Charles-Arthur
Related profiles
This page shows public professional information only, each fact cited. Is this you? send a correction, or ask for removal within 24 hours, no questions asked.