How John Imah fixed fashion’s costliest problems, ‘returns and conversion’ with SPREEAI, a $1.5b retail AI platform

Historically, the most expensive moment in fashion has always not been the runway show in Paris, nor the celebrity endorsement and the glossy Vogue spread. It is the moment a customer opens a cardboard box in their living room, tries on a $400 jacket, frowns at the mirror, and puts it right back in the box. ​Returns are the silent killer of retail margins, a logistical nightmare that burns billions of dollars annually in shipping, restocking, and liquidation.

​While the rest of Silicon Valley was busy hyperventilating over generative AI that could paint surrealist landscapes or write mediocre poetry, John Imah was looking at this pile of rejected clothes. He didn’t see a tragedy, but an inefficiency. And for a man who identifies as a “system builder,” an inefficiency is just a polite word for an opportunity, so he built SPREEAI to fix the returns and conversion problems. 

The $1.5 billion-valued AI-powered fashion company allows users to virtually try on clothes in an experience so lifelike. Designed for use both in-store and online, SpreeAI blends cutting-edge technology with real-world retail to transform how consumers shop and how brands sell. 

The Nigerian-American raised in Dallas, still very much in his 30s with a personal net worth of about $400 million. Imah carries the quiet confidence of someone who has already won. His résumé reads less like a founder’s journey and more like a systematic conquest of the tech ecosystem.

By 16, he had already built and exited two startups. His experience spans Samsung, Twitch, Meta, and Snap, where he wasn’t just a product leader, but a student of scale. He watched how platforms bloated with unnecessary features and vowed to build the opposite.

This background explains the rigid discipline behind SPREEAI. When the company launched in 2023, the AI hype cycle was reaching a fever pitch. Investors were throwing cash at anything with a chat interface. Imah could have built a digital stylist that gossiped with you about trends. He could have built a social network for virtual closets. ​Instead, he built a sizing tool.

​What sets SPREEAI apart

​The genius of SPREEAI lies in what Imah chose not to do. ​Early pilots of the software revealed a stark truth: retail partners didn’t care about the bells and whistles. They didn’t want a virtual metaverse experience, they wanted to know if the pants would fit.

​So, Imah took a machete to the product roadmap. He cut the distractions. “No sexy extras,” became the mantra. The company pivoted entirely to virtual try-on technology focused on photorealistic rendering and hyper-accurate sizing. ​The user experience is deceptively simple: upload a photo, input a few metrics, and get a simulation. But underneath, the engine is delivering precision sizing predictions approaching 99 percent.

​For founders of fashion brands, that number is intoxicating. It means reducing return rates by double digits. It means inventory isn’t stuck in FedEx trucks; it’s staying in customers’ closets. Retailers aren’t adopting SPREEAI because it looks cool. They are adopting it for margin expansion. ​This focus on unit economics over user growth metrics pushed the SPREEAI valuation into unicorn territory in under two years.

​The company is headquartered in Incline Village, Nevada. It’s a strategic choice, tax-advantaged, quiet, and removed from the echo chamber of the Bay Area. Yet, the company remains culturally tethered to Silicon Beach, blending the relaxed aesthetics of LA tech with the ruthless efficiency of enterprise software.

​This duality is reflected in the boardroom. It is a rare assembly of cultural capital and business gravity. You have industry heavyweights like Bob Davidson of The Davidson Group providing the financial backing. 

​Today, Imah remains single, a status that seems less about circumstance and more about allocation of resources. He is visibly focused and by all accounts, “married to the work,” as the cliché goes, except in his case, the marriage is yielding a ten-figure return.

​The next phase for SPREEAI involves deeper enterprise integrations and wardrobe intelligence, AI that understands not just what fits your body, but what fits your life. 

​In an era defined by vaporware and promises of a digital utopia that never arrives, John Imah is betting on reality. He is betting that people will always buy clothes, they will always hate returning them, and the person who fixes that friction will become very, very rich. ​So far, the math is on his side.

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