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Demand for South Asian fashion is increasing globally as more South Asians migrate and settle in new markets, then purchase ethnic wear for occasions such as local festivals and weddings.
However, not many online platforms today sell a wide catalog of clothes and shoes from local sellers in South India to global markets. Those that do often have limited design options, and usually focus on a specific age group or gender.
Arif Iqbal is trying to solve this problem with an online marketplace in Lahore called Laam, which just secured $5.5 million in a new seed funding round led by Disrupt.com and Zayn VC.
Iqbal spent more than a decade in the US at several technology companies including Meta, Pinterest, Microsoft and eBay. While living in Seattle and the San Francisco Bay Area, Iqbal kept in touch with Pakistani-Indian communities. He found that although there were places to eat South Asian cuisine and some places to play cricket, a sport that Indians and Pakistanis love to play and talk about, ethnic fashion was not available in all the places he lived. At home, he noted that although technology was largely advanced for its time, fashion was not largely driven by technology, and sellers relied on traditional methods to ascertain demand and meet supplies.
After the first wave of the Covid pandemic hit the world, Iqbal returned to Pakistan. The move became a blessing in disguise, giving him the motivation to make it easier for South Asians abroad to buy fashion. He founded Lam in January 2021, enlisting former Microsoft colleague Ahmed Muneeb to develop the product for consumers and sellers, and his younger brother Amir Iqbal, who previously worked with clothing sellers and local brands, to create a supply chain. Fashion enthusiast Sahar Arif has joined as the fourth co-founder.
“When we started, not many sellers were doing business online in Pakistan. But today, a large portion of their sales comes from their online presence. We have seen sellers grow from two or three teams to 200,” Iqbal said in an exclusive interview with TechCrunch. 300 people on this trip.”
Laam currently offers a curated catalog of over 100,000 items, including casual, ethnic and formal wear, shoes and accessories for men, women and children, from nearly 1,200 sellers, all in Pakistan. The startup’s sales extend to more than 100 countries, with the US, Canada, the UK and the Middle East being its top five markets in terms of revenue. Pakistan still has the largest number of buyers – more than 300,000, from a total of half a million startups – but is nowhere near Lam’s largest global market in terms of revenue.
The startup uses a combination of data and machine learning to provide personalization to consumers. It has deployed machine learning algorithms to extract information such as product description, available quantity, fabric and size. The startup also provides a chatbot and search functionality using structured data to make discovery easier.
For sellers, Laam provides logistics, supply chain and warehousing infrastructure along with its technology that helps them understand what type of inventory they need, the estimated inventory required and the product that will be delivered “fast.”
Iqbal told TechCrunch that sellers can use his app to connect with the online marketplace without any human interaction. The startup provides services that include taking physical and AI-powered photos of ready-to-sell goods, barcodes to prepare products for shipping, and a button on the app to request a vehicle to transport items from its warehouse or factory to LAM’s warehouse. .
The startup also offers customization for high-end formal wear. In this case, it provides instructions to customers to upload their requirements and sends the data directly to the vendor. The startup also has an additional verification process to ensure that the product fits the specifications given by the customer before dispatch.
Along with its consumer marketplace, Laam offers an infrastructure as a platform called Octane to sellers to help local businesses establish their online presence and expand globally. Currently, the platform serves more than 50 companies that also sell products via Laam’s online marketplace.
Laam faces some competition in Pakistan, where SanaullaStore, Bagallery and Clicky are among the emerging local online marketplaces and platforms in the country. Retail brands like ETHNC and Sapphire sell their products through their websites. Likewise, some D2C players have started using Spotify in the country to have an online presence, while Temu entered Pakistan in September, and Alibaba-owned Daraz is also in the race.
However, Iqbal emphasized that LAM has a unique proposition of selling various goods from premium brands in Pakistan and across the world.
Laam’s $5.5 million seed round also included participation from Graph Ventures, Mentors Fund, and technology executives at Oracle, Microsoft, Google, and Salesforce, among others. The funding aims to expand LAM’s reach and attract vendors outside Pakistan and other South Asian regions. The startup also plans to establish its presence in its important markets outside Pakistan. Iqbal said that Lam is setting up its office in the UAE to begin its expansion and is looking to establish a presence in the United States after that.
Lam’s funding comes amid an ongoing slowdown in Pakistan’s overall startup ecosystem. Funding for Pakistani startups fell by 65% year-on-year to $12.3 million in 2024 YTD compared to $35 million in 2023, according to Tracxn data shared with TechCrunch. The number of financing rounds in the country also decreased to 7 rounds from 16.
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