Demand for South Asian fashion is growing globally as more South Asians are migrating and settling in new markets, then buying ethnic wear for occasions like local festivals and weddings.
However, not many online platforms today sell an extensive catalog of apparel and footwear from local South Indian sellers to global markets. Those that do often have limited design choices, and are usually focused on a particular age group or gender.
Arif Iqbal is trying to solve this problem with a Lahore-based online marketplace called Laam, which just landed $5.5 million in a new all-equity seed round led by Disrupt.com and Zayn VC.
Iqbal spent over a decade in the U.S. at various tech companies including Meta, Pinterest, Microsoft, and eBay. While living in Seattle and the San Francisco Bay Area, Iqbal remained connected with Pakistani-Indian communities. He found that although there were places to eat South Asian cuisines and some grounds to play cricket, a sport that Indians and Pakistanis love to play and talk about, ethnic fashion was not accessible in all the places he lived. At home, he noticed that while the tech moved quite ahead of its time, fashion was not largely tech-driven, and sellers relied on traditional ways to ascertain demand and fulfill supplies.
After the first wave of the Covid pandemic hit the world, Iqbal moved back to Pakistan. That move became a blessing in disguise, giving him the impetus to make it easier for South Asians overseas to buy fashions. He founded Laam in January 2021, enlisting his former Microsoft colleague Ahmed Muneeb to develop the product for consumers and sellers, and his younger brother Amir Iqbal, who previously worked with local apparel sellers and brands, to create a supply chain. Fashion enthusiast Sahar Arif joined as the fourth co-founder.
“When we started, not many sellers did online business in Pakistan. But today, a major part of their sales comes from their online presence. We have seen sellers grow from two or three to 200-300 people teams in this journey,” Iqbal said in an exclusive interview with TechCrunch.
Arif iqbal, co-founder and CEO of LaamImage Credits:Laam
Currently, Laam offers a curated catalog of over 100,000 items, including casual, ethnic, and formal wear, footwear, and accessories for men, women, and kids, from close to 1,200 sellers, all based in Pakistan. The startup’s sales span over 100 countries, with the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and the Middle East as its top five markets by revenue. Pakistan still has the most buyers — more than 300,000, out of the startup’s half a million in total — but is nowhere close to Laam’s top global markets in terms of revenue.
The startup uses a mix of data and machine learning to provide personalization to consumers. It has deployed machine learning algorithms to extract information such as product description, the quantity available, fabric, and size. The startup also provides a chatbot and a search function using structured data to ease discovery.
For sellers, Laam provides logistics, supply chain infrastructure, and warehousing alongside its tech that helps them understand what kind of inventory they need, the estimated stock required, and what product will go for “Express” delivery.
Iqbal told TechCrunch that sellers can use its app to connect with the online marketplace without any human interaction. The startup provides services including physical and AI photo shoots for the articles that are ready to be sold, barcodes to get the products ready to ship, and a button on the app to order a vehicle to transport items from their warehouse or factory to Laam’s warehouse.
Image Credits:Laam
The startup also offers customization for high-end formal wear. In that case, it provides instructions to customers to upload their requirements and directly sends the data to the seller. The startup also has an additional verification process to ensure the product fits the specifications given by the customer before dispatching.
Alongside its marketplace for consumers, Laam offers infrastructure as a platform called Octane to sellers to help local businesses establish their online presence and expand globally. Currently, the platform serves over 50 businesses that also sell products via Laam’s online marketplace.
Laam has some competition in Pakistan, as SanaullaStore, Bagallery, and Clicky are among the country’s emerging local online marketplaces and platforms. Retail brands such as ETHNC and Sapphire sell their products through their online sites. Similarly, 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 also exists in the race.
Nevertheless, Iqbal asserted that Laam has a unique proposition of selling different items from distinct brands in Pakistan and worldwide.
Laam’s $5.5 million seed round also included participation from Graph Ventures, Mentors Fund, and tech executives at Oracle, Microsoft, Google, and Salesforce, among others. The funding aims to expand Laam’s footprint and get sellers beyond Pakistan — from other South Asian regions. The startup also plans to set up its presence in its significant markets outside of Pakistan. Iqbal said Laam is setting up its office in the UAE to begin its expansion and is looking to establish a U.S. presence after that.
Laam’s funding comes amid an ongoing slowdown in the overall Pakistan startup ecosystem. The funding into Pakistani startups dropped by 65% year-on-year to $12.3 million in 2024 YTD from $35 million in 2023, according to the Tracxn data shared with TechCrunch. The number of funding rounds in the country also declined to 7 from 16.