Laam received $5.5M to provide South Asian fashion to expats around the world

Demand for South Asian fashion is growing worldwide as more South Asians migrate and settle in new markets, and buy ethnic wear for occasions such as local festivals and weddings.

However, there are not many online platforms today that sell a wide catalog of clothes and shoes from local South Indian retailers to global markets. Those that do tend to have limited design options, and often focus on a specific age group or gender.

Arif Iqbal is trying to solve this problem with a Lahore-based online marketplace called Laam, which recently raised $5.5 million in a new equity seed round led by Disrupt Ventures and Zayn VC.

Iqbal spent over a decade in the US at various technology companies including Meta, Pinterest, Microsoft, and eBay. While living in Seattle and the San Francisco Bay Area, Iqbal remained connected to the Pakistani-Indian communities. She found that while there were South Asian restaurants and places to play cricket, a sport that Indians and Pakistanis love to play and talk about, ethnic fashion was not available everywhere she lived. At home, he noted that while technology was ahead of its time, fashion was not driven by technology, and retailers relied on traditional methods of finding demand and fulfilling the needs.

After the first wave of the Covid pandemic hit the world, Iqbal returned to Pakistan. That move turned out to be a boon, giving him the impetus to make it easier for South Asians overseas to buy fashion. He founded Laam in January 2021, bringing in his former Microsoft colleague Ahmed Muneeb to develop the product for consumers and retailers, and his younger brother Amir Iqbal, who previously worked with local retailers and brands, to create a supply chain. Fashion enthusiast Sahar Arif joined as the fourth founder.

“When we started, there were not many sellers doing online business in Pakistan. But today, a large part of their sales comes from their online presence. We have seen sellers grow from teams of two or three to teams of 200-300 people on this journey,” Iqbal said in an exclusive interview with TechCrunch.

Currently, Laam offers a curated catalog of over 100,000 items, including casual, ethnic, and formal wear, footwear, and accessories for men, women, and children, from close to 1,200 vendors, all based in Pakistan. The startup’s sales span more than 100 countries, with the US, Canada, the UK, and the Middle East as its top five markets by revenue. Pakistan still has the most consumers – more than 300,000, among the first half a million – but nowhere near Laam’s top global markets in terms of profits.

The startup uses a combination of data and machine learning to provide personalization to consumers. It used machine learning algorithms to extract information such as product description, available price, fabric, and size. The startup also offers a chatbot and search function using structured data for easy discovery.

For retailers, Laam provides inventory, supply chain infrastructure, and warehousing alongside its technology that helps them understand what kind of inventory they need, the limited stock required, and which product will go for “Express” delivery.

Iqbal told TechCrunch that sellers can use its app to interact with the online marketplace without human interaction. The startup offers services including virtual and AI photography of ready-to-sell articles, barcodes to make products ready for shipping, and a button in the app to order a car that will transport items from their warehouse or factory to a Laam store. .

The startup also offers customization of high-end formal wear. If so, it provides instructions to customers to upload their requirements and directly send the data to the seller. The startup also has an additional verification process to ensure that the product meets the specifications provided by the customer before shipping it.

Alongside its consumer market, Laam provides infrastructure such as a platform called Octane to sellers to help local businesses establish their online presence and expand globally. Currently, this platform serves more than 50 businesses that also sell products through Laam’s online marketplace.

Laam has some competition in Pakistan, as SanaullaStore, Bagallery, and Clicky are among the growing local online marketplaces and platforms. Retail brands like ETHNC and Sapphire sell their products through their online portals. Similarly, other D2C players have started using Spotify in the country for their online presence, with Temu entering Pakistan in September, and Alibaba-owned Daraz also in the race.

However, Iqbal asserted that Laam has a unique proposition of selling different products from different brands in Pakistan and around the world.

Laam’s $5.5 million seed round also included participation from Graph Ventures, Mentors Fund, and technology executives at Oracle, Microsoft, Google, Salesforce, among others. The funding aims to expand Laam’s footprint and find vendors beyond Pakistan – from other South Asian regions. The startup also plans to set up its presence in its key markets outside of Pakistan. Iqbal said Laam is setting up an office in the UAE to begin its expansion and is looking to establish a US presence after that.

Laam’s funding comes amid the ongoing decline of Pakistan’s startup program. Funding for Pakistani startups fell 65% year-on-year to $12.3 million in 2024 YTD from $35 million in 2023, according to Tracxn data shared with TechCrunch. The number of financing rounds in the country also decreased to 7 from 16.