Why Dutch startup Lalaland raises €2.1 million for inclusive fashion experience

<strong>Why Dutch startup Lalaland raises €2.1 million for inclusive fashion experience</strong>
Lifestyle

Lalaland, a fashion tech startup focused on inclusive and sustainable fashion, has raised €2.1 million in the pre-Series-A funding round. 

The fashion e-commerce industry is an ever-growing sector. It’s currently worth more than $400 billion. 

Several photo shoots and runway shows are held annually to display new collections. These photoshoots cost fashion designers and retailers about 7.5 percent of their annual revenue.

Michael Musandu and Ugnius Rimsa created Lalaland as an affordable alternative to conventional photoshoots, which are tedious and expensive.

The Dutch startup developed a model-creation tool that will eliminate the need for photoshoots and create a more inclusive and sustainable fashion.

The funding round was led by startup accelerator Orange Wings and venture capital firm, Unknown Group with participation from angel investors, including Google’s Amhard Ford and Thorsten KochChristina Caljé from Autheos, and Bart de WildeNike’s former general manager.

The Lalaland team plans to use this new funding to acquire a diverse group of skilled employees and further their commercial expansion. The company has already onboarded some of Europe’s largest fashion retailers, including Wehkamp, Zalando, and Otto.

The Amsterdam-based company was founded in 2019, and it allows fashion designers and retailers to use incredibly realistic models to create a personalized shopping experience for their customers.

These avatars can be generated in every body shape, size, and skin tone, promoting the Dutch startup’s goal of inclusivity. 

Thanks to these body-inclusive models, customers and fashion brands have a more diverse and sustainable way to visualize fashion.

The fashion industry is known for favoring one particular body type, and over the years, it has received a lot of criticism for this. Often, some customers are left feeling excluded and unrepresented.

Lalaland is changing the norms by allowing fashion businesses and retailers to create diverse models.

With this platform, the fashion industry can wave goodbye to the days of perfect mannequins that represent merely a fraction of the world’s population.

Michael Musandu, Lalaland founder and CEO, said: “Our product is centered around solving the issues of consumers who feel underrepresented in terms of ethnicity, gender identity, and body representation. So, we want to work with people who can relate to these issues to facilitate positive change in co-creation.”

In addition to providing a more personalized experience, the Lalaland platform will cost fashion brands only 15% of traditional photoshoots. 

The company claims its virtual platform would increase sales, lead to more conversion, and lower return rates.

The founder and CEO of Orange Wings, Shawn Harris, said that this company would help designers and retailers “create positive change in the fashion industry.” 

She added that it would also lead to reduced returns and waste.

Bart de Wilde, the former general manager at Nike and an angel investor for the platform, stated that he couldn’t “stress enough how valuable” the platform would be for the fashion industry.

Image by Tumisu from Pixabay