Lemonade Fashion raises six-figure seed funding

BEIRUT: Lebanese startup Lemonade Fashion has successfully raised a six-digit investment in the form of seed funding from US-based Draper University Ventures.

“Last year, we attended the Draper University Signature “Hero Training” in Silicon Valley. It led to investment from Draper University Ventures. Our trip was sponsored by Speed accelerator and LebNet,” cofounder and CEO Arthur Bizdikian told Annahar. “The people at [Draper University Ventures] liked our idea, and they recently sent us an investment offer.”

Lemonade fashion is an online marketplace for custom-made and made-to-order designers apparel. The platform allows clients to shop a wide variety of designer outfits, customize them, and have them made-to-order to fit them perfectly, all from the comfort of their home. This is the company’s vision of the future of fashion, aiming for made-to-order apparel in a zero-waste world.

“We now have over a 100 designers from more than eight countries, and our seed investment will help us grow and expand both our customer base and the number of designers,” Bizdikian said.

He added that, since last May, business has been booming despite the presence of COVID-19, largely because people have turned to online shopping as a respite from COVID-infected retail shops. While COVID-19 has impacted the global fashion scene and plummeted sales, Lemonade Fashion sees this as an opportunity.

“Consumer behavior has drastically changed since COVID-19, and the online shopping market is about to witness a huge boom,” he concludes.

The platform’s success would not have been possible without the passionate team and communities spread over different parts of the globe - essentially in San Francisco, Yerevan & Beirut. Early-on investors have believed in the business from start, as a necessary shift and solution to the problems of the fashion industry, and will continue to support strongly in this post-COVID-19 scenario.

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