LUMS Alum Leads Beauty and Fashion E-commerce Platform, Bagallery to Raise USD 4.5 Million
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Bagallery, a digital-first beauty and fashion start-up, lead by Farhan Arif Syed, a graduate of the LUMS BSc Accounting and Finance Class of 2015, has raised USD 4.5 million. Syed joined Bagallery as a COO and partner in 2020 and since then, the company has grown immensely.
After graduating from LUMS, Syed joined L’Oreal Pakistan as a management trainee. After just a year, he was tasked with setting up their e-commerce department and was responsible for executing their e-commerce strategy. This experience enabled him to gain the skills and expertise to take Bagallery to new heights.
Explaining the impact of the start-up on the market, Syed said, “Bagallery is on a mission to reinvent how people shop for beauty and fashion products online. With its wide range of products spanning across the categories of skincare, makeup, fragrance, handbags, watches and clothing, Bagallery serves more than 2,700,000 visitors each month and has over 500,000 satisfied customers across the country.”
Syed also shared that Bagallery is Pakistan’s biggest female co-founded start-up, now valued 4x their Seed Round funding. With 40% of Bagallery’s employees being women, the start-up firmly believes in empowering women and giving charge to them, particularly in an industry where approximately 80% of customers are female. Since raising its Seed Round in 2020, Bagallery has shown tremendous growth, with a 3x increase in revenue and more than 20,000 products and over 2000 brands added to their online store.
Speaking about this achievement, Syed said, “I think this is just the start and it is more about the journey than the end. I am looking forward to the next few years to come.” He shared that he is a firm believer in giving back to society. “I believe in solving critical problems marring the people of Pakistan and I’m of the opinion that it is the moral responsibility of all people to give back to the country. Unfortunately, there has been a severe brain drain with a huge chunk of very smart individuals opting to get experience in places other than Pakistan. At Bagallery, we are trying to develop empowered local talent ensuring that we develop women leaders in the organisation.”
The start-up also launched exciting innovations in the last year including virtual try-on with L’Oreal ModiFace, live streaming and social commerce. With the start-up now fulfilling the beauty and fashion needs of customers across Pakistan, Bagallery is well-poised to establish itself as a market leader in the beauty and fashion industry.
With the Series A funding, Bagallery aims to launch exciting new projects in 2022 including a first-of-its-kind influencer platform that will allow customers and influencers in the beauty and fashion industry to connect through their website. Its vision is to democratise online beauty and fashion with exemplary customer service and variety.
