Amira Rasool founded The Folklore in 2018 to help fashion brands from emerging markets such as Africa, Asia and the Caribbean reach international markets. In 2022, after transitioning away from sourcing and direct-to-consumer sales, the company introduced The Folklore Connect, a B2B marketplace and wholesale management software for brands to sell to partner global retailers like Nordstrom.
What began as a mission to develop a global market for fashion brands has grown into a platform serving a variety of consumer businesses, including those in the beauty, health and wellness sectors. In the process, we've enabled global retailers to source inventory from a diverse range of creators.
Rasool told TechCrunch that the startup is introducing new services to provide additional support, such as capital and talent, that brands need to scale. The plan has raised $3.4 million in a seed funding round led by former General Catalyst partners Kenneth Chenault Jr. and John Monagle's VC firm Benchstrength, with existing investors Slauson & Co., Techstars, This follows the participation of Black Tech Nation Ventures. This capital brings the startup's total funding raised to $6.2 million and will allow it to serve more brands.
“The key to The Folklore's consistent growth in users and revenue is to keep building things that are meaningful to our target customers. We're not trying to expand too much. We're just going to build what we think. We're really going to talk to brands and see what the majority needs, and that's what we're focused on.” Told.
Our newest offerings include The Folklore Capital, a partner offering that allows brands to access up to $1 million in working capital financing. Rasul said the experiment showed brands receiving loans of between $10,000 and $30,000.
“Access to capital is perhaps one of the biggest barriers to expansion for small and medium-sized businesses. These groups face many economic hurdles, especially for diverse brands, and need even more access to capital. “It's becoming difficult. A large portion of our community is diverse, so we wanted to make sure there were more resources available for them to access capital,” she said.
“This service is especially useful for those who receive large wholesale orders from our retail stores. Many retailers' payment terms are Net 30 or Net 60 (retailers have 30 or 60 days to settle). That's why, as we drive wholesale growth, we prioritized order financing so brands can manage production, wholesale, social, and more. It was also important to provide access to working capital so that we had the funds to hire the people we could,” she said.
Another service the company offers is a labor market for brands that are not in a position to hire a full-time team, but still need talent from time to time. Its brand community nominates talents and manufacturers, who go through several stages of review before being listed on the marketplace.
Brands gain access to the labor market, capital, and other resources by signing up (for a fee) to the startup's core B2B marketplace and SaaS products.