| Atoms | |
| Type: | Private |
| Industry: | Footwear |
| Founded: | 2019 |
| Location: | Brooklyn Navy Yard, New York |
Atoms is a privately held footwear brand, based in Brooklyn, New York, that designs, develops and sells footwear.[1] Atoms offers quarter size shoes and allows customers to buy pairs of shoes in two different sizes.[2]
Atoms was founded by husband and wife Waqas Ali and Sidra Qasim in San Francisco.[3] In 2012, they started their first footwear company as students at Forman Christian College University, Lahore[4] named 'Markhor' (originally Hometown) in Pakistan, while working with craftsmen in their hometown of Basirpur in Okara, Pakistan.[5] In 2015, the couple moved to Mountain View as part of Y Combinator's accelerator program.[6] They were inspired by the challenges that most people still wear shoes that do not fit properly.[7] The founders wanted to design a shoe that people would use every day. Atoms started selling via invite-only access on its website and built a waitlist of over 40,000 people before publicly launching on June 3, 2019.[8]