| Lalaland | |
| Industry: | Fashion-Tech |
| Founder: | Michael Musandu, Ugnius Rimsa |
| Hq Location: | Amsterdam, Netherlands |
| Num Employees: | 10-50 |
Lalaland is an Amsterdam-Based Dutch tech startup that creates artificial intelligence based virtual models for e-commerce,[1] founded in 2019 by Michael Musandu and Ugnius Rimsa. In 2022 it would win the Tommy Hilfiger Fashion Frontier Challenge.[2] Then in 2022 its founders would join the European Forbes 30 under 30 list as well as Levi Strauss & Co. announcing a partnership with the company.[3] [4]
The startup was co-founded in 2019 by Michael Musandu and Ugnius Rimsa.[5] Lalaland states that the concept of creating AI based synthetic, full-body virtual supermodels is aimed to replace the traditional human models to reduce cost to vendors and to increase diversity in product representation.[6]
In April 2020, Lalaland received a pre-seed funding from Amsterdam-based venture capital fund ASIF Ventures.[6] In May 2020, Lalaland won the 15th Philips Innovation Award.[7] In June 2021, the startup received €350.000 funding from Google under its program to fund the ventures initiated by the people of color.[8]
In January 2022, Lalaland won the Tommy Hilfiger Fashion Frontier Challenge,[2] which includes a prize of €100,000 and mentorship opportunities.[9]
In June 2022 Lalaland raised €2.1M in a new pre-Series-A round of funding.[10]
In March 2022 Michael and Ugnius made it to the European Forbes 30 under 30 list in the retail and e-commerce list, which identifies entrepreneurs under the age of 30 who, the Forbes page notes, are “reinventing how we shop, both online and offline.”[3] The same month, Levi Strauss & Co. announced a partnership with the aim for later this year, to test AI-generated models to supplement human models, increasing the number and diversity of their models for their products in a sustainable way.[4]