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Artisanal shoes start-up Markhor first made headlines when they exceeded their Kickstarter funding target by $92,000, with pledges coming from 508 people in 32 different countries. Since then, the Pakistani social enterprise has been incubated at Lahore-based Plan9, received advice from Zappos, and incorporated their business in the US. Today, Markhor announced its acceptance into Y Combinator, becoming the first Pakistani start-up to be granted admission into the prestigious startup accelerator.
“We weren’t confident about our application to YC as the program rarely accepts fashion start-ups,” Markhor co-founder Waqas Ali tells Tech in Asia. “However, now that we’re in, our aim is to become a ten billion dollar company.”
Under YC’s tutelage, Markhor plans on strengthening its position as a luxury lifestyle brand who’s disrupting the footwear sector. Ali believes the success of his company lies in its approach of completely eliminating middlemen, passing on cost-savings to consumers, and eventually helping craftsmen get better wages. “Big brands make all their products in developing countries, but sell at artificially inflated prices because of inefficiencies in the supply chain. Markhor has a very different model,” he adds.
