Modanisa turns Muslim fashion into a business model

That was ten years ago. In the meantime, Türe has found a niche market with its e-commerce start-up and is continuously expanding it. Modanisa has been in the black since 2017, and the website is now accessed 260 million times a year. “Modanisa could soon be worth more than a billion US dollars,” writes the Turkish business newspaper “Dünya”.

Since it was founded, Modanisa has regularly opened up new markets and thus increased sales. In 2020, the company had around 700 employees and had sales of 228.7 million US dollars. Only three fashion companies in Turkey achieved higher sales: the Turkish Amazon competitors Trendyol and Hepsiburada and the discout fashion chain LC Waikiki. Modanisa is ranked 630th worldwide in terms of sales in the fashion sector.

This shows that a young company can also grow quickly outside of the mainstream. Scalable business models can also be found in niche markets – and even in products that are a topic of discussion even in a Muslim country like Turkey.

Fashion as part of political debates

Muslim fashion has been part of political debates for years. In some countries headscarves are mandatory for women, in other countries they are banned. His company does not see Türe as the manifest oppression of women – but as the opposite of it. “We don’t want to dictate what women should wear,” he explains, adding: “The Taliban want to force women to wear headscarves, and the French President wants to force women to do the opposite,” says Türe. “I think both are wrong.”

And this is how he sees his company, even if it sounds strange, as a contribution to the liberation of women. “We’re not just selling an Islamic-compliant bikini, we’re selling women the opportunity to enjoy the sea just as other women do.”

Muslim fashion: 400 million potential customers

A statement that sounds provocative. Theologians and politicians argue about whether Islam even requires women believers to cover their hair and bodies. It is estimated that around 400 million women around the world adhere to it. You don’t just need a headscarf, but also other items of clothing, also for special occasions such as celebrations or sports.

This has resulted in a significantly larger market than you might think. Global sales are estimated by various analysts to be a good 200 billion dollars a year, the strategy consultancy Dinar Standard even comes to 270 billion dollars. For comparison: Apple sold products and services worth $ 274 billion last year, while Amazon had sales of $ 386 billion.

Kerim Türe wants to earn money from it in the long term. In 2011 he raised $ 500,000 with the help of friends, and modanisa.com went online shortly afterwards. The name is a reference to the Arabic word al-Nisa, which means “woman” in German.

Doors doesn’t look like someone in Europe imagines a Muslim entrepreneur. He appears for the interview in a black polo shirt, his three-day beard radiates more calm and less piety. His assistant does not wear a headscarf.

He first presented his idea to the big fashion labels. Everyone canceled, he says in an interview. Nobody would buy headscarves on the Internet, they said. “Then I thought that I could do it myself.”

Turkey is an Eldorado for young tech companies. The population is young and tech-savvy. There are almost no complaints about the advancing digitization in the country, from purchasing to official matters. In addition, the location between Europe, Asia and Africa is an ideal location for logistics centers like that of Modanisa.

In addition, many investors invested their money in promising start-ups, especially during the pandemic. Serkan Ünsal, who runs the Turkish blog “Startup.watch”, sees the time for further financing rounds in the country. He has identified ten Turkish startups that could soon be valued at $ 1 billion or higher.

Altan Küçükçınar, Vice President of the “Venture Capital Council” of the Tobb Chamber of Commerce, believes in a trend reversal in the Turkish tech sector: “We hope that the willingness to invest from abroad will also increase due to the investment rounds that have been highly valued in recent months.”

European Development Bank was one of the first investors

On the Modanisa website, women can find everything that is marketed under the term “Modest fashion” – in other words, “chaste fashion”. And these are much more than just headscarves, but also burkinis, dresses and handbags.

One of the first investors was the EU. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development joined Türe in March 2019 because it had agreed to work primarily with small textile manufacturers and tailors. It is now supplied by more than 1000 small and medium-sized companies. Goldman Sachs is also one of the big donors.

How much capital Door has received so far is not officially known. Modanisa generates 80 percent of its sales outside Turkey. A third of the income comes from Europe, ten percent from Germany alone.

In February, Türe announced that it wanted to make all employees shareholders of the company. In the meantime, the employees actually own shares worth 8 million Turkish Lira, currently around 810,000 euros. Türe expects the value to increase tenfold within five years.

In the meantime, Doors has opened so-called fitting shops in Turkey for customers who do not want to order blindly online. A trend that other e-commerce giants have already followed. But the company already delivers to more than 140 countries and the expansion continues. “We are constantly talking to potential investors about new financing rounds,” explains Türe. He is aiming for an IPO in 2025. “There is a lot of interest,” he claims.

More: A Turkish start-up passes the ten billion dollar mark.