Bahrain-founded custom cake platform Lola has raised $3 million in a seed round led by Vision Ventures, with participation from Aljazira Capital, Seedra Ventures, Plus VC and other investors. The round follows a $1.3 million pre-seed in February 2025 from Vision Ventures, Plus VC and angel investors, bringing total funding to $4.3 million.
Founded in September 2023 by Othman Janahi, Lola enables users to design and order fully customised cakes through a mobile app in under a minute, choosing from thousands of designs, colours and combinations.
The platform launched in Bahrain, expanded to Riyadh in July 2024 and the UAE in December 2024, and has since added Qatar and Kuwait, growing its market share five times since launch according to the company.
Janahi, who previously worked at Bahraini fintech Eazy Financial Services and founded restaurant tech platform Lamenu, came to Lola through Calo's entrepreneur-in-residence programme. Plus VC managing partner Hasan Haider, who backed Lola at pre-Seed, told FWDstart in a podcast interview last year that Calo co-founder Ahmed Al Rawi brought the startup to his attention and that the early traction made it a straightforward investment decision.
The seed funding will enable a shift in how Lola operates. Until now the company has worked as a software layer connecting customers with local bakeries, which made it easy to expand quickly but left quality and consistency in the hands of third-party partners. The new capital will fund a central production facility in Dammam alongside a network of cloud bakeries in key cities, bringing production in-house for the first time.
Lola's longer-term ambition extends beyond cakes. The company says it is building toward a broader celebrations platform encompassing gifting, decoration and event services, positioning the cake customisation product as the entry point into a wider consumer spending occasion.
