Egyptian Entrepreneur Dana Khater Takes her Designer Platform Coterique to Dubai

Dana Khater, the young entrepreneur at the helm of e-commerce platform Coterique, is taking a huge leap this month, as she is taking the fashion startup to the Middle East's tech hub, Dubai. An e-commerce startup with an edge for hidden gems hailing from emerging designers, the startup was founded when Khater was only 19 years old and later  incubated by Flat6Labs Cairo.

“It was right after the 2011 revolt, so the stores were not selling; they had a lot of stuff sitting on the shelves. If you are a store with international designer clothes in Cairo, you cannot reach the world, but we could,” she said in an interview with Startup Scene. Having started with a seed fund of 70,000 LE, Khater went bootstrapping for the past years, and set out for more than selling by scouting boutiques, trade shows, and fashion weeks, in searched of emerging designers, reaching markets such as Los Angeles, Montreal, and Jeddah in no time. In 2015, she was listed as one of Egypt's 25 under 25 entrepreneurs.

Today, with 50 percent of her clients in the GCC market and 20 percent across the UK and Europe, the entrepreneur sets off to expand to the Middle East's booming market, with a launching its first ever pop-up, as part of the bi-annual Fashion Forward event. Among the brands in the pop-up there will be Dubai-resident resort wear brand Free Being, as well as Dubai and Cairo-based beachwear brand The Blonde Label, Turkish Swimwear brand Nessi Byrd, French sunglasses brand Le Specs, and Egyptian designer brands Dina Shaker, Ramla and Les Miniatures, and The King’s Mother. "We've got several global pop-ups planned over the next few months and we're very excited to be working on our first as part of Fashion Forward Dubai," says Khater, as she reveals her plans to set up global events in the coming months. 

The pop-up will run from October 25th to 28th.

Photo: Entrepreneur Dana Khater, by @MO4Network.

Photographer: Lobna Derbala.