Lore: A New Frontier for Fandom Exploration
Zehra Naqvi, a former consumer investor and lifelong fan culture enthusiast, is launching Lore, a search platform dedicated to enabling obsessive fans to dive deeply into their internet passions. Backed by $1.1 million in pre-seed funding, Lore is set to exit stealth mode on October 6, 2025, promising a transformative approach to researching and discovering fandom content online.
From Fanatic to Founder: Naqvi’s Journey
Naqvi’s formative years were shaped by the early 2010s internet culture of Tumblr and Twitter. Immersed in analyzing Marvel movie timelines and One Direction’s career moves, she amassed a following of 250,000 across platforms. These early internet rabbit holes sparked her desire not only to consume culture but actively contribute to it. After studying art history at Columbia and working as a consumer investor at Headline Ventures, Naqvi returned to her roots to build Lore—a platform that would preserve and enhance the joy of fan-driven exploration that she felt the internet had lost.
Lore’s Unique Approach to Fandom Search
Lore is designed to track and deepen users’ fandom engagement by constructing a personalized graph of their obsessions. It aggregates links to fan theories, cultural interpretations, and easter eggs, presenting them in an interactive feed that evolves with user interests. Users receive monthly reports detailing their current fandom interests, enabling them to zoom into specific theories or zoom out to see connections across various fandoms. According to Naqvi, Lore transforms fandom research from passive consumption into an active, playful experience.
Addressing Fragmented Fandoms in a Changing Social Landscape
Despite the proliferation of social media channels, fandom communities remain fragmented, often lacking spaces that facilitate deep, meaningful research rather than quick interactions or dopamine-driven content consumption. Naqvi highlights that Lore aims to fill this void by creating a quieter, more human platform centered on passion and memory.
“Lore is our attempt to rebuild the Library of Alexandria for the fandom age,” Naqvi states, underscoring the platform’s ambition to curate and preserve fan knowledge in a comprehensive, accessible manner.
Funding and Early Traction
Led by Village Global with participation from Precursor Ventures, Lore’s $1.1 million pre-seed round supports user acquisition and ongoing product development. Naqvi has already expanded her team with hires in marketing and engineering. A recent user experiment demonstrated strong engagement: over 1,000 logins generated nearly 24,000 searches and approximately 200 hours of deep fandom exploration, validating the demand for Lore’s offerings.
“Lore is building the product fandoms have been waiting for,” said Charles Hudson, managing partner at Precursor Ventures.
Positioning Amidst Competitors
While comparisons exist to platforms like Perplexity, Reddit, and Wikipedia, Naqvi emphasizes Lore’s distinct focus on fandom. Unlike these generalist platforms, Lore is built as a “lurker-first” space—interactive, colorful, and designed for playful knowledge exploration rather than social noise. This approach aims to restore joy to fandom research, making obsession a celebrated and sacred pursuit rather than an embarrassing fixation.
Technology and Roadmap
Naqvi remains tight-lipped about Lore’s proprietary technology, describing it as the company’s “special sauce.” The official hard launch is slated for next year, with plans to leverage consumer AI in inventive, joy-first ways beyond traditional shopping assistants or social media apps.
FinOracleAI — Market View
Lore enters the market at a time when fan culture is both widespread and fragmented. Its unique positioning as a dedicated platform for deep fandom research leverages AI to create personalized, engaging user experiences that contrast with the superficiality of current social media.
- Opportunities: Strong user engagement potential, niche market focus, AI-driven personalization, early traction validating product-market fit.
- Risks: Competition from entrenched platforms like Reddit and Wikipedia, challenges in scaling user base beyond core fandoms, reliance on proprietary technology secrecy.
Impact: Lore has the potential to redefine fandom engagement by offering a specialized, interactive search experience that restores joy and depth to internet rabbit holes. Its success could inspire new AI applications centered on passion and memory rather than transactional or social metrics.
