A new kind of search engine is making waves in the tech space — not for finding restaurants or breaking news, but for helping fans dive into the depths of their favorite universes. Lore, a startup founded by Zehra Naqvi, has raised $1.1 million in seed funding to build what it calls “a rabbit hole engine” designed for obsessive fandoms.
Unlike traditional search platforms, Lore isn’t built around quick results or trending headlines. Instead, it helps users trace narratives, easter eggs, and theories across pop culture worlds like Marvel, One Direction, or anime fandoms.
The platform curates a personalized “obsession graph,” allowing users to zoom into niche theories or zoom out to explore cross-fandom connections. Monthly reports also track shifting fan interests, turning the act of searching into something closer to storytelling.
Lore emerged from Naqvi’s own frustrations with how fandom content is scattered across wikis, forums, and endless social feeds. For her, there was no coherent archive where fans could explore with joy rather than just consume.
During internal testing, Lore recorded over 24,000 searches and nearly 200 hours of user exploration, suggesting that there’s demand for a tool designed around curiosity rather than efficiency.
Challenging the Search Status Quo
By positioning itself as a space for play and meaning, Lore is challenging how we think of search engines. While giants like Google and AI-powered tools focus on fast answers, Lore emphasizes depth, context, and narrative. It isn’t about algorithmic dopamine hits but about preserving culture and helping fans create connections across stories and communities.
For fandom archivists and creators, this could provide new visibility. For larger search players, it raises a provocative question: are people beginning to crave exploration over immediacy?
Why it Matters
The rise of Lore also raises global questions. In Africa, for example, where Nollywood films, Afrobeats, and indigenous literature have thriving fandoms, a platform like this could preserve and expand cultural narratives often overlooked by mainstream tech.
If Lore chooses to localize and include non-Western fandoms, it could become more than a niche project — potentially serving as a cultural archive for underrepresented voices. But without such efforts, it risks being another tool catering only to Western fanbases.
The $1.1M seed round, led by Village Global and Precursor Ventures, is only the first step. Lore will need to prove that fandom-based search can scale, protect creator rights, and maintain depth without collapsing under commercial pressures.
As search evolves, Lore’s gamble suggests that curiosity and culture may finally have a place alongside convenience. Whether it grows into a global tool or remains a fandom niche will depend on how far it is willing to go beyond its Western roots.
Talking Points
Google and its clones have trained us to believe search should be transactional: ask, get an answer, move on. Lore flips that logic, proving people don’t just want answers — they want depth, stories, connections. This matters because if curiosity itself becomes a market, Africa should not be left waiting for Western startups to decide which stories get preserved.
Lore’s first step is Western fandoms: Marvel, K-pop, boybands. But what about Nollywood sagas, Afrobeats discographies, or Yoruba folktales? These fandoms exist and thrive online. Yet, global startups routinely ignore them until they’re “profitable.” If we don’t build our own narrative-preservation tools, Africa’s digital culture will forever be footnotes in someone else’s algorithm.
Lore’s obsession graph isn’t just entertainment — it’s data. Imagine the power of knowing what millions of fans obsess over, how narratives evolve, and which stories define communities. In Africa, where digital platforms already harvest our attention without giving back, we should ask: who owns this data when fandom turns into a business model?
