Lakai Limited Footwear was founded by modern street legends Rick Howard and Mike Carroll in 1999. After collectively riding for DC Skate shoes for many years and being part of the DC Superteam, they went solo and created their own skate shoe brand, designed for and by skateboarders. Having already created Girl and Chocolate Skateboards the platform for a shoe brand was already there.

Lakai is famous for producing some next level skate videos. Beware of the Flare in 2002 and Fully Flared, released in 2007 are the stuff of legend. Featuring heavy skateboarders like Marc Johnson, Anthony Pappalardo, Eric Koston, Lucas Puig to name a few. They set a new benchmark for both the quality of production and for raising the bar of skateboarding.

The Lakai team now stands with Rick Howard, Mike Carroll, Tony Hawk, Vincent Alvarez, Stevie Perez, Riley Hawk, Danny Brady, Jesus Fernandez, Yonnie Cruz, Simon Bannerot, Tyler Pacheco, James Capps, Nico Hiraga, Griffin Gass, and Jimmy Wilkins.