Digital accounting app Metric, catering to small and medium businesses (SMBs) and startups, has raised $900,000 in pre-seed funding led by i2i Ventures in an oversubscribed round.
The funding in a round led by i2i Ventures with participation from Ratio Ventures, Deosai Ventures, Kinnow Capital, Outliers Venture Capital and Augmentor Capital, among other local and international VCs. The round also saw participation from angel investors including Aspire and Lifepal’s founder Giacomo Ficari, Arif Habib Limited Chairperson Alam Zafar, deep tech VC Faridul Haque and founder of Eligible.ai Rameez Zafar.
“I’ve been lucky to have worked closely and alongside both Meenah and Omar [during] the past seven years in the Pakistan startup space. They both not only care deeply about the problem, they’ve also been close to it, and have designed a solution with the user at the centre.”
~ Kalsoom Lakhani, co-founder i2i Ventures
The startup was founded in August 2021, by husband and wife duo Meena Tariq and Omar Parvez Khan alongside the third co-founder Dr Habiba, a PhD in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, with an aim to bring financial services to small businesses that can’t afford to hire accountants to manage their finances.
“Not only does it track core metrics such as CAC (customer acquisition cost), AOV (average order value), CLV (customer lifetime value), growth and retention — it proactively helps business owners make strategic decisions that enable them to take their business to the next level. This is the modern way of doing accounting. Traditional accounting is a cost centre. Modern accounting is a profit centre.”
~ Omar Parvez Khan, co-founder Metric
Metric offers financial assistance. It requires you to enter your inflows, outflows and number of orders per day. As a result of these inputs, the app provides you with financial documents and professional accounts required to strategize your business, apply for loans or for taxation purposes.
Co-founders of metric were partners in venture capital funds before making a switch to the operator side. They have been involved in the rapid growth of Pakistan’s startup ecosystem over the last decade, having worked with and trained over a thousand small businesses over the years.
“Metric lets you take control of your company’s finances and get access to real-time dashboards, professional reports and insights from day one — in a very conversational, friendly way.”
~ Dr Habiba, co-founder Metric
The oversubscribed financing round and the trust of investors further validates the existence of the consumer market and the prospects of the startup.
“This is an acute pain point for small business owners today and the Metric team is perfectly positioned to solve this with their deep accounting and finance background and a tech-forward approach. We are thrilled to partner with them on this journey.”
~ Faaez ul Haq, partner at Kinnow Capital
“We’re thrilled to partner with Meenah and Omar and support Metric’s growth across the MENAP region as they build a platform that enables companies’ day-to-day operations while also equipping business owners with tools for proactive decision-making.”
~ Rayan Dawud, investment partner at Outliers Venture Capital
“Metric is one of those rare platforms that lets you start using it with minimal effort and then organically provides you extremely powerful tools to grow your business and mature as a manager.”
~ Shehryar Hydri, partner at Deosai Ventures
The startup plans to use this round to grow across Pakistan and quickly expand to other markets in the MENA region