We Talk Startups

Bootstrapped Pakistani AI Startup Vyro.ai Beats Global Giants in Image Generation Rankings

Shaheryar Ehsan — Wed, 19 Nov 2025 19:17:33 GMT

ImagineArt 1.5 ranks #3 worldwide for general & photorealistic images and #6 overall across all text-to-image models

A Pakistan-born, bootstrapped AI startup has quietly climbed to the very top tier of global image generation and is now outranking some of the most well-funded labs in the world.

Vyro.ai’s latest model, ImagineArt 1.5 has been ranked:

#3 in the world in the General & Photorealistic image generation category
#6 overall across all text-to-image models

This recognition places Vyro.ai shoulder to shoulder with the biggest names in AI, outperforming models from billion-dollar companies that dominate the global landscape. ImagineArt 1.5 has surpassed industry heavyweights such as Midjourney V7 Alpha, Adobe Firefly Image 5 and Runway Gen 4 in the overall category. Even in the highly competitive General & Photorealistic segment, it has ranked higher than Google Nano Banana, ChatGPT-5 Image, and Google Imagen 4.

For a startup built without Silicon Valley funding or a massive team, the results are remarkable. Vyro.ai CTO Abdullah Rafique emphasizes that the achievement was possible with a bootstrapped model, a lean team, and a core product group based in Pakistan. The company has relied on focused engineering and creative iteration rather than large-scale funding rounds.

Vyro’s momentum has already attracted international attention, with Think with Google APAC profiling the startup’s app growth roadmap and highlighting ImagineArt as the flagship product in a portfolio of 15+ content-creation apps with over 150 million global downloads. The company has also been featured by Stripe, which showcases Vyro as a fast-scaling AI SaaS player using its payments stack to power global subscription revenues for ImagineArt.

The company has also revealed that it has crossed $23 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) and is on track toward becoming Pakistan’s next unicorn. The team says this growth comes purely from product traction, driven by creators and professionals around the world who use ImagineArt for high-quality, photorealistic image generation.

As global competition in generative AI intensifies, Vyro.ai’s success signals a new era for Pakistan’s tech industry. It demonstrates that advanced AI innovation can emerge from the region without deep pockets or massive infrastructure. ImagineArt’s ranking is not just a win for Vyro.ai but a milestone for the country’s growing role in the global AI landscape.

Users can experience the model firsthand at ImagineArt.

dotCMS Expands to Pakistan, Bringing a Powerful and Free Content Management Solution for Businesses

Press Release — Fri, 21 Mar 2025 10:42:17 GMT

Karachi, Pakistan – dotCMS, a global leader in content management solutions, is making a bold move into Pakistan, setting the stage for rapid growth across the region. Already trusted by international brands across various industries, dotCMS is now positioning Pakistan as its leading strategic tech hub for Asia.

As part of its commitment to empowering businesses and developers, dotCMS is returning to its open-source roots by offering free access under its Business Source License (BSL) for companies with less than $5 million in total financing. This initiative provides organizations the opportunity to build on a powerful, scalable, and secure platform, enabling them to create seamless digital experiences without the high costs and vendor lock-in of proprietary solutions.

Pakistan’s digital economy is rapidly expanding, with IT exports surpassing $2.18 billion last year and projected to reach $3.5-$3.7 billion by 2025. With 64% of the population under 30, the country has one of the world’s youngest and most tech-savvy workforces, producing over 300,000 IT professionals and 20,000 software graduates annually. Pakistan’s startup ecosystem ranks second in South Asia, with more than 16,000 startups securing over $4 billion in funding, further cementing its role as a rising player in the global technology space.

As businesses across industries modernize, many struggle with outdated content management systems that limit their ability to scale. dotCMS provides a hybrid headless CMS designed to power multi-site platforms, mobile applications, and digital storefronts with unmatched flexibility, security, and full ownership of digital infrastructure.

Speaking on the expansion into Pakistan, Zain Ishaq, CEO of dotCMS, highlighted the country’s growing influence in the global tech landscape:

Pakistan has some of the most talented developers and entrepreneurs I’ve seen, and a booming digital ecosystem. As a Pakistani leading a global tech company, bringing dotCMS home isn’t just a business move—it’s a commitment to empowering our local tech community to build, scale, and redefine digital experiences. With Asia positioned as a key growth market for decades to come, establishing a base in Pakistan allows us to cover the entire region effectively.

With over 90% of dotCMS customers in North America and Western Europe, the company has already expanded its presence to Australia, Japan, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, and Hong Kong, supporting global enterprises with scalable digital solutions. Pakistan’s growing digital ecosystem, skilled workforce, and expanding technology sector make it the ideal base for dotCMS as it looks to extend its footprint across Asia.

dotCMS invites developers, agencies, and enterprises to explore its next-generation content management platform, enabling them to build with greater flexibility, security, and scalability. Organizations looking to enhance their digital presence can get started today by joining the community at www.community.dotcms.com, visiting www.dotcms.com, or reaching out at marketing@dotcms.com.

NUST ConnectEd: A Bold Step Towards Inclusive Online Education

Press Release — Mon, 30 Dec 2024 10:59:07 GMT

The online education landscape is growing rapidly, reshaping how people access and experience learning worldwide. In this dynamic space, NUST has unveiled a platform that not only adapts to these changes but also addresses key gaps often overlooked by traditional online systems. Enter NUST ConnectEd (NCE) — an initiative that brings high-quality, flexible learning opportunities to a broader audience.

Each year, thousands of students compete for a spot in NUST’s coveted academic programs, but with only 2,000 seats available, countless talented individuals miss out. Recognizing this, NUST has created ConnectEd, a platform designed to extend its academic excellence to the 78,000 students who cannot join its physical campuses, and to learners far beyond.

What makes NUST ConnectEd stand out is its dual learning model:

Self-paced courses that allow learners to chart their own journey.
Cohort-based courses that combine live interactions with collaborative learning, fostering a sense of accountability and community often missing in online education.

The course offerings, led by NUST’s faculty and seasoned industry experts, span fields as diverse as technology, business, arts, and humanities. Moreover, partnerships with national and international institutions ensure the content is current, practical, and aligned with real-world demands.

This platform is more than just a repository of online courses; it’s a mission rooted in diversity, equity, and inclusion. Designed to overcome barriers of geography, language, and socio-economic constraints, ConnectEd offers a bilingual interface and flexible formats, making quality education truly accessible.

For learners of all kinds—students seeking academic growth, professionals aiming to upskill, or lifelong learners exploring new horizons—NUST ConnectEd promises a well-rounded, impactful learning experience.

With ConnectEd, NUST reaffirms its commitment to education as a tool for transformation, bridging gaps, and empowering individuals to achieve their goals.

Discover more about this platform at https://connected.nust.edu.pk/.

Karachi Prepares to Welcome the Notion Flagship Meetup This October

Neha Chaudhary — Sun, 13 Oct 2024 18:26:18 GMT

Notion Karachi, in collaboration with LMKT, is officially launching the third edition of the Notion Community Meetup on the 26^th of October. This event aims to bring together startup founders, industry leaders, professionals, product advocates, technical experts, and Notion enthusiasts from various fields to collaborate and share their insights.

Notion Karachi is a city-wise entity powered by NotionHQ focused on enabling individuals to learn and build using Notion, whereas, Notion Pakistan is a community forum for Notion enthusiasts and professionals who come together to share their knowledge and explore the potential of Notion as a productivity tool. With active user groups in Islamabad, Lahore, and now Karachi, the flagship event in Karahi aims to bring together people from all domains, whether they be productivity enthusiasts, technology professionals, entrepreneurs, creatives, or anyone curious about Notion.

The event will feature insightful talks from leading industry professionals and founders while including different sessions on the use cases of Notion, from product design to content creation to enabling businesses, and more. Participants will have the opportunity to gain valuable insights from experienced experts in their fields and learn how they are integrating Notion into their work and lives.

In addition to these insightful sessions, the event will provide an opportunity to network with like-minded people, such as startup founders, seasoned professionals, Notion enthusiasts, and more, to discuss how they can integrate Notion into their daily lives and work. With numerous networking opportunities and an exciting lineup of speakers, the event aims to encourage people to discover Notion to be more productive.

The Notion Community Meetup: Karachi Edition is a must-attend event for anyone looking to deepen their understanding of Notion and expand their network within Pakistan’s growing digital ecosystem. To register for the event, click on this link.

Do you want to stay involved with other Notion users after the event? To further remain connected with all things Notion and the community, join the conversation through the official Notion Pakistan Forum.

Google Developer Groups Islamabad & Women Techmakers Islamabad Presents I/O Extended Islamabad 2024, in Collaboration with Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry

Tehreem Farooqi — Wed, 24 Jul 2024 04:55:08 GMT

GDG Islamabad, in collaboration with Women Techmakers Islamabad and the Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry, successfully hosted I/O Extended Islamabad 2024.

The event served as a platform to celebrate tech enthusiasts and encourage them to embrace their aspirations, ideas, and dreams while exploring the latest advancements in Google technologies. GDG Islamabad meticulously crafted an agenda featuring keynotes, fireside chats, sessions discussing the latest tech advancements, as well as technical and non-technical workshops ensuring an unforgettable experience for all attendees.

Speaking on the occasion GDG Islamabad Co-Managers Ali Naqi & Sarwat Rizvi, discussed the impact of the GDG community over the years, the purpose of diversity amongst the team as well as the audience, which reinstated the message that the gender diversity gap in tech is very vast, and such conferences can act as a driving force in not only bridging this gender gap but also driving the technological advancements within the country and putting Pakistan at the forefront.

The opening keynote featured Muhammad Usman (Convener Software Development Committee @ICCI), who welcomed the audience to the Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry and highlighted the importance of bringing together the tech community.

Following the opening remarks, Janise Tan (Head of Developer Ecosystem – Southeast Asia & South Asia Frontier @Google), provided a captivating overview of the recent Google I/O event, the latest developer products, hands-on learning opportunities, and Google’s commitment to fostering a more diverse and inclusive tech industry through initiatives that empower women in tech. She also discussed the upcoming Gemini API Developer Competition, ending on August 12th. The aim of this competition is to use the evolving GenAI to propose solutions to real-world problems worldwide.

The conversation on AI advancements continued with Mashhood Rastgar (Head of Engineering @Taleemabad | Google Developer Expert) who shared his expertise on making AI models more accessible and interpretable. He explored large language models (LLMs), the importance of learning, mental models, as well as the principles of Responsible AI.

Further exploring the AI landscape, Tehreem Rasul (Senior ML Engineer @Red Buffer) joined a captivating fireside chat discussing the evolving advancements of women in machine learning, her personal journey within the field, and how the women in ML influenced her to further her career. Next, Aqsa Kausar (Tech ML Lead @Red Buffer) shared her extensive experience in AI projects, including recommended systems and Generative AI. Her session provided attendees with valuable insights on VLMs, WebLI, and neural networks. The event also featured a hands-on learning workshop on Building no-code applications with AppSheet and Google Cloud AI by M Hasnain Khalid (CEO HKS TechLabs).

No event is complete without food, and GDG Islamabad was thrilled to host the audience for their famous networking brunch.

Following this, Arooj Anwar (Community Builder @ CreativeMornings | Content Strategist @Frontmatter) led an interactive workshop that focused on highlighting the power of storytelling and acknowledging diverse perspectives. Through her engaging activities, like the way a blasphemous claim “Biryani is overrated!” is understood, her session was an interactive and captivating lesson on the purpose of how we portray ourselves and percieve others.

The last workshop featured Kamran Z. Rizvi (Co-Founder | Senior Consultant | Executive Coach | Lead Trainer @Carnelian and Mentor @School of Leadership) leveraged his expertise in cross-cultural management and leadership to deliver an interactive workshop on public speaking and leadership skills, by following the mantra.

“Tell them who you are, and address them directly!”
Kamran Z. Rizvi (Co-Founder | Senior Consultant | Executive Coach | Lead Trainer @Carnelian)

He engaged the audience by teaching them what it means to be a leader and the key to public speaking, his workshop was a fan favourite amongst attendees.

The closing keynote featured esteemed guest Azhar Ul Islam Zafar (Vice President @ICCI) who expressed how these conferences help equip professionals and students alike, with the necessary skills that can not only put a dent in the technological ecosystem, but also drive the country to its success.

Lastly, Ms. Aisha Humera Moriani (Additional Secretary @Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication) signified the importance of the collaboration of governements with communities to bring students and professionals into the forefront of tech innovation with more opportunities,

“The potential for positive change exists thanks to the ever-present technology in our hands, but wise use is the key”.
Ms. Aisha Humera Moriani (Additional Secretary @Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication)

Google Developer Groups Islamabad extends their sincere gratitude to the Islamabad Chamber of Commerce for their invaluable support. Exciting giveaways were offered throughout the day to further incentivize audience participation.

The event also benefited tremendously from the contributions of media partner We Talk Startups, and community partners WomenInTechPK, Creative Mornings Islamabad, Sybrid, open Islamabad, Metrix Pakistan, and G digital.

In Collaboration with Women Techmakers Islamabad, Google Developer Groups Islamabad, and Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry

Google DSC-Air University, Islamabad kicks off their flagship event Femini | Femelle & AI

Tehreem Farooqi — Sun, 14 Jul 2024 12:08:46 GMT

Islamabad, Pakistan – [7 May 2024] – The Google Developer Student Clubs at Air University Islamabad proudly unveiled their premier flagship event, Femini | Femelle & AI, marking a significant celebration of women’s achievements across diverse fields, alongside Google’s Build with AI workshop. This event honoured women from varied backgrounds, celebrating inclusivity, and was led by the visionary Maimoona Saeed, the community lead and a staunch advocate for inclusion and diversity. Femini is a testament to her vision, bringing together all Google For Developer Communities in the twin cities i.e Google Developers Groups (GDG Islamabad, GDG Cloud Islamabad, GDG Live Pakistan, Women Techmakers Islamabad), Google Developer Experts, and fellow GDSC Chapters to create a monumental event for GDSC-AU, destined to evolve and inspire annually.

The event drew a diverse crowd from the twin cities, including students from multiple universities, amassing over 350 enthusiastic attendees. Focused on celebrating femininity, inclusivity, and the transformative impact of AI across various sectors, the event was a resounding success, fostering innovation and championing diversity.

The day-long conference offered a rich blend of inspirational keynotes, hands-on workshops, and stimulating discussions, all designed to empower and elevate female innovators.

The event commenced with an invigorating session titled “Frantic to Focused,” delivered by Samina Seth, Co-founder of Walee and a renowned motivational speaker. Her dynamic presentation set the stage for the day, emphasizing the importance of focus and resilience in achieving one’s aspirations.

Build With AI Workshop

The “Build With AI” workshop, led by Mr. Mashood Rastgar, a Google Developer Expert and Head Of Engineering at Taleemabad, offered an in-depth exploration into the world of Large Language Models (LLMs) and the Gemini ecosystem. This two-hour workshop was meticulously structured to provide both theoretical knowledge and practical skills. This comprehensive workshop enabled participants to gain a robust understanding of LLMs and their applications, particularly within the Gemini framework, equipping them with the skills to build AI-powered applications.

Following the AI workshop, Arbisoft hosted the “Clean Coding Convention,” emphasising best practices in coding and software development. This session equipped participants with essential skills to enhance their coding standards, promoting efficient and effective software development methodologies.

As some nerds were busy coding, audience in the parallel got to immerse themselves into the incredible talks by amazing industry professionals:

Sidra Cheema, an experienced data consultant and public speaker, led an insightful session on “Empowering Women & Balancing Work Life.” Her discussion provided strategies for achieving work-life balance while pursuing a successful career in technology.

Umar Nazir, Marketing Head at Devsinc and Co-Manager of Google Developers Islamabad, delved into innovative digital marketing strategies in “Doing Digital Differently,” offering valuable insights into the dynamic landscape of digital marketing. He shares that the best content is the one that resonates with the audience’s feelings and to be able to do that, one must always have a clear strategy. And to stand out you should always go for creating the kind of content that educates, inspires, or makes people laugh.Be it through memes or whatesoever. This session underscored the importance of adaptability and foresight in today’s dynamic world, guiding the event’s direction and impact.

Sabeen Naaz, an international award-winning educationist and remedial therapist, highlighted the importance of an entrepreneurial mindset and growth in the tech industry during her session “Growth & Entrepreneurship.”

Sadaf Raza, a poet and philanthropist, presented “Holistic Healing in the Age of AI,” exploring the intersection of technology and holistic well-being, offering a unique perspective on integrating AI into daily life .Followed by a soothing meditation session that was all we needed to relax & reflect a bit.

Talal Athar, Product Designer at Neem and former Product Designer at Telenor, conducted a session on “Design Better,” inspiring attendees with insights into product design and user experience, encouraging creative and purposeful design thinking.

A pivotal moment of the event was the panel discussion moderated by Azka Ahmed,Outreach at Ejad Labs/Future Fest & a Team Lead at GDG Live Pakistan, featuring Sarwat Rizvi who is a WTM Ambassador &, Co-manager at GDG Islamabad, Irum Zehra, Co-manager at GDG Cloud Islamabad & a WTM Ambassador and Chapter’s very own leader Maimoona Saeed. It was way more than just a typical panel, in fact quite like a family like setting where these incredible women in tech discussed the systemic biases and societal hurdles faced by women in leadership roles, highlighting their journeys of resilience and defiance against conventional norms. How they never acquiesced to these pervasive biases and are now thriving women leaders serving as quintessential role models to all the girls out there who dream big. They emphasised the role of Google communities in fostering inclusivity, diversity, and collaborative innovation, underscoring the transformative impact of these values in creating resilient and equitable tech ecosystems. We can never have safe & productive workspaces unless we have a practice of inclusion & diversity.

The event concluded with a vibrant networking session, fostering meaningful connections and collaborations among participants. As ideas flowed and partnerships formed, the spirit of Femini | Femelle & AI continued to resonate, promising a future where diversity, innovation, and empowerment converge seamlessly in the tech industry.

Team at Google Developer Student Clubs – Air University extends heartfelt thanks to all participants, speakers, sponsors, and partners for their invaluable contributions to the event’s success. Special gratitude goes to our sponsors: Cheezious, Ai DataYard, and Korneez. We also appreciate our community partners: GDG Islamabad, GDG Cloud Islamabad, GDG Live Pakistan, Pwic, GDSC- FAST, Islamabad, GDSC- Bahria University, Islamabad, GDSC- NUST CEME Campus, GDSC-NUST, Fatima Jinnah Women University – Rawalpindi & our media partners, We Talk Startups for their unwavering support in our shared mission to empower women in technology.

World-Class Golfing, Gold-Star Hospitality – Multan Unveils Rumanza by Pearl-Continental

Anonymous — Thu, 02 May 2024 14:06:18 GMT

Multan, a historic city famed for its shrines, bazaars, and blue pottery, also boasts another distinction as the host of Rumanza, Pakistan’s largest and only 18-hole, 72-par golf course. Designed by the renowned Sir Nick Faldo, this signature course is situated in the heart of DHA Multan. In collaboration with Pearl-Continental Hotels & Resorts, this golf course has been transformed into a 5-star golf resort, offering a premium gaming facility for golfers with exceptional hospitality services and amenities for recreation and relaxation under one roof.

Rumanza by Pearl-Continental now welcomes guests with luxurious accommodations overlooking majestic, lush green gardens — perfect for unwinding after a day on the greens. Guests can choose from 42 elegant rooms, each providing unmatched comfort and style. The resort also prides itself on its culinary offerings, with esteemed dining outlets such as the Spike Bar and Marco Polo restaurants serving a wide array of continental and traditional cuisines to satisfy diverse palates.

Guests seeking relaxation can indulge in a dip in the beautifully designed swimming pools or refresh their mind, body, and soul at the world-class spa, featuring expert therapists trained in the art of rejuvenation. Sauna and steam facilities are also available. Additionally, the resort boasts a sophisticated cigar lounge, where guests can enjoy a selection of premium cigars and beverages in opulent settings.

Rumanza is the perfect backdrop for extravagant weddings, formal corporate conferences, and memorable celebrations. Its state-of-the-art Crystal Hall and Foyer Hall, with sleek, contemporary interiors and modern amenities, set the stage for any spectacular event. The resort’s dedicated team is on hand to help guests craft and execute their events with precision and flair, ensuring every detail is managed to perfection.

Conveniently located close to central Multan, the resort is also an ideal gateway for exploring the historical city. Guests can enjoy day trips to experience the vibrant sights and sounds of Multan, where centuries-old traditions blend seamlessly with modern-day charm.

Discover the pinnacle of hospitality at Rumanza by Pearl-Continental, Pakistan’s premier golf resort. Book your stay or event today and experience luxury, leisure, and a legendary golf course all in one place!

Women Techmakers and GDG Islamabad Soared to New Heights at International Women’s Day Parwaaz 2024

Shaheryar Ehsan — Sun, 07 Apr 2024 07:28:24 GMT

Islamabad, Pakistan – [9 March 2024] – Women Techmakers Islamabad, in collaboration with GDG Islamabad, proudly marked International Women’s Day with a triumphant celebration at Parwaaz 2024, held on March 9th at the prestigious Daftarkhwan Alpha, Old Airport, Islamabad. The event, themed “Parwaaz: Soaring Beyond Boundaries,” was a resounding success, uniting women in technology, fostering innovation, and championing diversity.

Throughout the day-long conference, attendees were treated to a rich tapestry of inspiring keynotes, engaging lightning talks, interactive workshops, and thought-provoking discussions, all meticulously curated to ignite the spark of leadership in female innovators.

The event commenced with heartfelt remarks from Sarwat Rizvi and Ali Naqi Rizvi, Co-Managers of Google Developers Group Islamabad, as they underscored the community’s commitment to inclusivity by highlighting the presence of sign language interpreters from DeafTawk, ensuring accessibility for all attendees.

The event featured women-centric hackathons and insightful discussions on topics like Generative AI. The event exemplified Women Techmakers’ mission to provide visibility, community, and resources for women in technology, fostering an environment of empowerment and collaboration.

The keynote was delivered by Mujeeb Zahur, Managing Director, S&P Global Pakistan. With his wealth of experience and insights, Mujeeb shed light on the evolving landscape of the tech industry, emphasizing the importance of diversity, innovation, and collaboration. His inspiring words resonated deeply with the audience, motivating them to embrace change and pursue their goals with passion and determination. S&P Global Pakistan’s sponsorship of the women focused event aims to amplify women’s voices, invest in their growth and development, and break down barriers to equality.

Next, Yusra Riaz Solangi, Manager of Investments at Accelerate Prosperity Pakistan, brought over 5 years of corporate finance and investment management experience to the table at Parwaaz 2024. Shedding light on the topic of “Women in Financing,” Yusra discussed the challenges and opportunities for women in the financial sector, as well as how Accelerate Prosperity strives for women’s financial inclusion by providing subsidized capital to impactful businesses, to champion sustainable growth and empowerment.

The event also featured captivating lightning talks by thought leaders from diverse backgrounds like Faryal G. Arslan, Director at Musavir.AI, who delved into the convergence of art and technology in Generative AI, captivating the audience with her exploration of the creative possibilities of artificial intelligence. Saleman Hussain, Data Analyst at S&P Global Pakistan, shared his inspiring journey leaving attendees captivated with his tale of resilience and community support. His compelling narrative underscored the importance of diversity and inclusion in the tech industry, inspiring all those present. Lastly, Yumna Majeed, Founder/CEO of Exploration – Cosmos to Classroom, enthralled the audience with her passion for outer space, and the importance of nurturing curiosity and exploration.

In addition to the enlightening talks, Parwaaz 2024 featured hands-on workshops designed to equip attendees with practical skills and knowledge. Flutter and Machine Learning: Adding Intelligence to Apps, conducted by Hammad Ali (CTO at Ambeego), explored the integration of Google’s Flutter framework with ML to enhance the functionality and intelligence of mobile applications. Followed by the Build with GenAI Workshop, guided by Tahreem Rasul (Senior Machine Learning Engineer at Red Buffer), which provided participants with an opportunity to explore the world of Generative AI and unlock its potential in their projects and endeavors.

The event hosted a design thinking session as well, “Soar Above Thinking”, by Erum Fatima Rizvi, Strategic Trainer and Partner at Adroit Consultancy, UK and UAE. She inspired participants to create safe spaces, avoid judgment, and overcome obstacles, fostering inclusivity and personal growth. The “Reframing Your Narrative” workshop, led by Raina Khan Barki, Founder of Zenana Foundation, empowered attendees to combat imposter syndrome and transform their narratives for positive growth. Through insightful guidance, participants learned to reshape their stories and embrace their full potential.

The highlight of the event was the Fireside Chat on “Navigating the Executive Suite Being a Woman,” which provided a platform for prominent women leaders like Nida Salman (Creative Director at Frontmatter) and Anum Akrum, Director- Data Quality Control at S&P Global Pakistan to share their experiences and insights into corporate leadership and inclusivity.

The atmosphere was electric with excitement as participants exchanged ideas, shared stories, and celebrated their collective achievements during the networking brunch. This event provided attendees with ample opportunities to connect, collaborate, and forge meaningful relationships within the community.

Nearing the end of the event, the session that resonated with attendees was the Power of Community Building, led by Quratulain Tariq, Senior Solution Engineer at Ortoo. Through her insightful session, Quratulain highlighted the transformative potential of community engagement in driving positive change and empowerment.

The event concluded with a keynote address by Huzaifa Habib, Google’s Community Manager, followed by a captivating performance by the band Saraab, leaving participants inspired and energized for the journey ahead.

Women Techmakers and GDG Islamabad extend their heartfelt thanks to all participants, speakers, sponsors, and partners for their invaluable contributions to the success of Parwaaz 2024. Special gratitude is extended to our Platinum Sponsor, S&P Global Pakistan, for their support. We are also grateful to our sponsors: Cheezious and Accelerate Prosperity for providing amazing food, Daftarkhwan for serving as our venue sponsor, and partners: Funsol, Sybrid, DeafTawk, Womenintechpk, We Talk Startups, Creative Mornings, Pwic, for their unwavering commitment to our shared mission.

Women Techmakers and GDG Islamabad Soar to New Heights on International Women’s Day 2024

Press Release — Mon, 04 Mar 2024 11:39:15 GMT

Women Techmakers Islamabad in collaboration with GDG Islamabad proudly presents the International Women’s Day Parwaaz 2024. On March 9th, join us for “Parwaaz,” a transformative experience celebrating the fusion of cultures and technology, empowering women to soar to new heights. Through inspiring keynotes, lightning talks, and engaging workshops, the event aims to ignite the spark of leadership in female innovators, fostering inclusivity, diversity, and innovation.

We are proud to have S&P Global as our esteemed sponsor for the event, supporting our mission of empowerment and cultivating an environment that promotes diversity and inclusion and provides equal opportunities for all.

The agenda for this year’s International Women’s Day conference features the following sessions:

Lighting Talks

Join three captivating talks where thought leaders share their insights and expertise. Faryal G. Arslan, Director at Musavir.AI, explores the convergence of art and technology in Generative AI. Renowned Data Analyst, Saleman Hussain, shares his journey of turning setbacks into comebacks, emphasizing the power of accepting help and leveraging support networks for personal and professional growth. And lastly, Yumna Majeed (Founder/CEO @Exploration – Cosmos to Classroom), will illuminate the cosmos with her deep knowledge and passion for outer space and share her story of making a career out of this passion.

Power of Community Building

Join Quratulain Tariq, Senior Solution Engineer at Ortoo, as she unveils the transformative potential of community engagement through her session.

Panel Discussion| Navigating the Executive Suite Being a Woman

This stellar panel features prominent women leaders like Nida Salman (Creative Director @Frontmatter), Tooba Saad Khan (CEO & Co-founder @Cove by Workshack), Maliha Noor (Head of Marketing @LAAM), and Anum Akrum (Director for the Quality Control function of Data organization @S&P Global) to share their experiences on navigating corporate leadership, fostering inclusivity, and achieving success.

Build with GenAI Workshop

Delve into the world of Generative AI with our hands-on AI workshop, guided by expert facilitators. Unlock the potential of AI in your projects and endeavors.

Reframing Your Narrative Workshop

This workshop aims to help the attendees fight imposter syndrome and reshape their narrative to derive positive change. The session will be facilitated by Raina Khan Barki (Founder @Zenana Foundation).

Design Thinking: Soar Above Thinking

Next up is Erum Rizvis’ (Strategic Trainer and Partner @Androit Consultancy) session on design thinking. Through innovative activities, she aims to take the participants on a magical journey that prompts them to think outside the box.

Flutter and Machine Learning: Adding Intelligence to Apps

The agenda also features a technical session by Flutter expert and ML enthusiast, Hammad Ali (CTO @Ambeego), on how one can integrate Google’s Flutter framework with ML to enhance the functionality and intelligence of mobile applications.

Networking Brunch

Last but not least, comes the legendary networking brunch.

Connect with us for an event that celebrates the power of community. We look forward to welcoming you to explore our theme “Parwaaz: Soaring Beyond Boundaries” which celebrates rising above societal stereotypes and empowering individuals to embrace their uniqueness and excel beyond limitations.

Join us on Saturday, March 9th, for an empowering event celebrating women in technology and innovation. From promoting sustainability and navigating the corporate world to exploring the different dimensions of AI, Parwaaz 2024 isn’t just an event it’s an experience unlike any other.

Don’t miss out on this chance to be inspired and build a brighter future together!

Register Now: https://bit.ly/WomenTechmakers24
Event Link: http://bit.ly/WTM2024
📍Daftarkhwan Alpha, Old Airport, Islamabad
🗓️ 9th March 2023
🕘 9:30 AM – 4 PM Powered by Google

Pearl-Continental Hotel, Bhurban Attains ISO-22000 & HACCP Food Safety Management Recertifications with 100% Compliance for The Second Year Running

Press Release — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 09:02:22 GMT

Pearl-Continental Hotel, Bhurban has been recertified by ISO-22000:2018 and HACCP, an esteemed international standard for food safety management, with 100% compliance two years in a row.

ISO-22000 is an internationally accepted standard for food safety management systems, providing a comprehensive framework to ensure the safety of food products throughout the supply chain. It covers processes from primary production to consumption, emphasizing a holistic approach to food safety.

Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) is a systematic approach to food safety that identifies, evaluates, and controls potential hazards throughout food production. Developed in the 1960s by NASA in collaboration with the Pillsbury Company to ensure the safety of space food, HACCP has since become a global standard in the food industry.

The recertification audit, conducted by the globally renowned TUV Austria, encompassed on-site evaluations and a meticulous examination of documentation, policies, and procedures. No major or minor non-conformity was identified during the comprehensive assessment, showcasing the team’s unwavering commitment to maintaining the highest standards in food safety.

Addressing the positive audit results, Chief Operating Officer, Hospitality and Education Division, Hashoo Group, Haseeb A. Gardezi remarked:

“We have a longstanding reputation for exceptional service standards and commitment to excellence in all hospitality avenues. Our pledge will only grow stronger with such humbling accolades, spurring our motivation for the future.”

General Manager, Pearl-Continental Hotel, Bhurban, Nadeem Chaudhary shared his thoughts on the achievement:

“We strive to provide the best-in-class services for our valued guests and continue evolving our processes and procedures to maintain quality at par with global standards. Thank you for your continued trust; we are grateful to receive these recertifications and will continue enhancing our services to stay at the top of our game.”

The auditors commended the team for their dedication and also lauded the sustainability initiatives spearheaded by senior management. The Sewage Treatment Plant (STP) project at Pearl-Continental Bhurban, which utilizes live bacteria to treat and recycle wastewater while converting it into organic fertilizer, was also praised.

Hashoo Group is Pakistan’s premium conglomerate with a diversified business portfolio spanning national and international markets. The Group owns and operates the Pearl-Continental Hotels & Resorts, PC Legacy, and Hotel One brands in Pakistan and has business interests encompassing the information technology, investment, travel & tourism, and real-estate sectors.

Turkish Fintech Unicorn Papara Reportedly Acquires SadaPay in Possible $50MN Deal

Shaheryar Ehsan — Sat, 17 Feb 2024 15:44:33 GMT

Papara, a Turkish fintech company, has reportedly acquired SadaPay, a Pakistani fintech company, for $30-50 million.
Papara plans to invest an additional $10 million in SadaPay to solidify its position in the market.
This deal is seen as a positive development for the Pakistani fintech industry.

This acquisition is a major development for both companies. Papara is a well-established fintech company in Turkey, with over 10 million users. SadaPay is a relatively new company, but it has grown rapidly in recent years. This acquisition will give Papara a foothold in the Pakistani market, which is one of the fastest-growing fintech markets in the world.

SadaPay’s founders will continue to lead the company after the acquisition. Papara plans to invest in SadaPay’s technology and product development, and it will also help SadaPay to expand its reach in Pakistan.

This deal is a positive development for the Pakistani fintech industry. It shows that foreign investors are interested in the Pakistani market, and it could help to attract more investment in the future. It could also lead to more innovation and competition in the Pakistani fintech industry, which could benefit consumers.

The acquisition is subject to regulatory approval, but it is expected to close in the second quarter of 2024.

Source: Profit by Pakistan Today

Ignite Inks Agreement with Pakistan Services Limited – Hashoo Group to Manage National Incubation Center Islamabad

Tehreem Farooqi — Wed, 07 Feb 2024 05:32:01 GMT

In a landmark move poised to energize Pakistan’s burgeoning technology and startup landscape, the Ignite National Technology Fund—an entity under the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication—has forged a pivotal agreement with Pakistan Services Limited (PSL), part of the Hashoo Group consortium. This consortium also includes prominent entities like Fauji Foundation, Telenor Pakistan, Change Mechanics, CyberVision International, and Founder Institute. Together, they will oversee the National Incubation Center (NIC) Islamabad for the ensuing five years.

This collaboration marks a significant stride in public-private partnership efforts aimed at invigorating the startup ecosystem in Pakistan. It particularly emphasizes nurturing tech startups, with the goal of boosting the nation’s economic GDP and creating substantial employment opportunities for the youth.

Impactful Ventures: Ignite’s Nationwide Network

Adeel Aijaz Shaikh, CEO of Ignite, highlighted the profound impact of the organization’s National Incubation Centers across the country in his welcome address. To date, these centers have incubated over 1,480 startups, generating over 188,000 direct and indirect jobs. These startups have attracted investments worth Rs. 23 billion and have produced revenues amounting to Rs. 16 billion. Specifically, NIC Islamabad has been a success story, incubating 295 startups—including 136 female-led firms—creating 23,597 jobs, and generating revenue of Rs. 7.05 billion with an investment of Rs. 7.88 billion.

Enhanced Services and Strategic Focus

The NIC Islamabad is set to build on its predecessor’s achievements by offering an expanded suite of services to empower startups. These include advanced workspaces, venture capital access, industry leader mentorship, and labs for UI/UX design and makerspaces, focusing on key technological sectors like Artificial Intelligence, IoT, Robotics, Health, and AR/VR. A significant emphasis is on creating investment avenues for startups, supported by leading incubators, accelerators, and venture capitalists including Founder Institute, Mass Challenge, and others. Health-tech startups receive particular attention, with Aga Khan University and Hospital among the core Health Track Partners.

Academic Collaboration for Sustained Growth

Supporting partners extend to prestigious academic institutions, ensuring startups benefit from quality mentorship and access to university labs and specialist faculty. Notable institutions include GIKI University, Institute of Space Technologies, and NUST Business School, underscoring the commitment to technical excellence and innovation.

About Hashoo Group:

Hashoo Group stands as Pakistan’s premier conglomerate with a diverse portfolio that spans across national and international spheres. With ownership of Pearl-Continental Hotels & Resorts, PC Legacy, and several other ventures in IT, education, investment, and real estate, Hashoo Group demonstrates its corporate prowess while contributing to societal growth through the Hashoo Foundation. This initiative underscores Hashoo Group’s dedication to social responsibility and sustainable development, reinforcing its position as a leader in Pakistan’s corporate landscape.

About Fauji Foundation:

Fauji Foundation operates as a hybrid social enterprise, seamlessly integrating its corporate goals with the broader aim of national progress. The organization makes strategic investments in crucial areas to drive the nation’s economic growth, focusing on enhancing infrastructure, securing energy resources, ensuring food security, promoting advanced agricultural techniques, and broadening access to financial services.

About Ignite:

Ignite National Technology Fund, is a government-backed initiative designed to stimulate innovation and technological progress in Pakistan through funding, mentorship, and comprehensive support for startups, entrepreneurs and innovators.

About MOITT:

The Ministry of Information Technology and Telecom (MOITT) is tasked with developing policies and initiatives to foster information technology and telecommunications infrastructure across Pakistan, driving the nation’s digital transformation.

Dastgyr has reportedly laid off 80% workforce

Shaheryar Ehsan — Fri, 12 Jan 2024 17:08:59 GMT

The Pakistani B2B e-commerce startup Dastgyr has made a significant decision to lay off 80% of its workforce. This move by Dastgyr is particularly noteworthy given the context of the startup ecosystem in Pakistan and recent funding trends.

In June 2022, Dastgyr successfully raised $37 million in a Series A funding round, which was a landmark for the Pakistani startup environment. This funding was primarily directed towards expansion and growth initiatives. However, the recent decision to drastically reduce the workforce indicates a shift in strategy or an adjustment to market realities.

This development is not isolated, as other technology companies in the region and globally have also been making similar moves. For instance, GitHub, a major code hosting platform, announced a 10% reduction in its workforce and transitioned to a fully remote operation model. South Asia’s leading e-commerce marketplace, Daraz, also reduced its workforce by 11%, citing tough market conditions. Retailo Technologies, a startup aiming to simplify retail through technology, laid off several employees from its engineering department.

These layoffs across different companies signal a broader trend in the tech industry, where companies are reevaluating their strategies and workforce requirements in response to changing market conditions and economic challenges. For Dastgyr, this move might be a strategic realignment to focus on core areas of the business, ensuring sustainability and efficiency in a challenging economic environment.

The situation underscores the dynamic and often unpredictable nature of the startup ecosystem, where rapid growth and expansion can be followed by swift strategic adjustments in response to market forces and economic pressures.

Hashoo Group & Dewan Motors Join Forces to Power Sustainable Mobility in Pakistan

Press Release — Tue, 19 Dec 2023 07:03:24 GMT

Hashoo Group, in collaboration with Dewan Motors Pvt. Ltd., Pakistan’s authorized BMW automobile importer, is launching a pioneering initiative to enhance the electric vehicle (EV) infrastructure in Pakistan. This collaboration focuses on a phased installation of BMW AC chargers for electric vehicles across Hashoo Group’s extensive network of hotels and resorts, including the five-star Pearl-Continental, the four-star PC Legacy, and the three-star select-service Hotel One brand.

This initiative aims to foster green mobility nationwide and contribute to a more environmentally friendly Pakistan. These BMW AC chargers are designed to accommodate vehicles adhering to European standards, ensuring broad compatibility for a diverse range of electric vehicles.

Hashoo Group is dedicated to ecologically friendly operations and has committed to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, along with supporting the country in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals 2030 set forth by the United Nations.
An agreement signing ceremony was held recently in Islamabad, with senior management from both organizations in attendance.

Haseeb A. Gardezi, Chief Operating Officer, Hospitality and Education Division, Hashoo Group, shared his thoughts on this exciting collaboration:

“Hashoo Group integrates its various business verticals towards more environmentally conscious practices. In line with our sustainability agenda, we are thrilled to mark this significant milestone on our road to a greener Pakistan while at the same time elevating our customer experience by providing a convenient charging facility for their EVs across our properties.”

Zaeem Ul Haque, Director Operations, Dewan Motors Pvt. Ltd., remarked:

“On this momentous occasion, we are proud to serve the nation and play a pivotal role in building essential infrastructure that aligns with global environmental goals. I am excited to see the outcome of this collaboration with Hashoo Group in line with our joint commitment to a cleaner, greener, and sustainable Pakistan.”

This initiative not only underscores the dedication of both Dewan Motors and Hashoo Group to environmental stewardship but also exemplifies their collective commitment to supporting Pakistan’s progress towards a more sustainable future.

Dewan Motors is Pakistan’s authorized importer of BMW vehicles and maintains a stellar position in the automobile market for remarkable customer service and an innovative strategic mindset at its core. Dewan Motors has introduced a range of premium segments electric cars and SUVs in Pakistan offering All-electric models as BMW iX1, BMW iX2, BMW iX3, BMW iX, BMW i4, BMW i5 and BMW i7.

Hashoo Group is Pakistan’s premium conglomerate with a diversified business portfolio spanning both national and international markets. The Group owns and operates the Pearl-Continental Hotels & Resorts and PC Legacy & Hotel One brands in Pakistan and has business interests encompassing the information technology, investment, travel & tourism, and real-estate sectors.

4-Star PC Legacy Experience Comes to Pir Sohawa Hills, Islamabad

Press Release — Fri, 08 Dec 2023 13:23:44 GMT

Hashoo Group, a leading name in Pakistan’s hospitality industry renowned for its exceptional service standards and unmatched quality, has embarked on a strategic partnership with Highland Country Club & Resort. This partnership heralds a new chapter in elevating the hospitality experience for guests amidst the serene beauty of the Pir Sohawa Hills in Islamabad. The collaboration marks another milestone in Hashoo Group’s continuing endeavor to forge impactful alliances with hospitality leaders in the country, aimed at catalyzing industry growth and contributing to a more prosperous Pakistan.

The signing ceremony took place at Highland Country Club & Resort, situated approximately 18 kilometers from Islamabad, accessible by a relaxing and scenic 40-minute drive. The event was attended by senior officials and management teams from both organizations, who shared their collective vision for the future of tourism and hospitality in Pakistan and discussed strategies to realize their joint ambitions for the new venture under the PC Legacy brand.

The partnership introduces the Highland Country Club & Resort as a rebranded 4-star PC Legacy property called PC Legacy, Highland Resort, Islamabad aimed at elevating its service quality to new heights. Guests can enjoy a choice of luxurious villas or rooms, savor exceptional cuisines, and access facilities for banquets, meetings, and a kids’ play area. The venue offers a luxurious atmosphere with stunning views of the hills, ensuring a perfect balance of comfort and relaxation.

Sharing his valuable thoughts on the partnership, Mr. Murtaza Hashwani, Deputy Chairman & CEO, Hashoo Group stated:

“The future of tourism and hospitality relies greatly on combining strengths and moving forward collaboratively. We are excited to begin this new venture and make PC Legacy Highland Resort, Islamabad a choice getaway destination for our valued guests.”

Haseeb A. Gardezi, Chief Operating Officer, Hospitality & Education Division, Hashoo Group, remarked:

“With its beautiful location and outstanding reputation for gold-star services, PC Legacy Highland Resort will be a crown jewel for local and international tourists visiting the capital.”

Speaking at the ceremony, Mr. Syed Zahid Hassan said:

“Joining hands with Hashoo Group marks a significant milestone for us. This partnership embodies our shared commitment to excellence in hospitality. We’re excited to transform our resort into a top destination, showcasing Pakistan’s hospitality and natural beauty.”

Owned and operated by Zahid Group of Companies, the Highland Country Club & Resort offers splendid views of the Himalaya Mountains and the iconic Murree Hill station. The resort was established in 2013 and spans over 150 kanals at a 4,500 ft. elevation. With diverse cuisines and premium services, the resort is an ideal spot for staycations, vacations, and corporate getaways.

PC Legacy, operated by Hashoo Group, is a bridge between its 5-star luxury brand PC Hotels & Resorts, and select-service brand, Hotel One. 4-star PC Legacy hotels offer premium services geared towards encouraging relaxation, rejuvenation, and local exploration & discovery across scenic locations in Pakistan. The new destination property in Pir Sohawa is poised to continue the legacy of gold-star services and unparalleled offers for its valued guests.

Hashoo Group is Pakistan’s premium conglomerate with a diversified business portfolio spanning both national and international markets. The Group owns and operates the Pearl-Continental Hotels & Resorts, PC Legacy & Hotel One brands in Pakistan and has business interests encompassing the information technology, investment, travel & tourism, and real-estate sectors.

Notion Lands in Lahore: The Epic Kickoff of the First Community Flagship!

Neha Chaudhary — Mon, 04 Dec 2023 15:59:16 GMT

On 23rd November 2023, history was made when Lahore had its first Notion community meetup at 10Pearls Lahore hosted by Notion Lahore, a user group chapter operating within the Middle-East, Pakistan region geared towards enabling individuals and organizations to build with Notion. Whereas, Notion is a freemium no-code productivity tool that blends everything into one application.

The event was a huge success and was attended by Notion enthusiasts, community leaders, IT professionals, startup founders, and even students from across the city and beyond. The meetup stood as a testament to Notion’s growing influence in Pakistan and its ability to bring together individuals passionate about productivity and collaboration.

The event was headed by an opening keynote by Usman Aslam, Notion User Group Leader Middle East – Pakistan. Emphasizing the significance of Notion within the technology and entrepreneurial ecosystem, Usman underlined how it is a part of major organizations. Moreover, Usman highlighted how this all-in-one low-code productivity software can be used by individuals for their day-to-day, how startups can streamline their workflows, and how businesses are using Notion to provide a collaborative environment to employees. While discussing Notion as a versatile platform, he shed light on its various features such as Notion API, Notion AI, automation, and the recently launched Q&A feature.

While sharing his intrigue for no-code and low-code applications, Usman stated the following:

“The aim that we have within the ever-expanding techpreneurial ecosystem is to empower individuals within the Pakistan region to expedite their work, personal life, and even their startups through tools like Notion. The power of low-code and no-code has had such a paradigm shift in our ecosystem that today one does not have to get into the technicalities of building anything that comes into mind.”

The stage was then presented to Usama Waheed, Co-Founder of Dli5 and Visiting Faculty at LUMS. Usama demonstrated the collaborative functionality of Notion by showing case its utility in product design and education. He showed how product design collaboration, organization, and iteration can be seamlessly executed. He also highlighted how Notion has revolutionized education by making it easier for creative ideas to flow, encourages engagement, and facilitates the generation of original concepts and more.

While addressing the audience regarding the impact of Notion on creative collaboration, he stated:

“Notion fosters idea exchange and collaboration among students. Its intuitive features create a dynamic learning environment, where seamless teamwork and idea-sharing thrive. Notion has helped me greatly in managing all the work submitted by the students and helping my students score impressive results.”

Next came the anticipated session by Syed Mohammad Mohamman, Co-Founder of Product Soch, the Middle East’s largest Product-centered organization. He discussed how product management can be streamlined with Notion where all the tasks can be managed and the updates can be communicated to the company effectively. He also explained how Notion’s productivity software can handle complicated project management needs.

The event also featured a community showcase of an innovative coworking space, Focused. Their workspaces with a focus on productivity and flexibility are situated in Lahore, Islamabad, and Karachi.

The stage was then presented to Saad Hasnain, Notion User Group Leader Middle East – Pakistan, who shared the use cases of Notion with the audience. Saad discussed how Notion can be used as a personal management system and a student dashboard where classes, courses, and assignments can all be managed in a unified place. He further talked about how Notion can be used for your personal usage as well like tracking your daily habits, journaling, and whatnot.

The event progressed to an enjoyable icebreaker session, including segments with engaging activities and the chance to win exciting prizes.

Next came the highly anticipated session by Abid Jamal, Engineering Manager at Dubicars, where he delved into crafting engineering excellence with Notion. Abid shared insights on how Notion is a helpful tool in the development process, fostering collaboration, streamlining workflows, and enhancing overall engineering efficiency. He emphasized on power of Notion as a transformative tool, allowing teams to seamlessly organize and communicate the engineering tasks effectively.

Including professionals from different industries and major enterprises, the most anticipated panel discussion followed, featuring esteemed panelists: Hassan Nadeem, Community and Partnerships Manager at Remotebase; Saad Aslam, Senior Software Engineer at i2c; Maria Sadaf, Lead Business Strategist at Devsinc; and Ambreen Gul, Senior Executive Talent Acquisition at 10Pearls. The panelists shared valuable perspectives on promoting innovation within the local tech community, the role of startups in driving economic growth, and the importance of cultivating a collaborative ecosystem.

The Notion Community Meetup: Lahore Edition wrapped up with a sense of achievement and inspiration, providing attendees with a valuable networking opportunity. The event highlighted the impact of Notion in different sectors, influencing businesses, corporate settings, and education. The event organizers gave their gratification to partners and sponsors, including 10Pearls Pakistan, 10Pearls University, Focused, ACM UET Lahore, Bytewise, Product Soch, We Talk Startups, Ali Chaudhary Films, Daftarkhwan, SOFTEC, and INDEX.

The Power of Pivoting: How Successful Startups Adapt and Thrive

Tehreem Farooqi — Wed, 22 Nov 2023 06:21:27 GMT

In the dynamic and often unpredictable world of startups, the ability to pivot – to fundamentally shift business strategy in response to market demands, technological changes, or customer feedback – is not just a valuable skill but a necessary one. A pivot in the startup realm occurs when a company decides to change its business model, product, or service in a significant way to better align with the prevailing market conditions or customer needs.

Pivoting is an essential element of the lean startup methodology, which emphasizes agility and responsiveness to feedback. It involves taking direct or indirect feedback and using it to test a new approach or direction for the business. This could mean altering the business model, developing a new product, or targeting a different market segment.

The underlying reason for a pivot is usually the realization that the current strategy is not yielding the desired results. This realization can come from various sources, such as customer feedback, market research, or even internal analysis. The ultimate goal of pivoting is to find a product-market fit – a scenario where the business’s offerings successfully meet the needs and demands of its target customers.

Historical Success Stories

The journey of a startup is often marked by pivotal moments of transformation, where strategic shifts lead to phenomenal success. Here are some notable examples:

Android’s Shift from Cameras to Smartphones: Initially, Android aimed to create an operating system for cameras, with a cloud component for storing photos. However, realizing the limited scope in the smart camera market, they pivoted to smartphones, tapping into a much larger market opportunity.
Flickr’s Evolution from Online Gaming to Photo Sharing: Ludicorp, the company behind Flickr, started as a game studio developing ‘Game Neverending’, a role-playing game. The founders unveiled a side project at a tech conference – a tool for photo sharing, which eventually became Flickr.
Groupon’s Transformation from a Social Activist Platform to Group Buying: Groupon began as ‘The Point’, a platform to mobilize people for social causes. A campaign on the platform for group discounts on products led to the pivot towards group buying, marking the birth of Groupon.
Instagram’s Pivot from a Foursquare-Inspired App: Originally called Burbn, Instagram started as a location-based app combining elements of Foursquare and Mafia Wars. However, the founders shifted focus to the app’s popular photo-sharing feature, leading to the creation of Instagram.
Pinterest’s Journey from a Mobile Shopping App: Pinterest started as ‘Tote’, an iPhone app for shopping. However, it pivoted to a web-based platform focusing on the sharing of ‘favorite’ items, a feature popular among its users, which eventually evolved into Pinterest.
Rovio’s Long Road to Angry Birds: Rovio, the company behind Angry Birds, created 51 games over seven years before finding success. Their pivot involved focusing on creating a game that appealed to a wide audience, leading to the global phenomenon of Angry Birds.
Shopify’s Emergence from an Online Snowboard Store: Shopify was born out of the founders’ frustration with existing e-commerce platforms. Initially a solution for their own online snowboard store, they pivoted to developing an e-commerce platform for others, which grew into Shopify.
Slack’s Origin in a Gaming Company: Slack originated within Tiny Speck, a gaming company working on ‘Glitch’. A tool developed for internal communication during the game’s development became the foundation for Slack, a leading communication platform.

Each of these examples demonstrates how a strategic pivot, driven by market insights, user feedback, or internal innovation, can lead a startup from a modest beginning to industry leadership. These stories are a testament to the power of adaptability and vision in the entrepreneurial journey.

Identifying the Need to Pivot

For startups, recognizing the need to pivot is crucial for survival and growth. Recognizing the signs early and deciding to pivot can be the difference between a startup’s success and failure. It requires a combination of market insight, customer feedback, and an honest assessment of your current business strategy and its performance.

Here are key indicators and situations that often signal the necessity for a strategic pivot:

A Standout Feature or Aspect: If a specific feature or aspect of your product or service consistently outperforms others, it’s worth considering a pivot to focus solely on that element. This approach helps in streamlining operations and maximizing the returns on your investment and efforts.
Financial Non-Viability: Startups are often driven by passion, but financial viability is essential. If your current business model is draining resources without sustainable returns, pivoting to a more financially viable approach is necessary. This requires an objective evaluation of your business, stripping back non-essential elements, and focusing on aspects that can deliver better financial outcomes.
Lack of Market Response: When the market doesn’t respond as expected to your product or service, it’s a clear indicator that something needs to change. This could be due to various factors like pricing, market understanding, or the product itself. Pivoting in such cases might involve altering your business model, pricing strategy, or even the target market to better align with consumer needs and expectations.
Being Outperformed by Competition: In the highly competitive startup environment, if you find your business consistently lagging behind the competition, it’s time to think about pivoting. This could mean a significant overhaul of your product, service, marketing strategy, or target audience. The goal is to differentiate yourself from the competition and carve out a unique space in the market.

Strategies for Effective Pivoting

For startups contemplating a pivot, implementing effective strategies is crucial for success. Here are seven key strategies to consider:

Prototype, Validate, Pivot: Start by building a basic prototype to test its value. Use the feedback from this phase to enhance the product before committing extensive resources. This approach helps in confirming the fit of the pivot for both your brand and the market.
Analyze the Competitive Landscape: Understanding your competition is vital. If the pivot introduces new competitors, analyze their strengths and weaknesses. Aim to differentiate your product to ensure it stands out in the market.
Seize the Opportunity: Act decisively and be ready to reallocate resources. Pivoting should be a well-considered decision based on data and insights. It’s important to act swiftly once the decision to pivot is made.
Bring in Talent and Skills: Pivots often require new skills and technologies. Expand your team’s capabilities, consider outsourcing, and ensure you have the necessary internal processes and technologies to support the pivot.
Embrace the New: Be open to innovation and change. Market shifts are inevitable, so a flexible and adaptable approach is key. Embrace the novelty and potential of the pivot while managing the risks involved.
Stay True to Your Vision: Align your pivot with the core mission of your startup. Your vision should guide the pivot, ensuring it stays true to the fundamental goals and objectives of your business.
Keep Your Investors Informed: Transparency with investors and stakeholders is critical. Inform them about the pivot well in advance, ideally providing a six-month window before the changes take effect. This helps in managing expectations and mitigating potential resistance.

Risks and Rewards

Pivoting a startup is a significant decision that comes with both advantages and disadvantages. Founders need to carefully weigh these factors, prepare for significant changes, and remain adaptable to navigate the pivot successfully. Here are some key aspects to consider:

Rewards:

Saving and Reinvigorating the Company: A successful pivot can rescue a struggling startup and open up new opportunities, potentially transforming it into a thriving enterprise.
Achieving Unicorn Status: Pivots have been instrumental in the success stories of many startups, including giants like Slack, PayPal, and Instagram. By reorienting their focus, these companies pivoted their way to significant growth and high valuations.
Capitalizing on New Opportunities: Pivots aren’t always driven by crisis; sometimes, they occur when a new, more lucrative opportunity presents itself. Recognizing and committing to these opportunities early can lead to substantial success.
Utilizing Existing Assets: Pivots do not always necessitate starting from scratch. Existing products or features can often be repurposed or refocused to serve new markets or needs, as seen with Slack’s pivot from a gaming product to a communication platform.

Risks:

Difficulty in Execution: The success of a pivot hinges largely on its execution. Moving quickly and decisively is crucial, but it can also lead to challenges such as strained relationships with employees and stakeholders if not managed properly.
Emotional and Financial Costs: For founders, walking away from their original idea to start anew can be emotionally challenging. Additionally, assessing the financial costs and trade-offs involved in pursuing a new direction is a critical and often difficult process.
Complex Strategic Changes: Pivoting may require significant changes to the startup’s team infrastructure, mission, branding, and overall strategy. These changes can be complex to implement and require a thorough reassessment of the business model.
Navigating Competitive Landscapes: Startups pivoting into new territories need to understand and navigate new competitive landscapes. This includes identifying potential competitors and carving out a unique position in the market, as was the case with X-Mode, which pivoted to capitalize on location data.

Conclusion

Pivoting is a vital aspect of a startup’s journey, often necessary for survival and growth in a dynamic market. It involves adapting the business model or product based on feedback to find the right product-market fit while staying aligned with the startup’s core vision. Successful pivots, as seen in the stories of Instagram, Slack, and Shopify, demonstrate the power of adaptability and innovation in overcoming challenges and seizing new opportunities. In essence, pivoting embodies the spirit of entrepreneurship: the capacity to innovate, adapt, and grow amidst constantly changing business landscapes.

GDG Islamabad and Women Techmakers announce DevFest Ai 2023

Press Release — Fri, 17 Nov 2023 05:04:52 GMT

Google Developers Group Islamabad in collaboration with Women Techmakers Islamabad is excited to unveil the highly anticipated DevFest Ai 2023 powered by Rayn. The event aims to unite the tech community, entrepreneurs, change-makers, and industry visionaries under one roof, for a day filled with learning, creativity, and motivation. Join us on 18th November at Air University, Islamabad, as we discuss some of the latest technological breakthroughs with the brightest minds in the industry.

Devfest 2023 presents a compelling agenda centered around AI, featuring speaker sessions and hands-on workshops. Here’s a preview of what awaits you:

Women Techmakers Breakfast

WTM Breakfast, an exclusive invite-only event designed for women seeking a morning of inspiration, learning, and networking. Join us for a unique opportunity to engage with accomplished speakers who will share their professional journeys and personal insights. Connect with like-minded tech enthusiasts and enjoy a focused session aimed at fostering meaningful connections and personal growth. WTM Breakfast is more than just an event; it’s a platform where women come together to empower and support each other.

Keynote: Pakistan Wants You: Stay In Touch!

Safia Chief Design Officer Rayn will shed light on the crucial role of the tech community in shaping the future of Pakistan during her keynote address at Devfest23. The keynote is set to tackle prevailing challenges, urging talented youth to harness technology for positive impact. Safia will underscore the importance of mentorship and collaboration, especially for those abroad, encouraging the community to pave the way for collective growth.

From Code to Canvas: Exploring AI-Generated Art and Creativity

Witness the convergence of technology and artistic expression as we delve into the domain of AI-generated art and creativity. Understand how artificial intelligence is reshaping the landscape of artistic creation and appreciation. This session will provide participants with a practical exploration of the intersection between AI and art, covering applications, techniques, and the transformative impact on traditional creative processes.

Using AI to Enhance Personal and Professional Productivity

Uncover the strategies for harnessing AI to enhance both personal and professional productivity. Explore how AI tools can serve as invaluable assets in navigating the demands of today’s fast-paced world.

Securing the Future: How AI is Revolutionizing Cybersecurity

Stay vigilant against cyber threats with an in-depth exploration of how AI is changing the cybersecurity landscape. This discussion aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the measures employed to fortify digital defenses, ensuring the resilience of our interconnected world against emerging cyber challenges.

AI Disruption or Transformation: Rethinking the Future of Work

Join our panel of experts as they engage in a nuanced exploration of whether AI is shaping a disruptive force or a transformative catalyst for the world of work. Attendees will gain valuable insights into the evolving job market and its consequential impact on individual career paths. This session offers a unique opportunity to reflect on the intricate relationship between AI and the future landscape of employment.

AI Demos

Experience firsthand the demonstration of cutting-edge AI applications in operation. Covering a spectrum from machine learning to natural language processing, these showcases are designed to evoke a sense of awe. The demonstrations promise to illustrate the practical applications of AI technologies.

Ethical Dilemmas in AI: Navigating the Moral Landscape of Artificial Intelligence

Navigate the complex ethical landscape of AI with our panel of experts addressing cybersecurity challenges like identity hacking and deepfakes. This panel promises a thoughtful exploration of the ethical considerations in the field of AI where you can explore the moral implications of artificial intelligence and how to address them responsibly.

Mental Health and Professional Success – A Holistic Approach

Prioritize your well-being as we understand the significance of mental health in attaining professional success, and acquiring practical strategies for cultivating a balanced and fulfilling life. This session aims to shed light on the integral relationship between mental well-being and professional achievement, offering participants actionable insights to foster resilience and maintain a work-life balance.

Decoding Communication: AI and Human Relationship

This session aims to elucidate the intersection of artificial intelligence with human interaction. Participants can expect to gain practical insights into the evolving dynamics of communication, fostering a comprehensive understanding of its impact on interpersonal relationships

Music Generation with AI

Explore the realm of AI in music generation and observe how artificial intelligence can compose melodies that resonate emotionally. This session provides a practical demonstration of AI’s creative capabilities in the field of music, showcasing its ability to craft impactful melodies.

In addition to in-house sessions by industry experts, Devfest also aims to engage its participants in workshops that will help elevate their practical skills. These include

Getting started with Vertex AI and LangChain
Developing AI Applications with Low-Code Solutions
Decoding Communication: AI and Human Relationship

Don’t miss the opportunity to be a part of the tech event of the year. Expand your professional network and forge meaningful connections during our dedicated networking session – your next significant opportunity could be just a conversation away!

Join us at DevFest Ai 2023 to explore the latest trends, network with like-minded individuals, and gain insights that will shape your future in the tech world. For more information, follow us on our social media for event updates and exciting announcements.

Join us at DevFest Ai 2023 to explore the latest trends, network with like-minded individuals, and gain insights that will shape your future in the tech world.

For more information, follow us on our social media for event updates and exciting announcements.

Retailo – Exploring Market Prospects, Business Model, and Investment Landscape

Tehreem Farooqi — Thu, 02 Nov 2023 04:48:56 GMT

Retailo is spearheading a transformation in the retail sector within the Middle East, North Africa, and Pakistan (MENAP) region, a market that’s rapidly adapting to digital trends. The startup is pioneering in streamlining retail supply chains, making retail simpler and more accessible. By digitizing retail supply chains, Retailo is not only simplifying the retail business but also expanding its reach across various markets within the MENAP region.

The venture began its journey with a vision to modernize the retail landscape, which traditionally has been informal and fragmented, especially in these parts of the world. Through its innovative B2B marketplace platform, Retailo is striving to bridge the gap between retailers and suppliers, ensuring a smoother flow of goods and transactions within the retail ecosystem.

As a first-of-its-kind regional B2B startup, Retailo is laying down the tracks for a more organized and efficient retail sector, facilitating numerous small and medium-sized businesses along the way.

At a Glance

Startup Name: Retailo
Location: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Founded: 2020
Total Funding: $45 million
Industry: B2B, Online Marketplace, Retail Technology
Website: retailo.co

Business Model

Problem Statement

The retail sector in the Middle East, North Africa, and Pakistan (MENAP) region has traditionally been characterized by informal and fragmented supply chains. This fragmentation often leads to inefficiencies, inadequate access to goods, and a lack of transparency between retailers and suppliers.

The complexity and informality in the retail supply chain further exacerbate issues such as stockouts, overstocking, and an inability to match supply with demand accurately. Additionally, the lack of digitalization in the sector makes it challenging for small and medium-sized retail businesses to compete and thrive in the market.

With a retail market size of $500 billion in the MENAP region, addressing these challenges can significantly impact millions of small businesses and the broader economy.

Solution

Retailo has developed an online B2B marketplace platform designed to simplify the retail business, particularly focusing on the MENAP region. The platform aims to bridge the gap between retailers and suppliers by digitizing retail supply chains. This digital transformation facilitates smoother transactions, better inventory management, and more transparent interactions between the parties involved.

The unique approach of Retailo lies in its regional focus, addressing the specific challenges faced by retailers and suppliers in the MENAP region, a market that has traditionally been characterized by informal and fragmented retail supply chains. By providing a digital platform, Retailo is not only streamlining the process of buying and selling but also ensuring that small and medium-sized retail businesses have the resources and connections necessary to thrive in the market.

With its innovative platform, Retailo stands out by providing a tailored solution to the unique challenges faced by the retail sector in the MENAP region, which differentiates it from other generic B2B marketplace platforms that might not cater to the specific needs and challenges of this region.

Value Proposition

Retailo’s value proposition is anchored on simplifying and digitizing retail supply chains in the MENAP region. By providing a digital B2B marketplace platform, Retailo addresses the traditional challenges of fragmentation and informality within the retail sector. This digital transformation facilitated by Retailo’s platform results in smoother transactions, better inventory management, and more transparent interactions between retailers and suppliers. Here’s a breakdown of Retailo’s value proposition:

Regional Focus: Tailored solutions for the specific challenges faced by the retail sector in the MENAP region, unlike other generic B2B marketplaces.
Digital Transformation: Streamlining retail supply chains by digitizing processes, thus minimizing inefficiencies and promoting transparency.
Access to Resources: Enabling small and medium-sized retail businesses to have the resources and connections necessary to thrive in a competitive market.
Market Expansion: Providing a platform for retailers and suppliers to expand their reach across multiple markets within the MENAP region.

Retailo’s unique regional focus, coupled with its digital solution, positions it as a significant player in modernizing the retail sector, making it attractive to both retailers and suppliers within the MENAP region.

Founding Story

The founding story of Retailo is rooted in the collective vision of its three co-founders—Muhammad Talha Ansari, Wahaj Ahmed, and Muhammad Nowkhaiz. These individuals, before forming Retailo, had notable experience as executives at the regional ride-hailing giant Careem. Their journey towards establishing Retailo began in 2020, intending to transform the retail landscape in the MENAP region.

The trio identified a significant gap in the retail market, particularly concerning the interaction between small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and suppliers. They aimed to create a one-stop solution for SMEs and retailers to discover and procure products for their stores with the promise of having them delivered within 24 hours. This initiative was driven by a broader ambition to change the perception of the MENAP region and assert it as a significant player in the B2B E-commerce space, as Retailo expanded its operations to key markets within the region shortly after its inception.

The founders leveraged their background and network from their time at Careem to attract substantial investment early on, enabling Retailo to secure a seed funding round of $6.7 million, which at the time, was recognized as a significant achievement for a Saudi-based startup.

Their journey reflects a blend of expertise, vision, and timely execution, positioning Retailo as a promising venture in bridging the retail supply chain gaps within the MENAP region.

Vision

The vision of Retailo, as shared by its co-founders, pivots around digitally transforming the retail sector, especially within the Middle East, North Africa, and Pakistan (MENAP) region. They aim to streamline the historically complex retail supply chains in the region by leveraging technology. Here’s a breakdown of their vision and the impact they aim to create:

Technological Transformation:

Retailo’s core vision is to technologically supercharge the retail supply chain in the MENAP region, creating a seamless connection between manufacturers and SME retailers through their online B2B e-commerce platform.

Efficiency and Transparency:

By introducing real-time data and technology into the supply chain, Retailo aims to eliminate the information asymmetry that has traditionally caused delays and inefficiencies. The founders believe that their platform can make ordering patterns more meaningful and enable better supply chain and production planning.

Supporting SMEs:

The founders are focused on supporting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by helping them connect with suppliers and get the best deals on inventory for their stores. Their platform aims to become the main distribution channel for manufacturers and the main buying channel for SMEs.

Long-term Impact:

The founders envision creating a long-term impact by solving core problems in the retail sector and creating real value. They see Retailo as a venture that can significantly improve the lives of people involved in the retail sector, be it manufacturers, retailers, or even consumers indirectly, by making the supply chain more efficient and transparent.

Market Expansion:

Retailo’s short-term plans include building a strong team to scale operations in the huge, untapped market of the MENAP region. They are laying the foundation to ensure they have the necessary tools in place to support their partners and customers efficiently.

Overcoming Challenges:

They recognize the challenges of operating in huge cash economies and are working on digital payment solutions to accelerate transactions and document the economy better. They also acknowledge the challenge of digitizing information in the supply chain and are aggressively working towards overcoming these challenges.

Building a Resilient Business:

The founders’ approach to building Retailo amidst the pandemic reflects their resilience and ability to turn crises into opportunities. Their vision extends beyond merely surviving the pandemic, as they aim to establish a resilient business model that can thrive and expand in the long term.

This vision is driven by a larger ambition to change the perception of the MENAP region and assert it as a significant player in the B2B E-commerce space, contributing to the broader economic development of the region.

Background of Founders

Muhammad Talha Ansari:

Talha is the Co-Founder of Retailo Technologies. Talha has a rich background in operations and business development. Before Retailo, he served as the Senior Director of Operations at Careem’s last-mile delivery business in the MENAP region. He also successfully launched and turned a Rocket Internet company profitable as its Managing Director in Pakistan.

Talha, alongside Muhammad Nowkhaiz and Wahaj Ahmed, founded Retailo to build a B2B marketplace for small retailers in Pakistan and the Middle East. The venture was propelled by a $6.7 million seed round, marking the beginning of their journey to revolutionize the retail supply chain in the region.

Wahaj Ahmed:

Wahaj is the Co-Founder, Chief Revenue Officer (CRO), and Acting Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) at Retailo Technologies. He strongly believes in creating an impact in people’s lives by providing them opportunities to improve their earning potential.

Wahaj transitioned from Careem to Retailo, co-founding the startup with the vision of simplifying retail in the MENAP region. He has been associated with Retailo as a co-founder since 2020, indicating a shared ambition to leverage technology for retail transformation.

Muhammad Nowkhaiz:

Nowkhaiz is the Co-Founder of Retailo Technologies. Like his co-founders, Muhammad Nowkhaiz transitioned from Careem to launch Retailo, reflecting a shared ambition to digitize and simplify retail in the MENAP region.

Funding Journey

Seed Funding:

Details about the exact amount raised in the Seed Funding round are not publicly disclosed. However, it was noted that Retailo secured substantial seed funding to initiate its operations, with a portion of it being $6.7 million, as mentioned by Talha Ansari in an interview.

Series A Funding: Raised $36 million

On February 1, 2022, Retailo raised $36 million in a mixed equity and debt Series A funding round. The equity portion of the funding was backed by several notable investors:

Graphene Ventures
500 Global
Agility
Aujan
Tech Invest Com
Mentor’s Fund

Nahda Fund led the venture-debt funding in this round.

Series A – II Funding:

On February 15, 2023, Retailo secured additional funding in a Series A – II round. The exact amount and the investors involved in this round have not been publicly disclosed. Several reputable investors took part in this round, including:

Graphene Ventures
Shorooq Partners
IMM Investment Global
AgFunder
Abercross Holdings.

The funding has been utilized to expand Retailo’s operational footprint, enhance its technological infrastructure, and further its market penetration within the MENAP region.

Future Prospects

Based on Retailo’s recent funding rounds and statements given by Retailo’s founding team, their future plans include:

Market Expansion: Expanding their market presence within the MENAP region to serve more retailers and suppliers.
Technology Enhancement: Improving their platform’s technology to provide better services to their users.
Partnerships: Forming partnerships with other companies or organizations to enhance their offerings or market reach.
Increasing Workforce: Hiring more employees to support their growth.

Challenges and Risks

Below are some of the problems Retailo can face if they don’t take preventative measures and plan accordingly:

Economic Slowdown:

The retail industry is closely tied to the overall economic health. A slowing economy can lead to reduced consumer spending, which in turn can affect retail sales adversely. For startups like Retailo, this can mean lower revenue, potential layoffs, or a slowdown in expansion plans.

Data Management:

Retail businesses have access to a plethora of data which, if analyzed and utilized effectively, can lead to better customer experiences and operational efficiencies. However, managing and making sense of this data can be challenging, and failing to do so can result in missed opportunities and inefficiencies.

Customer Experience:

Delivering a superior customer experience is critical in the competitive retail market. Consumers have come to expect seamless shopping experiences both online and offline. The ability of Retailo to meet or exceed these expectations could significantly affect its market share and overall success.

Global Retail Sales Decline:

With the recent downturn in global retail sales, due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic, Retailo may find it challenging to achieve its sales targets. This trend could also affect investor confidence, which is crucial for startups to secure necessary funding for operations and growth.

Technology Adaptation:

In a market that’s continually evolving, staying updated with the latest technologies is vital. Technology can help in mitigating the effects of some of the challenges mentioned earlier, like enhancing customer experience and managing data effectively. The ability of Retailo to adapt to new technologies quickly and efficiently could be a significant factor in overcoming these challenges.

A Deep Dive into the Growth of BNPL Startups in the MENAP Region

Tehreem Farooqi — Tue, 31 Oct 2023 09:10:48 GMT

Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) is fast becoming a go-to payment method, offering a simple alternative to traditional credit. This model allows customers to get what they want immediately, but return the cost over time. It’s making waves in the Middle East, North Africa, and Pakistan (MENAP) region, a place where traditional credit systems have often felt distant for many.

In MENAP, where cash transactions have been the norm, BNPL is introducing a new era of financial freedom. The growth of BNPL startups in this region is an indicator of changing financial habits, fuelled by tech advancements, evolving consumer behavior, and a broader shift towards accessible credit solutions.

The journey of BNPL in MENAP is not just a tale of financial innovation but a narrative of how modern payment solutions are bridging the credit gap. The market for BNPL services in the Middle East alone is forecasted to skyrocket from $7.2 billion in 2021 to a whopping $89 billion by 2030, highlighting the vast potential and the escalating trust in such payment frameworks.

In this editorial, we will delve deeper into the BNPL sector, exploring the market dynamics, regulatory landscape, and economic implications as MENAP stands on the verge of a credit revolution.

The Rise of BNPL in MENAP

The emergence of Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) startups in the MENAP (Middle East, North Africa, and Pakistan) region is not merely a result of global fintech evolution, but a direct response to the unique financial landscape of the area. Historically, credit facilities were less accessible here compared to regions like North America and Europe due to factors like low financial literacy and a high percentage of unbanked or underbanked individuals.

Early Adopters Leading the Change:

The MENAP region, particularly the Middle East, has been quick to adopt BNPL services. Companies like Dubai-based Postpay have recognized the opportunity BNPL presents in bridging the credit gap and fostering financial inclusivity. Notable players like Tabby and Tamara have not only gained traction locally but also attracted significant investment, indicating a strong belief in the BNPL model’s potential in this region.

Addressing Regional Credit Challenges:

BNPL is helping to mitigate the historically low financial inclusion in MENAP, making short-term financing accessible and convenient. This is especially relevant in a region where, even in economically stronger areas like the GCC, around 22% of the population remains unbanked.

The low penetration of credit cards in MENAP contrasts sharply with regions like the US, where credit card penetration is around 70 to 75%. BNPL offers a customer-friendly alternative that has resonated well with consumers, especially those new to credit.

Evolving Consumer Behavior:

The shift in consumer behavior, partly driven by the pandemic, has seen an increased trust in online shopping and digital payment methods in MENAP. This shift provides a fertile ground for BNPL services to flourish. BNPL addresses the long-standing trust deficit around prepayment, offering a more appealing alternative to the traditionally preferred cash-on-delivery payment method in the region.

Enabling E-commerce Growth:

By facilitating payment flexibility, BNPL services are not only aiding consumers but also merchants who benefit from accelerated growth and increased customer loyalty. The BNPL model is contributing significantly to the modernization of cash-reliant economies in the region, further driving the regional boom in fintech and e-commerce.

Regulatory Environment and Challenges

As the BNPL sector burgeons in the MENAP region, it navigates through a relatively unchartered regulatory landscape. Unlike traditional credit systems, BNPL services have operated with a degree of “regulatory leeway” which has facilitated quicker scalability compared to other fintechs in the lending space. This is due to BNPL’s unique model where monetization comes directly from merchants, not the customers, thus not framed as lenders.

Evolving Regulatory Frameworks:

The Central Bank of Saudi Arabia (SAMA) has issued a BNPL permit for providers that do not charge fees or interest to customers. SAMA also published a set of BNPL-focused regulatory frameworks aiming to deter irresponsible spending and protect consumers from accumulating unnecessary debt by capping the amount users can spend with BNPL providers.

The main objective of these regulations is to ensure that the growth of BNPL services is aligned with consumer protection, maintaining a balance between innovation and financial stability.

Operational Challenges:

Rising interest rates pose a challenge as BNPL companies end up charging merchants higher repeat costs to cover their operating expenses. This makes the BNPL model more challenging to manage in a high-interest environment.

The regulatory frameworks, while necessary for consumer protection, could potentially hamper the agility and fundraising prospects of BNPL startups, especially if the regulations are rigid. More flexible and ‘lighter’ regulations are deemed better suited for the agile nature of BNPL startups.

The initial regulatory steps have addressed some global uncertainties around the BNPL sector, providing more clarity and, in turn, comfort to investors. However, there’s a concern that more stringent regulations might impact the fundraising prospects negatively.

Global Regulatory Trends:

Globally, governments are exploring BNPL regulation, acknowledging the need for a clear, comprehensive, and well-defined set of regulatory frameworks to foster a conducive environment for BNPL players to operate, yet ensuring consumer protection.

The regulatory milieu in the MENAP region is a double-edged sword for BNPL startups. On one side, it brings a structure and legitimacy to the burgeoning sector, while on the other, it brings operational challenges that could potentially slow down the pace of growth. Nonetheless, the steps taken towards regulation signal a maturing market and an acknowledgment of BNPL’s role in the modern financial ecosystem of the region.

Economic Implications of BNPL

The Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) trend is not just a fleeting phenomenon in the MENAP region; it’s a cog in the larger wheel driving economic transformation. Here’s a dive into the economic tapestry being rewoven by BNPL services in MENAP.

E-commerce Surge:

The rise of BNPL is intertwined with the exponential growth of e-commerce in the region. The convenience and affordability BNPL offers have further fueled online shopping. In the MENAP region, e-commerce growth stands at a CAGR of 18.4% from 2019 to 2022, outpacing the global rate of 16.6%. The e-commerce market in the broader MEASA region is projected to reach $148.5 billion in 2022.

Accelerating Digital Payments:

Digital payments have become the gateway to economic growth in MENAP, with BNPL playing a pivotal role. In 2021 alone, 60% of consumers in the region preferred digital payment methods, up 20% from the previous year. The adoption of digital payments is contributing to cross-border economic activities and is seen by authorities as a catalyst for economic prosperity.

Consumer and Merchant Adoption:

Over 50% of consumers in MENAP are expected to use BNPL services in 2022, and 36% of merchants already have a BNPL offering. Notable adoption rates are seen in Saudi Arabia (39%), Qatar (34%), and Egypt (28%) in 2021. The trend reflects a shift in consumer behavior and merchant strategies, aligning with the global move towards flexible payment options.

Stimulating Economic Activity:

The emergence of BNPL is stimulating economic activity by facilitating consumer spending. As consumers find it easier to manage payments, they are likely to spend more, driving up sales for businesses. This, in turn, stimulates economic activity, potentially leading to increased employment and business expansions.

Risk Mitigation and Consumer Protection:

The potential downside includes over-leveraging by consumers, which could lead to financial instability. However, proactive regulatory frameworks, like those initiated by the Central Bank of Saudi Arabia, aim to deter irresponsible spending while fostering a conducive environment for BNPL growth.

Global Investor Interest:

The region has seen a flurry of investments in BNPL startups, like the acquisition of Pakistani lending company Tez Financial Services by Swiss-based BNPL startup ZoodPay. Such investments signify global investor interest in the MENAP’s BNPL landscape, projecting a promising economic outlook.

Potential Risks:

Despite the optimistic outlook, there are concerns globally regarding the valuation and sustainability of BNPL companies, as seen in the valuation slash of Klarna and a significant share price drop of Australia’s Zip. Such occurrences may have ripple effects in the MENAP region, potentially impacting investor confidence and market stability.

Case Studies: Leading BNPL Startups in MENAP

The following case studies clarify the success of some notable BNPL startups in the MENAP region:

Tabby:

Founded in 2019, this Dubai-based BNPL startup has quickly risen to prominence. As of 2023, Tabby has secured a total funding of $130 million, making it one of the top-funded BNPL startups in the region. It has partnered with over 3000 online and offline merchants across various sectors, indicating a broad adoption of its services.

Postpay:

Also established in 2019, Postpay is part of the ongoing credit revolution in the Middle East. It has accumulated $63.5 million in funding. With backers like Afterpay and Touch Ventures Ltd, Postpay is well-positioned to continue its growth trajectory in the BNPL sector.

Tamara:

Launched in Saudi Arabia, Tamara has been operational for a little over a year and is already making significant strides. Although the exact funding amount is not mentioned, the startup’s rapid adoption indicates a promising future in the BNPL landscape of the MENAP region.

These startups showcase how the BNPL model is being embraced in the MENAP region. Their success stories reflect a broader trend of financial innovation, driven by a blend of technology, consumer demand, and an evolving retail landscape. Each startup, with its unique approach and market strategy, contributes to the burgeoning BNPL ecosystem, providing valuable insights into the region’s credit revolution and the potential of BNPL services.

Wrapping up

The Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) wave is more than a transient trend in the MENAP region; it’s a pivotal part of the ongoing credit revolution. The simplicity and convenience of BNPL services are unlocking new financial avenues for consumers and merchants alike. As we’ve seen, startups like Tabby, Postpay, and Tamara are at the forefront, demonstrating how innovative payment solutions can thrive in a region traditionally reliant on cash transactions.

The growth trajectory of BNPL startups in MENAP is a testament to the region’s readiness to embrace modern financial solutions. The synergy between technological innovation, consumer demand, and a supportive regulatory environment is fostering a conducive ecosystem for BNPL services to flourish. The regulatory frameworks being developed, although in nascent stages, reflect a proactive approach to ensuring consumer protection while nurturing innovation.

The economic narrative unfolding in MENAP, underlined by the surge in e-commerce and digital payments, is intertwined with the rise of BNPL. By facilitating easy and flexible payments, BNPL is not only boosting consumer spending but also catalyzing the digital transformation of retail and e-commerce sectors in the region.

Through the lens of BNPL, we glimpse a broader fintech evolution in MENAP, heralding a new era of financial inclusivity and digital empowerment. As BNPL startups continue to innovate and expand, they are paving the way for a more accessible and consumer-centric financial landscape in the region.

YES Electromotive and WASL Investment Finance Ltd. Forge Partnership for EV Accessibility

Press Release — Thu, 12 Oct 2023 12:30:30 GMT

Pakistan, October 10, 2023 – YES Electromotive (SMC-Private) Limited, a leading electric vehicle (EV) innovator, has partnered with WASL Investment Finance Ltd, a non-bank finance company (NBFC), to offer accessible EV financing options for their upcoming “MUVA” an electric three-wheeler, scheduled to be launching in early 2024.

A formal signing ceremony that commemorated this partnership was attended by senior executives from both parties.

As per the arrangement, WASL will be the primary financing source for MUVA customers such as drivers and corporates, providing competitive installment options.

In the current economic context marked by inflation, last-mile delivery, and customer goods delivery hold significant importance. YES Electromotive’s MUVA promises to reduce operating costs by an impressive 75% compared to traditional internal combustion engines, making it a key player in addressing the issue.

EVs typically have higher upfront costs, and intermediaries like WASL will play a crucial role in bridging the initial financing gap, which is offset by future fuel savings.

Elaborating on the partnership, Hasan Mian, CEO of YES Electromotive summarized “Runaway inflation is the biggest political and economic challenge facing many countries today. Fuel cost being the most stubborn, talked-about and dollarized component in Pakistan can be solved through the electrification of mobility. While we spearhead innovation and manufacture of vehicles in this space, an alliance with WASL will take care of lowering the upfront costs. It’s a win-win-win-win-win; Us, WASL, End-User, Economy and the Environment.”

Faraz Zaidi, CEO of WASL Investment Finance Ltd., expressed optimism, saying, “This collaboration promises not only financial benefits through improved efficiencies but also an enhanced experience for drivers and passengers, intending to reduce our nation’s dependence on fossil fuels.

The partnership represents a milestone in democratizing access to sustainable and cost-effective transportation, aligning with global efforts to combat soaring fuel costs and reduce environmental impact.

Rabbit – Business Idea, Value Proposition, and Everything else about the company

Sarwat Rizvi — Thu, 24 Aug 2023 06:40:36 GMT

The rapid on-demand grocery and convenience delivery craze has taken over Europe and the U.S. this past year and seems to be gradually making its way into Africa and the Middle East.

Despite a slower H1’2021 and a 10-deal drop in deals since full-year 2020, the E-commerce industry in MENA picked up by Q3 2021, raising $71M more than the total capital deployed in all of 2020.

As recorded by Magnitt’s Q3 2021 EVM E-commerce Venture Investment Report, Egypt climbed the ladder to become the most active E-commerce geography in terms of the number of deals in Q3 2021, as well as the most-funded in terms of the volume of capital deployed. This rise in E-commerce came with a complementary growth of the FinTech and Transport & Logistics sectors in Egypt, driving their 258% and 541% YoY growth by Q3 2021 respectively.

This is where the startup Rabbit enters. Rabbit is the latest of a long list of startups that investors are willing to pump money into globally, to deliver groceries and other items from neighborhood fulfillment centers to people’s homes in 20 minutes or less.

What is Rabbit?

Founded in 2021, the Cairo-based 20-minute grocery delivery startup Rabbit is a mobile app-based company that pledges to deliver groceries and more in 20 minutes using a dark store model.

The startup is currently serving four locations in central Cairo – Mohandeseen, Zamalek, Maadi, and Nasr City. It runs on tech-enabled hyper-local fulfillment centers and guarantees its customers a grocery delivery time of under 20 minutes.

In a statement, Ahmad Yousry, Rabbit’s chief executive officer (CEO), said:

Consumer expectations have evolved significantly over the past two decades. On-demand has taken over the music, media and transportation industries and we believe that on-demand retail is next.

Background of Founders

Ahmad Yousry

Ahmad is an alumnus of the Arab Academy and completed his Bachelor’s in Engineering with honors for Science, Technology & Maritime Transport (AAST). After that, he went to the business side and received his MBA degree in Marketing.

Yousry started his early career at the Vodafone Group in the Growth and Business Transformation Principle domain.

Then over the course of the next few years, Yousry held leadership positions at several companies across the tech and telecommunications industries including Uber and Talabat, most recently serving as the General Manager for Talabt Mart, and the General Manager for Uber Eatsin Egypt. Until 2021, when he became the co-founder and CEO of Rabbit.

Walid Shabana

Walid completed his Bachelor’s in Computer Science at the American University in Cairo. After which, he completed his post-grad at the Heriot-Watt University in Business Administration.

He started his early career as a programmer in Vodafone and after a few years, climbed up the leader and served in various leadership roles. Until 2021, he co-founded and launched the Cairo-based startup, Rabbit, alongside his colleagues.

Ismail Hafez

Ismail is also an alumnus of the American University in Cairo(AUC) and completed his Bachelor’s in Business Administration with Marketing.

After that, he completed his Master’s in Business Administration at the Hult International Business School. He started his career as a Business Analyst at KPMG. From there, he served in various organizations in different senior capacities including, FORTUNE PROMOSEVEN, Mobinil, Dorra Group, and Kazyon. Then finally, in 2021, he joined Rabbit as a co-founder and COO (Chief Operating Officer).

Tarek El Geresy

Tarek is an alumnus of the Cairo University with a Bachelor’s in Commerce. He started his early career at the Egypt-based company, TNT Express. After that, he joined Vodafone and served there in different capacities.

After Vodafone, he joined Pepsico in a Senior Executive capacity, until in 2021, he finally Rabbit, as a CFO (Chief Financial Officer).

Why Rabbit?

The company claims to control the end-to-end experience on its platform, via a live inventory tracking system in its warehouses to monitor what’s on the shelf and equips riders with the necessary protective gear and technology to make the deliveries.

Rabbit operates in a manner similar to other international on-demand convenience delivery startups before it. It has taken the Amazon model with large warehousing and broken it down into small pieces — micro-fulfillment centers — in four neighborhoods across Cairo: Mohandeseen, Zamalek, Maadi, and Nasr City.

Rabbit buys these five categories of items (groceries, essential fashion items, cosmetics, toys, and household items) from third-party suppliers, stores them in its warehouses, adds a markup, and sells through their app with a flat delivery fee for customers.

Funding Secured

Pre-Seed Round: Raised $11 million

In November 2021, the startup raised $11 million in the largest-ever pre-seed round in the Middle East and Africa. The investment came from Global Founders Capital, Foundation Ventures, Raed Ventures, MSA Captial, and Goodwater Capital.

Future Prospects

The startup plans to expand coverage areas soon, moving into several major cities by adding a new fulfillment center every other week and processing hundreds of thousands of orders per month.

Sarwa – Business Idea, Value Proposition, and Everything else about the company

Sarwat Rizvi — Wed, 23 Aug 2023 07:29:43 GMT

According to stats shared by Allied Market Research, the global Robo-advisory market size is projected to grow by 31.8 percent to $41.07 billion by 2027, up from $4.41bn in 2019.

Retail investors are increasingly seeking direct access to markets with the help of technology, leading to a surge in the popularity of zero-commission trading apps such as Robinhood, eToro, and Interactive Brokers.

Demand for trading apps has also risen during the pandemic due to monetary easing by the US Federal Reserve and other central banks worldwide, giving novice day traders more money to invest during pandemic lockdowns.

This has launched many startups in this domain, given the increasing need for a one-stop shop for self-directed trading and auto-investing. One such startup, making use of this opportunity is Sarwa.

What is Sarwa?

Founded in 2017, the UAE-based Sarwa is an investment and personal finance platform connecting the GCC market to international stock exchanges and cryptocurrencies. Additionally, it was the first fintech company to be licensed as a digital financial advisor for young professionals in the MENA region and was awarded the first-ever Innovation Testing License by the Dubai Financial Services Authority.

The startup is set to revolutionize the way in which young professionals grow their wealth by introducing smart, simple, and affordable digital investing to the region through its flagship product, Sarwa Invest. To date, the company has raised around $25 million from regional and international investors, as well as government funds.

Since its launch, Sarwa claims to have accumulated 40,000 users engaging with the platform to invest in stocks and build their own portfolios. In 2020, the FinTech startup experienced a surge of new investors in light of the turbulent financial landscape, yet investors were able to realize more than 33% average year-on-year returns for a balanced portfolio.

Background of Founders

Left to Right: Mark Chahwan, Nadine Mezher and Jad Sayegh

Mark Chahwan

Mark completed his Bachelor’s at McGill University in Commerce, with a major in Finance. He started his early career at BLOMINVEST Bank, as an Investment Banking Analyst.

Over the course of the next few years, he served at multiple organizations in different capacities. Then in 2017, he co-founded Sarwa, alongside the rest of his colleagues.

Nadine Mezher

Nadine completed her Bachelor’s in Business Administration at the American University of Beirut.

In 2005, she founded a high-end fashion house, under the label, Nadine Mezher LLC. She also served as the Brand Strategy Consultant for various companies. In 2013, Nadine joined Dubai Tourism as a Senior Manager. Then in 2017, she co-founded Sarwa and joined as the company’s Chief Marketing Officer.

Jad Sayegh

Jad completed his Bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering at McGill University. He started his career as a Field Engineer, at the Canada-based company, GBS Group. In 2013, he joined Ericsson as a Software Developer.

Then in 2017, he co-founded Sarwa and joined as its Chief Technology Officer.

Why Sarwa?

The platform’s objective is to make powerful money management tools available for all by building a brand that makes it easier for the masses to get a head start on building their personal wealth. Sarwa is built on the combination of innovative tech and a customer-centric brand.

In a statement, Ibrahim Ajami, head of ventures and growth at Mubadala Investment Company said:

Sarwa is revolutionizing the financial services landscape in the Middle East by offering a range of investment solutions to a large market that has had little access to such services in the past.

The platform suggests to users a portfolio and investment plan based on their risk appetite and financial goals. And further enables them to invest their savings with as little as $5 across different stocks using Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) through its web and mobile apps. In an attempt to cater to the modern financial needs of its users, the company has recently introduced Sarwa Crypto, a portfolio with 5 percent exposure to Bitcoin (through Grayscale Bitcoin Trust GBTC, the world’s first and largest publicly quoted Bitcoin investment vehicle).

The platform allows its users to run their investments on autopilot based on their investment plan by automating deposits. The platform also offers access to human advisors who can assist users with their investment decisions.

Funding Raised

Seed Round: Raised $1.5 million

In November 2017, the startup raised $200K in a seed round led by Shorooq Partners.

Later, in September 2018, the startup raised an additional $1.3 million as part of another seed round, yet again led by the same investor, i.e., Shorooq Partners.

Series A Round: Raised $8.4 million

In January 2020, the investment advisory platform raised $8.4 million in a Series A round.

The round was led by Kuwait Projects Company (aka KIPCO), one of the leading investment holding companies of the region, and joined by a number of other investors including:

Dubai International Financial Center
Abu Dhabi Investment Office, Saudi-based Vision Ventures
UK’s Hambro Perks

Series B Round: Raised $15 million

In August 2020, Sarwa closed a $15 million Series B round led by Mubadala (Investment Company). The round took Sarwa’s total financing to date to over $25 million and was also joined by 500 Startups, including:

Kuwait Projects Company
Shorooq Partners
Middle East Venture Partners
DIFC
Hambro Perks Oryx Fund
Hala Ventures
Vision Ventures

Future Prospects

Sarwa plans to use the raised funds to expand its market position, grow the team, and launch new products that will address all aspects of personal finance. Sarwa Crypto, Sarwa Invest and Sarwa Trade are among the products that Sarwa is looking to improve and launch going forward.

Some other notable players in the space include New York-headquartered Wahed, Dubai-based Baraka which recently raised $4 million in a seed round and launched its investment app, and Cairo-based Thndr.

Notion Comes to Pakistan: Islamabad Hosts Unforgettable Inaugural Community Meetup!

Neha Chaudhary — Wed, 02 Aug 2023 15:47:16 GMT

On July 22nd, 2023, history was made as the first-ever Notion Community Meetup was hosted in Pakistan, in the capital of Islamabad, at the National Incubation Centre for Aerospace Technologies (NICAT). The event gathered Notion wizards, product enthusiasts, corporate executives, entrepreneurs, and students from across the country.

The event was hosted by Notion Islamabad which is Pakistan’s pioneering user group operating in the heart of the capital, with a vision to enable individuals to unlock their full potential through the power of Notion. With a hyperfocus on learning and building, Notion Islamabad serves as a hub for enthusiasts, professionals, and learners who are eager to explore and utilize Notion’s powerful features.

The event kicked off with an opening note from Usman Aslam, User Group Leader, Pakistan, greeting the attendees and explaining how Notion is an all-encompassing tool for individuals who are aiming to build businesses, bootstrap their startups, enhance their productivity, or even build communities. Moreover, Usman showcased some of the amazing capabilities of Notion, such as Notion AI, Notion API, Notion Projects, and more.

The stage was then presented to Ahmad Waheed, who is the Head of Product at Markaz Technologies. He talked about how product management can be streamlined with Notion while emphasizing on its widespread usage among companies and individuals. Ahmad Waheed showcased the applications of Notion in various settings, highlighting its role as a catalyst for optimizing workflow efficiency and thus streamlining product management.

While addressing the audience regarding the intricacies of Product Managament, he stated:

“Notion is a unique tool that is used by not just companies or startups but it is also used by individuals and hobbyists. The Notion Islamabad event will not only help in the adoption of such tools but also act as a platform for like minded people to form communities where they can learn from each other and contribute to the overall growth of the ecosystem.”

The event was further preceded by a session with Ume Habiba, Senior UI/UX Designer at 10Pearls. She explained the criticality of each step in the design process, from idea generation to seamless integration. She further talked about how Notion streamlines the design process, offering a flexible workspace for effective project management and collaboration.

The event proceeded further toward a fun icebreaker session, where segment featured interactive activities and some exciting prizes.

All of this was followed by an informative session by Arsalan Khattak, Senior Developer Advocate at Ironforge Cloud. He shared valuable insights on how software engineers can empower themselves through developer advocacy using Notion and how one can start deep diving into the wonders of Developer Advocacy. He talked about how creating consistent and relevant content and engaging with diverse communities can get you the desired role.

Next came the most anticipated session with internet sensation Hamza Ali Bhatti, moderated by the creative legend, Usra Murtaza, Senior Marketing Associate at WALEE. Hamza Bhatti talked about how he thought outside the box to start his creative journey. He enthralled the audience with his inspiring tale of venturing into the content creation realm, stressing the significance of finding one’s niche and crafting a unique online identity. Moreover, he emphasized how Notion helps him be more productive in his day-to-day life while stating the following:

“As a Notion User Power user, it’s a huge honor for me to be a part of the first Notion community meetup in Pakistan. I think having such events in Pakistan is a pretty huge milestone. For over 4 years I have been using Notion and it has become my daily driver for almost everything-from managing my finances and maintaining a personal journal to even handling my business. It was truly amazing being able to share my own experiences with the platform.”

The Notion Islamabad Community Meetup concluded with a vibrant networking session, providing a platform for productivity enthusiasts, students, and professionals from various fields to interact and engage with each other. Attendees left satisfied, having experienced an inspiring environment to cultivate productivity in their lives. The meetup served as an amazing opportunity to boost confidence, think innovatively, and take the next big leap by integrating Notion into their lives. The event organizers extended their heartfelt gratitude to the partners and sponsors who provided their invaluable support. Among the esteemed contributors were 10Pearls Pakistan, RedBull Pakistan, NUST ACM Student Chapter, Markaz, Daftarkhwan, Bytewise, NICAT, and the MLSA Islamabad chapter.

Google I/O Extended Islamabad’23 Unveils An Exciting Lineup of Talks and Workshops

Press Release — Tue, 01 Aug 2023 12:07:04 GMT

Google Developer Group Islamabad is thrilled to announce the much-anticipated Google I/O Extended 2023, bringing together tech enthusiasts, developers, and industry experts for a day of knowledge sharing, innovation, and inspiration. The event will take place on August 5th, at FAST University, Islamabad, showcasing the latest advancements in technology with the brightest minds in the industry.

This year’s agenda boasts an exciting lineup of speaker sessions and workshops designed to empower attendees with cutting-edge insights and skills. The event will feature the following key presentations:

What’s New From Google

Join Huzaifa Habib, Community Manager, Developer Relations @ Google, at I/O Extended Islamabad, in unveiling groundbreaking innovations reshaping the tech landscape. Stay ahead in the ever-evolving digital world by learning from the forefront of technology.

Google Cloud for Startups

Esna Ong, Startup Success Manager, APAC, Google Cloud, will talk about how Google Cloud’s cutting-edge solutions empower startups to scale, innovate, and thrive in today’s competitive landscape. The talk will explore the limitless possibilities of Google Cloud to take startups to new heights of success.

Leveraging Cloud Technologies for Business

Ali Naqi – Cloud Consultant at Teradata & Co-manager at GDG Islamabad, will share insights on ‘Leveraging Cloud Technologies for Business Growth.’ This talk is a game-changer, empowering the audience with cutting-edge strategies to stay ahead in the tech world.

Optimizing Core Web Vitals for Your SPA

Led by Mashhood Rastgar, the engineering mastermind behind Taleemabad, the session on, ‘Optimising Core Web Vitals for your SPA,’ aims to unveil the secrets to enhancing web performance and mastering Core Web Vitals

How to Protect Your Mental Health at the Workplace

In today’s fast-paced and demanding work environments, mental health is more important than ever. At Google I/O Extended Islamabad, we recognize the significance of mental well-being, and this talk is dedicated to addressing this crucial topic. Learn effective strategies and practical tips on how to protect and nurture your mental health in the workplace.

Building Low-Code AI Applications FAST!

This session is designed to equip you with the knowledge and skills to build AI solutions rapidly and efficiently. Whether you’re a seasoned developer or new to the world of AI, this talk will unveil the simplicity and speed of low-code development. Led by Taimoor Hassan, you’ll learn how to leverage this transformative technology to propel your projects forward.

Future of Work – Panel Discussion

Last but not least, the event hosts a stellar panel featuring industry experts, who will explore the Future of Work and discuss how the current technological advancements will reshape the workforce of tomorrow. Panelists include:

Fawad Hussain, Co-Founder CTO @ Markaz
Samina Seth, Co-Founder @ WALEE
Arslan Javed, Co-Founder @ Graana & NextTrain.io

In addition to the talks, Google I/O Extended Islamabad will host workshops for hands-on learning on The Cybersecurity Landscape: Challenges and Solutions, and Game Development for Google Play.

The objective of these workshops is to equip attendees with practical skills and knowledge to navigate today’s technological challenges successfully.

As part of our commitment to fostering an inclusive tech community, Google I/O Extended Islamabad aims to create a safe and enriching space for all participants.

Join us in celebrating diversity, innovation, and collaboration at this year’s I/O Extended Islamabad.

Details:

📍FAST, Islamabad
🗓️ 05th August 2023
🕘 10:00 AM
In Collaboration with WTM Islamabad and GDG Islamabad
Powered by Google

Navigating the World of Startup Funding: A Guide for Entrepreneurs

Tehreem Farooqi — Wed, 14 Jun 2023 11:59:11 GMT

As an aspiring entrepreneur, you have a great idea for a startup and a burning desire to make it a reality. But turning your vision into a successful business requires more than just passion and hard work. It also requires funding – and that can be a daunting challenge for many first-time founders.

The good news is that there are many options for startup funding, from traditional venture capital to crowdfunding and beyond. In this article, we’ll explore some of the most common avenues for raising capital and provide some tips for entrepreneurs looking to navigate the complex world of startup funding.

Understanding Venture Capital

When most people think of startup funding, they think of venture capital (VC) – and with good reason. VC firms provide early-stage funding to startups in exchange for equity, typically with the aim of achieving a high return on investment (ROI) when the company goes public or is acquired.

However, getting VC funding is not easy. VC firms are highly selective and typically only invest in startups with high growth potential and a proven track record of success. To increase your chances of securing VC funding, it’s important to do your research and identify firms that are a good fit for your business.

Exploring Angel Investors

If you’re having trouble securing VC funding, you may want to consider seeking out angel investors instead. Angel investors are typically high net worth individuals who invest their own money in startups in exchange for equity.

Unlike VC firms, angel investors are often more willing to take a chance on early-stage startups with unproven track records. However, they also tend to be more hands-on than VCs, providing guidance and mentorship to help their portfolio companies succeed.

Crowdfunding Your Startup

Another option for startup funding is crowdfunding. This involves soliciting small investments from a large number of people, typically online via platforms like Kickstarter or Indiegogo.

Crowdfunding can be a great way to raise capital without giving up equity in your company, but it’s important to remember that it’s not a sure thing. To succeed at crowdfunding, you need to have a compelling pitch, a strong network of supporters, and a well-executed marketing strategy.

Bootstrapping Your Startup

Of course, not all startups need outside funding to get off the ground. Bootstrapping – or self-funding – your startup can be a viable option if you have the financial resources to do so.

While bootstrapping can be challenging, it also has its advantages. It allows you to maintain full control over your company and avoid diluting your equity. Plus, it can help you develop a lean and efficient business model that will serve you well in the long run.

Tips for Successful Startup Funding

No matter which funding option you choose, there are some key strategies that can help you maximize your chances of success:

– Do your research: Before approaching investors or launching a crowdfunding campaign, make sure you understand your market and your competition inside and out.
– Build a strong team: Investors are often more interested in the people behind a startup than the idea itself. Make sure you have a team with the right mix of skills and experience to take your business to the next level.
– Create a compelling pitch: Whether you’re pitching to VCs or crowdfunding supporters, you need to have a clear and concise pitch that highlights the unique value proposition of your business.
– Be persistent: Raising capital is not easy, and rejection is part of the process. Don’t be discouraged if you get turned down – keep refining your pitch and looking for new opportunities.
– Stay focused: It’s easy to get distracted by the hype and glamour of startup culture, but don’t lose sight of your ultimate goal – building a successful and sustainable business.

Conclusion

Raising capital for your startup can be a challenging and intimidating process, but it’s also an essential part of turning your vision into a reality. By understanding your options, doing your research, and staying focused on your goals, you can increase your chances of securing the funding you need to succeed. Good luck!

DeafTawk partners with Dialog Axiata to Launch Operations in Sri Lanka

Tehreem Farooqi — Wed, 29 Mar 2023 20:04:44 GMT

Bringing deaf and hearing-impaired persons closer to their communities, Dialog Axiata PLC announced the launch of a trilingual version of the internationally renowned sign language interpretation app ‘DeafTawk’ in Sri Lanka, a first in the country.

GSMA, an organization that represents the interests of mobile network operators globally, played a vital role in connecting DeafTawk and Dialog for this partnership.

As the result of this partnership, DeafTawk, a Pakistan-based start-up, focused on providing communication solutions to deaf and hearing-impaired communities, joins hands with Dialog Axiata PLC, a mobile network operator in Sri Lanka, focused on expanding the network infrastructure and providing innovative products and services to its customers.

DeafTawk app launch

DeafTawk app was launched during an event held at the Dialog premises with hearing-impaired individuals and sign language interpreters in attendance. DeafTawk app provides a real-time sign language solution at the user’s fingertips, where the app has partnered with over 50 interpreters. The app offers users a choice of talk time at very affordable package prices.

Dialog customers can use the app without incurring any data costs and also have the option of using the add-to-bill feature for the time packages. The app is available on iOS and Android for anyone to download, however, data charges may apply for non-Dialog customers.

Speaking about the launch, Supun Weerasinghe, Group Chief Executive of Dialog Axiata PLC, said, “We are pleased to launch the localised, trilingual version of the DeafTawk app in Sri Lanka. This app is a game-changer for the deaf and hearing-impaired community, providing them with a real-time sign language solution that they can use at their fingertips. The launch of the DeafTawk app is a testament to the company’s commitment to creating a more inclusive society where everyone has access to the latest technology.”

Ali Shabbir, CEO of DeafTawk, commented “At DeafTawk, we are on a mission to empower 466 million deaf people across the world, and we are excited to partner with Dialog to launch our operations in Sri Lanka which we believe will take us a step closer to achieving our objective. We look forward to bridging the communication gap and being the voice for the deaf community in Sri Lanka. We are hopeful in our efforts as we thrive to make the world inclusive for everyone.”

Chammi Dias, Head of Sign Language Interpreters of the Social Services Department and The Parliament of Sri Lanka stated “According to the Department of Census and Statistics in Sri Lanka, in 2012 there were more than 500,000 deaf people living island-wide. Deaf people usually require the help of a sign language interpreter to communicate not only among society but in some cases, even among family members. I believe communication can be done more easily, efficiently, and quickly with the help of the DeafTawk app.”

DeafTawk app live demo

The partnership between DeafTawk and Dialog marks a crucial step in bridging the communication gap for the deaf communities in Sri Lanka and moving a step forward towards an inclusive world.

More information on the Deaftawk app can be accessed via the website at www.deaftawk.com or contact at +923245081554.

DeafTawk and Kingfisher Partner to Promote Digital Inclusion for Marginalized Deaf Community in Pakistan

Shaheryar Ehsan — Tue, 07 Mar 2023 09:45:07 GMT

DeafTawk, a startup scaled under Pakistan’s premier accelerator program Jazz xlr8, dedicated to improving the lives of deaf individuals, has partnered with Kingfisher, a next-gen mobile experience (MX) company, to promote digital inclusion and create a positive socio-economic impact for the deaf community in Pakistan.

GSMA, an organization that represents the interests of mobile network operators worldwide was instrumental in bringing both organizations together.

Under this partnership, Kingfisher will provide smartphones to be distributed among the marginalized deaf community in Pakistan every year, enabling them to connect with the outside world and access employment opportunities.

This initiative will help millions of deaf persons to overcome the barriers to communication, achieve their full potential and become contributing members of society.

Kingfisher is revolutionizing the mobile experience economy by delivering the newest pre-owned devices that bring unparalleled freedom and flexibility to the mobile ownership experience.

By partnering with DeafTawk, Kingfisher is demonstrating its commitment to creating positive social change and promoting digital inclusion in Pakistan.

Jazz, Pakistan’s leading digital operator, has pledged to provide the necessary logistics assistance for this initiative, while the Ministry of IT & Telecom Pakistan has promised to extend its unwavering support to this great cause.

DeafTawk, with the support of Jazz, also made the Mobile World Conference 2023 (MWC23 Barcelona), the world’s most influential connectivity industry event, inclusive of the global deaf community for the second consecutive year through sign language interpretation services.

Commenting on the partnership, DeafTawk’s CEO, Ali Shabbar, said, “We are delighted to partner with Kingfisher to improve the lives of deaf individuals in Pakistan. With the support of the GSMA, Jazz, and the Ministry of IT & Telecom, we will work towards the socio-economic development of the 9 million deaf persons in Pakistan.”

The partnership between DeafTawk and Kingfisher marks a crucial step in promoting digital inclusion and creating a more inclusive society in Pakistan.

Out with the Old, In with the New: How Challenger Banks are Redefining Banking?

Tehreem Farooqi — Thu, 02 Mar 2023 10:24:47 GMT

The emergence of challenger banks and fintech startups in recent years has disrupted the traditional banking industry, offering consumers a new way to manage their finances. These innovative companies are changing the way people bank, invest, and manage their money, with many offering unique features and benefits that traditional banks can’t match.

What are “challenger” banks?

Challenger banks are a type of financial institution that aim to challenge traditional banking practices and provide customers with innovative and unique financial products and services. Unlike traditional banks, challenger banks typically operate entirely online, without the need for physical branches or brick-and-mortar locations. They are known for leveraging technology to provide customers with a more convenient, faster, and streamlined banking experience, often at a lower cost than traditional banks.

Challenger banks are generally new players in the banking industry, often founded within the last decade. They are typically smaller than traditional banks and may have fewer customers, but they strive to differentiate themselves from their larger competitors by offering a more personalized and tailored approach to banking. Some examples of challenger banks include Chime, Varo, Monzo, Revolut, and N26.

The growth of challenger banks and fintech startups

The growth of challenger banks and startups has been fueled by a number of factors.

One major driver has been the rise of mobile technology and the internet, which has made it easier than ever for consumers to access financial services online. Additionally, changing consumer preferences have led to a demand for more flexible and personalized financial services, which traditional banks have been slow to provide.

Another factor driving the growth of challenger banks and fintech startups is the regulatory environment. Many countries, including the UK and Australia, have introduced new regulations that make it easier for new players to enter the banking industry and compete with established banks. In the US, the OCC (Office of the Comptroller of the Currency) has been granting special banking charters to fintech startups, which allows them to operate like traditional banks without having to comply with all the same regulations.

How Challenger banks have transformed finance?

Challenger banks have changed finance in several ways, bringing innovation, competition, and convenience to the financial industry. Here are just a few ways in which they have made an impact:

Digital-only banking

Challenger banks have revolutionized the banking industry by offering digital-only banking services. They have created an entirely new banking experience by allowing customers to access their accounts, manage their money, and make payments online or via mobile apps. This digital-only approach has enabled challenger banks to offer lower fees, higher interest rates, and more innovative financial products than traditional banks.

Innovation and flexibility

Challenger banks have brought innovation and flexibility to the financial industry. They have developed new financial products and services, such as budgeting tools, instant money transfers, cashback rewards, and spending analytics, which have helped customers better manage their money. They have also introduced new payment methods such as mobile payments, contactless payments, and digital wallets, which have made payments more convenient and secure.

Lower fees and better interest rates

Challenger banks have disrupted the traditional banking model by offering lower fees and better interest rates on savings accounts and loans. They have been able to do this because they have lower overhead costs than traditional banks, and they pass these savings on to their customers.

Competition

Challenger banks have increased competition in the financial industry, which has led to better services and products for consumers. Traditional banks have been forced to improve their services and lower their fees to compete with the new players in the market. This has resulted in a more customer-centric approach to banking, with banks now focusing on providing a better customer experience.

Financial inclusion

Challenger banks have also improved financial inclusion, making banking more accessible to underserved communities. Many challenger banks offer services to customers who may not have access to traditional banking services, such as immigrants, low-income earners, and people with poor credit histories.

Challenges faced by challenger banks

Despite the many benefits of using challenger banks and fintech startups, these companies still face a number of challenges.

One of the biggest challenges is building trust with consumers. Because these companies are often new and lack the brand recognition of traditional banks, consumers may be hesitant to trust them with their money.

Another challenge facing challenger banks and fintech startups is competition. As these companies become more popular, traditional banks are starting to take notice and offer similar services. While this competition can be healthy for consumers, it can also make it harder for new players to gain a foothold in the market.

Conclusion

The emergence of challenger banks and fintech startups in recent years is changing the way people think about banking and finance. These innovative companies are offering consumers more convenient, flexible, and affordable financial services, and are disrupting the traditional banking industry in the process. While they still face challenges, it is clear that challenger banks and fintech startups are here to stay, and will continue to play a major role in shaping the future of finance.

Ygii raises a pre-seed round led by Flat6Labs along with angel investors

Press Release — Thu, 02 Mar 2023 05:06:01 GMT

Ygii, the social commerce platform that enables users to create and share wish lists with friends and family, is proud to announce the successful closure of a pre-seed investment round. The funding was led by Flat6Labs and participated in by a group of prominent angel investors.

Founded in 2022 by Abdulkareem Aloumi and Ayman Alzamil, Ygii has seen rapid growth, with a monthly user increase rate of 34% and a global user base spanning over 50 countries. The company is well-positioned to continue its growth trajectory with this new investment, which will be used to further develop its technology and strengthen its revenue streams.

“We are thrilled to be at the forefront of the social commerce revolution,” said Abdulkareem Aloumi, Co-Founder and CEO of Ygii. “As this sector continues to grow and mature, we believe Ygii will play a pivotal role in shaping its future.” According to an Accenture study, the social commerce sector is expected to reach $1.2 trillion by 2025.

Ygii’s innovative approach to gifting and its commitment to delivering a seamless user experience make it a standout player in a rapidly expanding market. With the support of Flat6Labs and experienced angel investors, Ygii is well set for a successful journey to drive significant growth in the social commerce sector.

Crafting an Investor-Centric Pitch Deck to Secure Funding

Shaheryar Ehsan — Tue, 14 Feb 2023 12:43:12 GMT

Securing funding for your start-up is a daunting task and the most important factor for success is the ability to create an effective investor-centric pitch deck that best portrays your idea. A pitch deck is an essential tool to present your company to potential investors and create an impactful impression. This blog post will discuss the components of an effective pitch deck, common mistakes to avoid, pitch decks for investors, and pitch deck examples.

What is a Pitch Deck?

A pitch deck is a brief presentation, typically created using PowerPoint, Keynote, or Prezi, that outlines the story of a company and its product or service. It is usually used to present a business to potential investors and provide an overview of the company, its mission, and product or service. The goal of a pitch deck is to capture the attention of investors and convince them to invest in the company.

The pitch deck should be concise and well-structured, with a clear message that outlines the value of the company. It should include all the important information about the company and its product or service, including its target market, competitive landscape, financials, and growth plans. Additionally, the pitch deck should contain visuals that are engaging and easy to understand.

Components of an Effective Pitch Deck

Creating an effective pitch deck is essential for securing funding from investors. Here are some key components of an effective pitch deck:

A Clear and Concise Message: The message should be concise and easy to understand. It should provide a clear and concise overview of the company and its product or service.
A Story: The story should be compelling and engaging. It should provide an overview of the company and its mission, as well as its unique value proposition.
Visuals: Visuals are an important component of a pitch deck. They should be engaging and help to illustrate the story of the company.
Financials: Investors will want to see financial projections and forecasts. The financials should be clear and concise and provide an overview of the company’s current financial position and future prospects.
Growth Plan: Investors will want to know how the company plans to grow and scale. A growth plan should be included in the pitch deck.
Competitive Landscape: Investors will want to know how the company plans to differentiate itself from its competitors. A competitive landscape should be included that outlines how the company plans to stand out.

Common Mistakes to Avoid in Your Pitch Deck

Creating an effective pitch deck is essential for securing funding from investors. Here are some common mistakes to avoid when creating your pitch deck:

Too Much Detail: The pitch deck should be concise and to the point. It should provide an overview of the company, its mission, and product or service without going into too much detail.
Too Many Slides: The pitch deck should contain only the most important information and visuals. Too many slides can be overwhelming and detract from the overall message.
Poor Visuals: Visuals are an important component of a pitch deck. Poor visuals can be distracting and detract from the overall message.
Lack of Focus: The pitch deck should have a clear and concise message. The message should be focused and not wander off on tangents.
Poor Grammar and Spelling: Poor grammar and spelling can be distracting and detract from the overall message. It is important to ensure that the pitch deck is free of errors.

Pitch Decks for Investors

When creating a pitch deck for investors, it is important to keep in mind the investor’s perspective. The pitch deck should be tailored to the investor’s needs and should provide an overview of the company, its mission, and product or service. Additionally, the pitch deck should include financial projections, competitive landscape, and growth plans.

The pitch deck should be concise and to the point, with a clear and concise message that outlines the value of the company. Additionally, the pitch deck should contain visuals that are engaging and easy to understand.

Pitch Deck Examples

There are many different types of pitch decks and it is important to find the right one for your company. Here are some examples of effective pitch decks:

The Elevator Pitch Deck: This type of pitch deck is designed to be brief and to the point. It should provide an overview of the company, its mission, and product or service in a few slides.
The Detailed Pitch Deck: This type of pitch deck is designed to provide a more in-depth look at the company. It should provide an overview of the company, its mission, product or service, competitive landscape, and growth plans.
The Investor Pitch Deck: This type of pitch deck is designed for investors. It should provide an overview of the company, its mission, product or service, financials, competitive landscape, and growth plans.

Conclusion

Creating an effective pitch deck is essential for securing funding from investors. A pitch deck is an essential tool to present your company to potential investors and create an impactful impression. It should include all the important information about the company and its product or service, including its target market, competitive landscape, financials, and growth plans. Additionally, the pitch deck should contain visuals that are engaging and easy to understand.

Creating an effective pitch deck is essential for securing funding from investors. By following the tips outlined in this blog post, you will be able to create an effective pitch deck to secure funding for your start-up. Good luck!

Online Car Rental Startup, Finalrentals, secures six-figure funding

Tehreem Farooqi — Thu, 26 Jan 2023 17:14:51 GMT

Cardiff-headquartered Finalrentals, a global online car rental web app business, has closed a recent funding round by a group of four business angels led by investor Eamon Tuhami and venture capital company Fuel Ventures. Wales Angel Co-Investment Fund of the Development Bank of Wales also matched the six-figure funding.

Finalrentals, based in Tec Marina in Penarth, was founded by Ammar Akhtar back in 2019 in Dubai. Ammar originally belongs to Pakistan but relocated to the UK from Poland with an Innovator Visa as part of the UK Government’s Global Entrepreneur Programme where he took part in FinTech Wales’ Foundry. It is a no-equity accelerator programme that provides mentorship and support to help incubate and scale startups in Wales.

With a background in building software and websites, Ammar started Finalrentals with a team of 8 – four of which were women. Local car rental companies now use this innovative platform all over the world, including countries like Canada, the United States of America, and the United Arab Emirates.

Ammar Akhtar remarked about his journey: “From Pakistan to Dubai, then Poland to Cardiff, this has been a three-year journey that started in my home garage fondly known as the ‘Gar-Office’.

He further talked about his business idea and execution, saying:

Over half of the global car rental industry is made up of local car rental companies who are great at customer service but know little about eCommerce. I knew from my experience of working for companies like Thrifty, Dollar and Payless that there was a great opportunity to develop an innovative car rental platform that could be accessible to local providers.

We have worked tirelessly to build the software and get our product known in the market but taking part in the Fintech Wales programme was the catalyst for growth. It gave us a great opportunity to network with the investor community in Wales and benefit from mentorship which has ultimately led to us being able to secure this major investment that will enable us to now scale the business. There is certainly a culture of innovation and growth in Wales and I’m now proud to call Cardiff my home.

Lead investor and founder of Hwyl.Ventures Eamon Tuhami remarked at this occasion: “I was surprised to learn that 52% of the world’s car rental companies are small businesses who struggle to take and make orders online. Ammar and his team have built an innovative platform which has global reach and is already making a difference. It’s been a pleasure to connect him into the ecosystem, see him part of the FinTech Wales Foundry program and introduce him to other angels and funds. I warmly welcome him and his family to Wales and believe that this is just the beginning of something very exciting.”

“As the biggest angel network in Wales, we connect experienced investors with Welsh businesses seeking private investment. Led by experienced investor and business angel Eamon, this particular syndicate will bring real firepower to Finalrentals as one of the world’s best-in-class web applications for car rental providers. We are also pleased to welcome the support of Fuel Ventures,” said Tom Preene, Operations Manager at Wales Angel Co-Investment Fund.

Kaykroo- Business Idea, Value Proposition, and Everything else about the company

Sarwat Rizvi — Mon, 09 Jan 2023 23:49:00 GMT

Online food delivery, like most other e-commerce ventures, has exploded in popularity amid the Covid-19 outbreak.

While people took to self isolation, many new startups saw the opportunity and came as an effective redressal to the hindrance caused by the pandemic in the restaurant and other forms of dine-in experiences.

This made food delivery the only effective option for restaurant chains. One such startup that shifted its business plan around this “new normal” was Kaykroo.

What is Kaykroo?

Kaykroo, the UAE-based foodtech startup is in essence a macroscale cloud kitchen business dedicated to creating amazing comfort food experiences. The startup shifted from ‘brick and mortar’ to a data-driven ‘brick & click’ platform, by launching their existing restaurants as cloud kitchens.

The new development follows a data-driven technology with an aim to increase the speed and efficiency of food preparation and delivery, delivering to the company’s promise to make great food accessible, anywhere and at any time.

Over the last decade, the team behind Kaykroo has successfully developed and independently operated six original concepts, by bringing international flavors to the local community.

Launched by Jihad El-Eit, Kaykroo is the extension of El-Eit’s Man’oushe Street chain of restaurants which have now been converted to delivery-only kitchens that encompass several virtual restaurant brands including Bank Bank Chicken, Wrapped, and Hummus Brothers. According to a 2021 report, the company has 10 virtual brands and a workforce of 400, including 100 delivery drivers.

El-Eit started his journey in the food sector back in 2010 with Man’ousche Street, a restaurant chain that grew to 30 locations across UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Oman, and Bahrain. And soon when the food tech space started gaining momentum in the Middle East, El-Eit’s focus shifted to food delivery.

Background of Founders

Jihad El-Eit

Jihad completed his executive education at the Harvard Business School in Organizational Leadership. He became the Senior Vice President of Itsalat International Company – i2 in 2004. Then in 2008, he founded i2 Pakistan, a company that served as a distributor of Nokia in the region.

Later in 2012, he launched the Dubai – based restaurant, Manoushe Street, and finally, in 2020, he launched the Dubai – based food tech startup, Kaykroo.

Why Kaykroo?

Since its launch in 2020, Kaykroo’s network has grown from 15 to 18 facilities across Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Al Ain, and Ras Al Khaimah. The startup was all set to open its 19th facility in Riyadh in the third quarter of 2021.

The new company’s F&B brand portfolio has grown from six at the time of launch to ten concepts in total. These include Man’oushe Street, which now falls under Kaykroo’s umbrella. Launched in 2010, 80 percent of Man’oushe Street’s business comes from online orders for delivery.

In addition to its employee workforce, the company also owns a delivery fleet of over 100 valets, and 15 cloud kitchens and brand residences across the UAE.

Funding Raised

Pre-Series A Funding: Raised $4 million

In October 2020, UAE-based Kaykroo raised $4 million Pre-Series A funding. The funding round was led by various family offices in the UAE.

Future Prospects

The company plans to divert its funds towards further development of its proprietary technology and fuel kaykroo’s expansion in the GCC.

Over the course of the next 50 months, Kaykroo aims to offer 50 brands from their kitchens, across 50 locations in the region, generating a total of 500 million sales. This means Kaykroo will be five times its current size by 2024.

Yassir – Business Idea, Value Proposition, and Everything else about the company

Sarwat Rizvi — Thu, 05 Jan 2023 11:08:00 GMT

According to stats reported by TechCrunch+, over 65% of Morocco’s population does not own a bank account. Additionally, a 2018 McKinsey report on growth and innovation in African retail banking further shared, that 57% of the continent’s population lack any form of a bank account.

However, 40% of Africa’s population that does own any form of bank account prefers digital channels for transactions. And this is where Yassir comes into play. Considering that the region’s 50% population can access the internet, the African startup aims to provide consumers with a mobile banking solution as part of a broader suite of services.

What is Yassir?

Founded in 2017 by Noureddine Tayebi and El Mahdi Yettou, Yassir is a super app that provides its users with a suite of services, including ridesharing, grocery deliveries, and financial services. As of now, the startup operates in 45 cities across six countries throughout the world, with more than eight million users.

The startup’s name originates from the Arabic word “Yassir meaning “easy”, and that is exactly what the startup aims to do, i.e., to make people’s life easy.

Not only is the company offering ride-hailing and food and grocery delivery services in multiple cities across different countries, but three out of five on-demand activities in Algeria, its first market, are made via the platform.

Background of Founders

Noureddine Tayebi

Noureddine completed his Ph.D. at Stanford University. He started his early career at the Intel Corporation as Research Engineer and Team Lead. In 2014, he founded the California-based company, InSense Inc.

Over the course of the next few years, he served at a number of organizations in different capacities until 2015, when he became the founder and CEO of Yassir.

El Mahdi Yettou

Mahdi Yettou joined Yassir in 2017 as the company’s Director General and Co-Founder.

Why Yassir?

In essence, Yassir is building an all-in-one ecosystem app, that provides its customers with a single-point solution for managing their day-to-day activities, from traveling to work to ordering groceries and meals, touching every component of the multi-sided marketplace.

Its financial services serve this multisided marketplace ecosystem, which includes 8 million users (over 2.5x from last year) and 100,000 partners consisting of drivers, couriers, merchants, suppliers, and wholesalers.

The startup is leveraging this network, which also includes a B2B e-commerce retail part that connects fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) suppliers with merchants — for its payments play assembled on top wallet provision and deployment of drivers and couriers as money agents.

Funding Raised

Seed Round: Raised $13.25 million

The startup raised $13.25 million in its seed round.

Series A Round: Raised $30 million

In November 2021, the startup raised a $30 million Series A round.

The investment came from a long list of VCs and angel investors. VCs included:

WndrCo
DN Capital
Kismet Capital
Spike Ventures
Quiet Capital
Endeavor Catalyst
FJ Labs
VentureSouq
Nellore Capital
Moving Capital

While, the angel investors included: Cleo Sham of Uber; Thomas Layton of Upwork, Opentable, and Metaweb; Rohan Monga of Gojek; and Hannes Graah of Spotify and Revolut.

Series B Round: Raised $150 million

In November 2022, the company bagged $150 million in Series B funding, which is approximately five times what it had raised in its previous priced round last November.

The investment was led by Bond, the growth-stage firm that Mary Meeker spun out of Kleiner Perkins in 2018. Other investors in the growth round included:

DN Capital
Dorsal Capital
Quiet Capital
Stanford Alumni Ventures
Y Combinator via its Continuity Fund, among other strategic investors

Future Prospects

With this latest round of funding, Yassir plans to further deepen its footprint in the northern African region and the rest of the world. It is currently operational in 45 cities across six countries, and most popular in Maghreb nations like Algeria, where it originated from, Morocco, and Tunisia.

Tayebi, who founded Yassir with Mahdi Yettou, says the startup intends to invest heavily in its engineering and product teams by tripling their size, at the least. He further shared how the funding will assist the startup, which currently has offices in Algeria, Canada, France, Morocco, and Tunisia — in consolidating its growth, rolling out new services in the existing markets, and expanding into new geographies across Africa and the Middle East directly or via acquisitions.

Unlocking the Meaning of Q-Commerce: A Comprehensive Guide

Tehreem Farooqi — Wed, 04 Jan 2023 16:51:15 GMT

The world of e-commerce is evolving rapidly and with it, so is the concept of quick commerce. Quick commerce, also known as q-commerce, is a type of e-commerce that focuses on providing customers with fast, efficient, and convenient services.

In this blog, we will take a look at the meaning of q-commerce, the benefits it offers, the types of q-commerce, the advantages it provides, the challenges it faces, the tools and resources available for q-commerce, and best practices for q-commerce.

What is Q-Commerce?

Q-Commerce is a type of e-commerce that focuses on delivering goods and services quickly and efficiently to customers. It is an innovative approach to e-commerce that combines traditional e-commerce processes such as product selection, order placement, payment processing, and delivery with the latest technologies and strategies to speed up the process and make it more convenient for customers. Q-Commerce allows customers to purchase items quickly and easily with just a few clicks, and then have them delivered to their doorsteps in a matter of hours or even minutes.

Q-Commerce is a term used to describe the use of technology and strategies to provide customers with a faster and more convenient shopping experience. This includes using mobile apps, social media, and other digital platforms to make the purchase process simpler and faster.

Benefits of Q-Commerce

Q-commerce offers a number of benefits to customers, businesses, and the wider e-commerce industry. For customers, q-commerce offers convenience, speed, and ease of use. Customers can purchase items quickly and easily without having to visit a store. They also don’t have to wait for the item to be shipped, as it can be delivered to their doorstep in a matter of hours or even minutes.

For businesses, q-commerce can increase sales and customer satisfaction. By offering customers fast, convenient, and efficient services, businesses can attract more customers and retain existing ones. This can lead to increased sales and customer loyalty. Additionally, q-commerce can reduce the cost of operations, as businesses don’t need to invest in physical stores or employ additional staff.

Finally, q-commerce can benefit the wider e-commerce industry by providing a new and innovative way of doing business. By utilizing innovative technologies and strategies, businesses can offer customers a better shopping experience, which can increase sales and customer satisfaction. This can lead to increased competition in the e-commerce industry, which can ultimately benefit both customers and businesses.

Types of Q-Commerce

There are several types of q-commerce, each of which offers different benefits and advantages.

One type of q-commerce is instant delivery startups. These startups offer customers the ability to purchase items quickly and have them delivered to their doorstep in a matter of minutes. This can be beneficial for customers who need items quickly, as they don’t have to wait for the item to be shipped.

Another type of q-commerce is mobile commerce. This type of e-commerce involves the use of mobile apps, which allow customers to purchase items directly from their phones. This can be beneficial for customers who are always on the go and don’t have time to visit a store.

Finally, there is social media commerce. This type of e-commerce involves the use of social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, to market products and services. This can be beneficial for businesses, as it allows them to reach a wider audience and target potential customers more effectively.

Instant Delivery Startups and Their Tactics

In recent years, instant delivery startups have emerged as one of the main drivers of q-commerce. These startups offer customers the ability to purchase items quickly and have them delivered to their doorstep in a matter of minutes. This can be beneficial for customers who need items quickly, as they don’t have to wait for the item to be shipped.

Instant delivery startups test new delivery tactics to increase their efficiency and speed. For example, some startups are using drones to deliver items, while others are using autonomous vehicles. Additionally, some startups are utilizing predictive analytics to anticipate customer needs and offer personalized services. These tactics can help instant delivery startups increase their customer base and improve customer satisfaction.

Advantages of Q-Commerce

Q-Commerce offers a number of advantages to customers, businesses, and the wider e-commerce industry.

For customers, q-commerce offers convenience, speed, and ease of use. Customers can purchase items quickly and easily without having to visit a store. They also don’t have to wait for the item to be shipped, as it can be delivered to their doorstep in a matter of hours or even minutes.

For businesses, q-commerce can reduce costs and increase sales. By offering customers fast, efficient, and convenient services, businesses can attract more customers and retain existing ones. This can lead to increased sales and customer loyalty. Additionally, q-commerce can reduce the cost of operations, as businesses don’t need to invest in physical stores or employ additional staff.

Finally, q-commerce can benefit the wider e-commerce industry by providing a new and innovative way of doing business. By utilizing new technologies and strategies, businesses can offer customers a better shopping experience, which can increase sales and customer satisfaction. This can lead to increased competition in the e-commerce industry, which can ultimately benefit both customers and businesses.

Challenges Faced by Q-Commerce

While q-commerce offers many benefits, it also faces a number of challenges. One of the main challenges is the cost of providing quick services. Providing fast and efficient services requires investment in technology and personnel, which can be expensive. Additionally, there are challenges related to customer experience. Quick commerce services need to be reliable and secure, as customers expect their purchases to be delivered quickly and securely.

Another challenge faced by q-commerce is the lack of customer trust. Customers may be hesitant to purchase items from q-commerce services due to security and privacy concerns. To overcome this challenge, businesses need to ensure that their services are secure and their customers’ data is protected. Additionally, businesses should provide clear and transparent information about their services and products to build customer trust.

Q-Commerce and the Future of E-Commerce

Q-Commerce has the potential to revolutionize the e-commerce industry. As more businesses embrace q-commerce, customers will be able to purchase items quickly and easily, and businesses will be able to increase their sales and customer loyalty. Additionally, q-commerce can lead to increased competition in the e-commerce industry, which can benefit both customers and businesses.

The future of e-commerce will be shaped by q-commerce. As more businesses start to utilize q-commerce services, customers will become more accustomed to fast and convenient services. This can lead to increased demand for q-commerce services, which can ultimately lead to more businesses offering these services. Additionally, businesses can use q-commerce to offer customers personalized services and experiences, which can further increase customer satisfaction.

Tools and Resources for Q-Commerce

There are a number of tools and resources available for businesses that are looking to get into q-commerce. One of the most popular tools is the Q-Commerce Platform (QCP). This platform provides businesses with the tools and resources needed to set up and manage a q-commerce site. Additionally, businesses can use the platform to create custom products, manage customer data, and process payments.

Other tools and resources include q-commerce marketplaces, such as Amazon Quick, Shopify Quick, and eBay Quick. These marketplaces allow businesses to list their products and services, and customers can purchase items quickly and securely. Additionally, businesses can use social media platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram, to market their products and services.

Best Practices for Q-Commerce

Q-Commerce can be an effective way for businesses to increase sales and customer satisfaction. However, businesses need to ensure that they are using best practices when utilizing q-commerce services.

First, businesses need to ensure that they are providing customers with a secure and reliable service. This includes ensuring that customer data is securely stored and protected. Additionally, businesses should provide clear and transparent information about their services and products to build customer trust.

Second, businesses should ensure that their services are fast and efficient. This means investing in the latest technologies and strategies to ensure that customers can purchase items quickly and easily. Additionally, businesses should ensure that their products and services are delivered quickly and securely.

Finally, businesses should utilize data and analytics to better understand their customers. By utilizing data and analytics, businesses can anticipate customer needs and offer personalized services. This can lead to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Conclusion

Q-Commerce is a new and innovative way of doing e-commerce that can benefit both customers and businesses. It offers customers convenience, speed, and ease of use, while businesses can increase sales and reduce costs. Additionally, q-commerce can benefit the wider e-commerce industry by providing a new and innovative way of doing business.

In order to take advantage of q-commerce, businesses need to ensure that they are utilizing best practices. This includes providing customers with a secure and reliable service, investing in the latest technologies and strategies, and utilizing data and analytics to better understand their customers. Additionally, businesses should ensure that their products and services are delivered quickly and securely.

By utilizing q-commerce services, businesses can increase sales and customer satisfaction, while customers can enjoy fast and convenient services. Ultimately, Q-commerce can revolutionize the e-commerce industry, and it is up to businesses to take advantage of this opportunity.

By following the tips in this comprehensive guide, businesses can unlock the meaning of q-commerce and take advantage of this new and innovative way of doing business.

Featured Image Source: Freepik

Union54- Business Idea, Value Proposition, and Everything else about the company

Sarwat Rizvi — Wed, 04 Jan 2023 11:39:00 GMT

Today, some of the most pressing challenges faced by African merchants in terms of sourcing dollars is the card network system. As the transaction often takes three days for a local debit card, and sometimes even more for an international debit card to process.

Hence, with this problem in mind and to develop a payments route locally for local use, Union54 was launched. Although, a card-issuing platform isn’t in the best position to tackle such problems head-on. Doing so requires creating a different payment application for Africa, and that’s an audacious task of its own. Yet, that’s exactly what Union54 intends to accomplish by creating its card scheme.

Card schemes are payment networks linked to payment cards, such as debit or credit cards. The most popular card schemes globally are Union Pay, Visa, and Mastercard.

In the U.S., there are other schemes such as Amex, Discover, and American Express. But in Africa, Visa and Mastercard dominate the market share; for example, in South Africa, the distribution of cardholders with Visa is 51% compared to Mastercard’s 48%. So, how does Union54 plan on putting a dent in this Visa-dominant market?

What is Union54?

Union54’s API allows software companies from the African continent to issue and manage their debit cards without requiring a bank or a third-party processor, enabling cross-border payments and easing the overall process.

Co-founders and couple Perseus Mlambo and Alessandra Martini started Union54 in 2021 as a spinoff from their previous company, Zazu (a challenger bank they launched six years ago) when they went through the painstaking processes to issue debit cards.

Union54 hopes to create a homegrown alternative to Mastercard or Visa. In addition to helping merchants solve their settlement and sourcing issues, Mlambo offered more insight into why the company chose to pursue this route. According to him, recent global events like Visa and Mastercard pulling out from Russia, leaving China’s UnionPay to fill in the void, have made it evident that payments are a politicized endeavor.

He futher told Technext:

The purpose of creating another card network is an inspiration of what’s happening right now. Number one, we’re vulnerable and hostage to any political decisions that might affect trade on the continent. And if anything were to happen, we would wake up and would not have access to our funds.

Background of Founders

Perseus Mlambo

Perseus is the founder and CEO of the Africa-based company, Zazu. He has previously served at the Ethics Office of the UNHCR and has spoken at the European Commission about how inclusive digital technologies are the key to unlocking Africa’s potential.

Alessandra Martini

Alessandra completed her Master’s at the London School of Economics(LSE) in African Development. She was also an Erasmus Scholar during her undergrad. After completing graduation, she served at a number of international firms in different capacities, until, in 2016 she co-founded and became the COO of Zazu.

Why Union54

The company aims to create a homegrown alternative to worldwide known card issuers Mastercard and Visa, which dominate the continent but impose higher fees for merchants.

Since its launch in October 2021, Union54 has grown to issue slightly over half a million virtual debit cards to its customers.

CEO Perseus Mlambo disclosed to TechCrunch that Union54’s revenue in its first month (October) was a little less than $3,000. In November, the company’s revenue increased by 600% and has subsequently grown 50% month-on-month since then.

Union54’s CEO and founder, Perseus Mlambo, believes that reaching an agreement with participating central banks from Africa might make his company more trustworthy in the eyes of merchants and investors and could lead to it issuing a domestic and continental debit card, to shorten settlement time, and integrate more local payment methods and APMs.

How Does it Generate Value?

With Union54, the founders are taking on a pan-African problem, not a Zambian one.

Essentially, here’s how the interchange works — Union54 onboards a fintech company and the company uses Union54’s API to issue a single card to an employee. When the employee uses the card to pay for stuff online, perhaps a Netflix subscription, the fintech earns 1% of that transaction.

While that might look minute, imagine a fintech that uses Union54’s API to issue cards to more than 20,000 customers who use it frequently. That’s where the Zambian startup hopes to create value: to help fintech earn significant revenue from interchange without doing a lot of the heavy lifting linked with card management.

Funding Raised

Seed Extension Round: Raised $12 million

In April 2022, the fintech raised $12 million in a seed extension round led by Tiger Global. Other participating investors in this financing round included existing ones such as Vibe VC and new investors Earl Grey Capital and Packy Mccormick’s Not Boring Capital.

Seed Round: Raised $3 million

In October 2021, the startup raised a $3 million seed round led by Tiger Global Management, only two months after graduating from Y Combinator’s summer batch.

Other participating investors included:

San Francisco-based venture capital firm Runa Capital
Ace & Company
Todd & Rahul Angel Fund
Vibe VC

The Zambian fintech also received checks from angel investors such as Babs Ogundeyi, the CEO of Nigerian neobank Kuda; Risana Zitha, managing director of Renaissance Capital; and Gbenga Ajayi, former director of SMB Growth at Wise

Pre-Seed Round: Raised $125k

In August 2021, the startup raised $125k after participating in Y Combinator’s summer batch.

Future Prospects

Over the course of the past few months, the company has learned that developing a card scheme is not a technical problem so much as it is a trust problem. Trusting that merchants will get settled on time, that merchants don’t lose money across currency conversions and that consumers trust the card itself are crucial to making this work. The company plans to get nine central banks to establish this framework by the end of the year toward a pilot by Q2 2023.

Union54 plans to use this investment to ramp up recruitment across engineering, product, marketing, and sales teams. The Zambian company will also use the funds to expand its regional customer base.

Altibbi – Business Idea, Value Proposition, and Everything else about the company

Sarwat Rizvi — Tue, 03 Jan 2023 18:18:01 GMT

In 2020, the global digital health market size exceeded $142 billion and is estimated to grow even further at over 17% annually until 2027, reported Zawya. It was further reported that the remote healthcare market in the Middle East and North Africa is projected to reach $2 billion by 2024. Additionally, approximately 400 million people in the Arab world lack basic health services, including access to medical information and advice. On top of all this, chronic conditions have been an ever-increasing burden on the affordability of healthcare across the globe.

According to a GCC Healthcare Industry Report by Alpen Capital, the healthcare sector in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is anticipated to expand at a CAGR of around 7% during the tenure of 2019-2024. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s Vision for 2030 aims to drive the digital transformation of health systems and inspire new collaborations between the public and private sectors for improved clinical and financial outcomes. This resultantly means increased support and a richer market for the newly emerging health-tech startups, and Altibbi is one such startup.

What is Altibbi?

The UAE – based, Altibbi, is an end-to-end digital health platform that provides telehealth consultations, drug delivery services, and booking as well as data management software solutions for doctors. It is the largest telemedicine platform in the Arab World, as well as the first one to be recognized as an official telehealth provider in Egypt, Jordan, and the UAE. Altibbi is revolutionizing healthcare in the MENA region by providing quality healthcare with ease of access and increased affordability.

The platform provides 24-7 access to local primary care doctors, allowing patients to connect directly with doctors via audio calls and chats. Presently, the app serves users in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Omar, Jordan, Iraq, and Palestine.

Additionally, the company also has a free doctor Q&A platform where 12,000 doctors answer a combined 1,000 questions a day. Both of these features are offered online and through the company’s mobile application.

Background of Founders

Jalil Allabadi

Jalil completed his Masters in Industrial Engineering at the University of Bologna, Italy. After that, he completed his MBA at the Thunderbird School of Global Management.

Then in 2010, he joined Altibbi as a Managing Partner.

Ayman Sharaiha

Ayman completed his undergrad in Mechanical Engineering at Tufts University. After this, he completed his MBA at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and later an MPA at the Harvard Kennedy School.

He started his career as an Economic Analyst at the Royal Hashemite Court but later moved to Hikma Pharmaceuticals as their External Consultant. Over the course of the next few years, he served at a number of different national and international firms until finally in 2016, he co-founded Altibbi with his colleague.

Why Altibbi

The company has been able to achieve a market-leading position with capital efficiency and rigor against some of its major competitors.

Given the fact that there are approximately 400 million people in the Arab World lacking access to essential medical services, Altibbi works diligently to circulate medical content in the Arabic Language via the Internet. By providing medical information from trusted sources and remote medical consultation services for all Arabic speakers, Altibbi helps patients access medical information and advice, thus reducing the number of unnecessary doctor visits and lessening the pressure on the healthcare system.

The Company hosts over two million pages of content and has published six peer-reviewed scientific papers in the last year alone. It has conducted 4.5 million telehealth consultations to date, has 20 million unique visitors a month to its platform, and offers its 24/7 telehealth services across seven regional countries – with over 1,500 active certified doctors on the platform.

The company has also partnered with Uber in the past, both to offer Uber users a free trial of the company’s telehealth service and to make that service available as a perk for drivers.

Altibbi won the World Summit Award for Best Digital Health Content and the Schwab Award for Best Social Institution.

Funding Secured

Series B Round: Raised $50.5 million

In October 2017, the startup raised a series B round from investors, Dash Ventures and Middle East Venue Partners(MEVP).

Then in March 2022, the startup announced yet again another series B round of, $44 million, which so far has been the largest single financing round for a regional Digital Health company.

The round brings together a number of strategic and financial investors and was led by Foundation Holdings, Hikma Ventures, as well as existing investors, Global Ventures, and DASH Ventures. Raising more than US$50 million in funds since its founding in 2011, Altibbi’s diverse shareholder base also includes high-profile investors Endeavor Catalyst, Middle East Venture Partners, and Al Rashed, among others.

Seed Round: Raised $2 million

In September 2015, the company raised a seed round of $2 million from Dash Ventures and Middle East Venue Partners(MEVP).

Future Prospects

The company plans to utilize the funds to invest in its technology as well as make inroads into the e-pharmacy and diagnostics collection segments.

The new funds will be used to expand the platform’s offering into online pharmacy and diagnostics collection, to establish the region’s first end-to-end fully integrated primary care offering, providing high quality, affordable, accessible value-based healthcare in accordance with Saudi Vision 2030 and Egypt’s Ministry of Health and Population.

Since digital healthcare innovations play a key role in supporting Saudi Vision 2030, the company also plans to increase its investments in machine learning to further support doctors in providing more precise diagnostics, referrals, and prescriptions.

54gene- Business Idea, Value Proposition, and Everything else about the company

Sarwat Rizvi — Mon, 02 Jan 2023 11:23:00 GMT

According to recent stats, the global drug discovery market has been estimated at $20 billion with potential to grow by 12%. While the stats reported seem promising, Africa hardly holds a position on the landscape currently dominated by Pfizer, Merck, Bayer and similar companies.

That is to say that less than 3% of genetic material used in global pharmaceutical research is from Africa, which when compared to the rest of the world is quite appalling given that Africans and people of African descent are reported to be more genetically diverse than any other population.

This further points to the possibility that greater availability of African genomic data could perhaps lead to medical breakthroughs for the continent’s 1.2 billion people.

That’s exactly the gap which the African startup 54gene is tapping.

What is 54gene?

Founded back in 2019, the company headquartered in Washington, U.S., is a Nigeria-based startup that collects African genetic code for use in health research and drug development. The startup plans to exert leverage over the pricing process through its practice of co-developing drugs.

The company generates genetic insights from research cohorts in the world’s most diverse populations to improve the development, availability and efficiency of therapeutics and diagnostics that will prove beneficial to all populations including Africa.

Additionally, 54gene earned praise when it opened a lab in Lagos that’s capable of human whole genome sequencing, the first such facility by a private company in Africa. The company told Quartz that its biobank has five times the capacity for sample collection than it had 12 months ago, and that it now generates revenue from its diagnostics operations, which wasn’t the case at the beginning of 2020.

Besides money, the other factor critical to drug research is talent, a rare resource in Nigeria, with doctors and pharmacists leaving the country in large numbers. However, 54gene caters to this problem by successfully recruiting and training talent for the data pipeline that informs its drug discovery efforts.

Background of Founders

Dr. Abasi Ene-Obong

Abasi Ene-Obong completed Masters from the Imperial College London in Human Molecular Genetics, after which he went for and completed his Phd in Cancer Biology at the London School of Medicine and Industry (University of London).

After working in research during the initial years of his professional career, he joined Panasonic in 2013 as a Strategy Consultant. Over the course of the next few years, he served in the health industry in different capacities, until 2019, when he founded the startup, 54gene.

Why 54gene?

With the world’s analyzed genomes coming mostly from anywhere that isn’t Africa, the continent remains a valuable source of new genetic information for health and drug discovery research. Since its launch in 2019, 54gene has been at the forefront of bridging this divide in the global genomics market.

The company conducts and leverages this research to ensure Africans are recipients of upcoming drug and medical discoveries. To conduct its research, the company recruits voluntary participants who donate genetic samples via swab or blood tests.

But instead of depending on third-party health centres like hospitals or sending the samples abroad for analysis, 54gene launched its own genetics sequencing and microarray lab in Lagos last September. The company did this in partnership with U.S.-based biotech company Illumina.

Company’s founder, Ene-Obong, also shared that in addition to the genotyping capabilities offered, the lab also provides whole-genome sequencing (WGS) and whole-exome sequencing (WES).

With these three in place, the company can advance genomics research and expand its ability to help scientists and researchers in Africa.

Funding Raised

Series B Round: Raised $25 million

In September 2021, the company secured $25 million in Series B funding to bolster its efforts. The round was led by venture capitalists Cathay AfricInvest Innovation Fund. Some existing investors like Adjuvant Capital, KdT Ventures, and Ingressive Capital also participated in the round.

Series A Round: Raised $15 million

In April 2020, the African genomics research, services, and development company closed a Series A round of $15M, led by Adjuvant Capital, a life sciences fund backed by the International Finance Corporation, Novartis, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The round further included participation from :

Raba Capital
V8 Capital
Ingressive Capital, and follow on investment from Y Combinator
Better Ventures
Fifty Years
KdT Ventures
Aera VC
Pioneer Fund

Seed Round: Raised $4.5 million

In July 2019, the company secured a $4.5 million investment from Y Combinator, Fifty Years, Better Ventures, KdT Ventures, Hack VC and Techammer, among others.

Future Prospects

In addition to setting its first lab, the company is also increasing its biobanking capacity by 5x.

The newly-raised capital will be deployed to expand the company’s capabilities in sequencing, target identification and validation, clinical trials and drug discovery for the benefit of both Africans and the global population. The funding will also aid 54gene’s expansion across the African continent, as the company advances in precision medicine by creating access to accurate diagnostics for African patients.

Jugnu – Business Idea, Value Proposition, and Everything else about the company

Sarwat Rizvi — Wed, 21 Dec 2022 17:37:23 GMT

According to recent stats, there are over one million Kiryana stores without access to convenient inventory procurement in Pakistan. This number further attenuated after the advent of the pandemic. Additionally, over two-thirds of the retail stores are never serviced directly by any organized distribution channel, which ultimately makes business difficult for the retailers.

Such difficulties and many other problems are what gave rise to many B2B startups during the pandemic. One such startup, we’ll be covering today is Jugnu. The Karachi-based startup aims to equip small businesses with social and economic empowerment.

Presently, the startup only supports small businesses because small and medium businesses are responsible for approximately 60% of employment opportunities, in the country. With more than 2 million small-scale retailers lacking ease of inventory procurement, their earning potential is further restrained. This impacts the livelihoods of not only the small business owners, but also their employees, and families.

What is Jugnu?

Founded back in 2019 by co-founders Sharoon Saleem, Yasir Memon, Syed Khurram Haider, and Ahsan Muhammad Khan, Jugnu drives small businesses across the country toward social and economic growth. The startup does so via a B2B platform to channel supplies from large suppliers/manufacturers to small and medium enterprises.

The startup’s objective is to uplift the local economy by lighting up the livelihoods of Kiryanas through innovation and technological disruption in the retail ecosystem.

After gathering waste experience working with both FMCGs and retailers, Salesflo launched Jugnu in 2020. It serves thousands of grocery store owners through its mobile app and fulfillment centers as well as offers next-day delivery for all their purchases.

Background of Founders

Sharoon Saleem

Sharoon is an alumnus of Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology. He graduated as a Mechanical Engineer in 2009, after which he joined Unilever as a Management Trainee.

In the same year, he landed a full-time job as an Assistant Brand Manager at Unilever and served the company, in different capacities up until 2015. In 2015, he co-founded Salesflo and in 2021, he became a part of the team that co-founded Jugnu.

Yasir Memon

Yasir graduated from the Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology in 2004 as a Software Engineer. After which he completed his Master’s in Software Engineering at the same institute. In 2007, he completed his second Master’s in Business Administration from LUMS.

He started his professional career as a Management Trainee at Unilever, after which he got a full-time position as a Category Manager. Over the course of the next few years, he served Unilever in different capacities until 2015, when he co-founded Salesflo alongside his other colleagues.

Then finally, in 2019 he joined the team that co-founded Jugnu.

Syed Khurram Haider

Khurram is an IBA alumnus, with a Bachelor’s in Computer Science. After completing his undergrad, he pursued a Master’s in Business Administration.

He started his career as an intern at PepsiCo. In 2009, he joined Nestle in a leading sales position and served there for the next six years. Then in 2018, he joined Salesflo as a co-founder and founded Jugnu in 2019.

Ahsan Muhammad Khan

Ahsan completed his MBA in Marketing from the National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST) in 2003.

After completing his postgrad he joined Unilever as a Territory Manager. Over the next five years, he served both Unilever Pakistan and Unilever international in different leading capacities. Then in 2018 he co-founded Salesflo alongside his other colleagues and finally in 2021, he co-founded Jugnu.

Why Jugnu?

According to a report, the Pakistani B2B eCommerce market represents a significant commercial opportunity with a current value of $100 billion and 8% YoY growth. Jugnu further claims to have established a rapidly-growing customer base of over 30,000 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in key cities such as Lahore, Rawalpindi, and Islamabad, with a team of over one hundred industry veterans and young innovators.

It is one of the leading technology players in the country with a market cap of over $430 million.

Alliance with Sary

Furthermore, the B2B e-commerce startup Jugnu and MENA-based Sary have recently formed an alliance to transform the future of B2B e-commerce through an initial strategic investment of $22.5 million investment, aimed at accelerating Jugnu’s growth and expansion.

This strategic investment in Jugnu’s Series A round was led by Sary with participation from Sarmayacar and Systems Limited. This will enable Jugnu to accelerate the development of its B2B eCommerce ecosystem in Pakistan and strengthen the retail supply chain, lighting up the livelihoods of small and medium-sized enterprise owners and workers that constitute a sizable chunk of Pakistan’s economy.

Founded in 2018, Sary has successfully consolidated its market-leading position, proliferating in Saudi Arabia in 2021. Following its acquisition of the Egyptian B2B food and grocery marketplace, Morrawid in March, the startup is poised to become the gateway to enable frictionless commerce between producers and businesses in the Middle East, North Africa, and Pakistan (MENAP).

Both Sary and Jugnu stand to gain from a MENAP-wide knowledge and talent network, by which employee exchanges will bring teams from both companies closer together. This will enable them to leverage complementary expertise, and build an interdisciplinary skill set needed to create a frictionless B2B eCommerce gateway across the region.

Funding Raised

Seed Round: Raised $3.2 million

In July 2022, the startup of its parent company Saleflo raised ~$3.2 million from Systems Limited, a Lahore-based leading global technology, and business process outsourcing services provider.

Some angel investors also participated in the round. Systems made an investment of $3 million in exchange for a 20 percent stake in the company.

Series A Round: Raised $22.5 million

In March 2022, Jugnu raised $22.5 million in Series-A round funding to digitize the country’s retail sector. The Series A round was led by Saudi-Headquartered and MENAP servicing B2B marketplace and digital wholesaler Sary in a continued effort to expand its market reach. The round also recorded participation from key strategic investors including Sarmayacar and Systems Limited.

Future Plans

The startup plans to use the latest funds to further expand Jugnu. It is in a highly competitive space with startups like Bazaar, Dastgyr, Retailo, and Tajir, who’ve raised tens of millions of dollars.

Jugnu is accelerating its growth, and currently has operations across Lahore, Islamabad, and Rawalpindi with plans to expand into all major cities across Pakistan.

MedznMore – Business Idea, Value Proposition, and Everything else about the company

Sarwat Rizvi — Tue, 20 Dec 2022 11:21:00 GMT

In a market of over 220m people, and a limited public healthcare spending of only 1.2% of GDP, where approximately 55% of all healthcare spending is out-of-pocket, people generally resort to medicine as a means to reduce their suffering instead of spending on unaffordable medical procedures.

However, this too will only continue to remain possible if the accessibility of affordable and authentic medicines is ensured. And this precisely is what MedznMore is all about. The startup aims to make health and wellness products available in all corners of the country.

The domestic market is riddled with counterfeit medicine, according to reports 25 to 40% of all medicine dispensed is either fake or has lost efficacy.

What is MedznMore?

Founded back in late 2020 by Asad Khan, Saad Khawar, and Babar Lakhani, MedznMore is a B2X pharma delivery platform that aims to provide a solution to the decade-long problems pertaining to the purchase of medicines and other wellness products.

Currently, the startup is catering to both business-to-business (B2B) as well as business-to-consumer (B2C) channels through TezMedz and Tabiyat.pk.

Background of Founders

Asad Khan

Asad is a Duke University alumnus who left his position as General Manager at Careem in 2020 to focus on making healthcare more accessible and affordable for the masses.

He is a seasoned healthcare industry professional with over ten years of experience in leading healthcare companies in the US and Europe. He has also served as the Country Manager in the United Kingdom and Ireland for IQVIA in London.

Saad Khawar

Saad is a LUMS alumnus and completed his Bachelor’s in Computer Science back in 2015.

He started his professional journey as Business Development Officer at Zameen.com. Later, he joined Dawaai as a Product and BI specialist. Then in 2020, he left his full-time job at Dawaai and launched MedznMore with his colleagues.

Babar Lakhani

Babar completed his Bachelor’s from Bentley University in Finance. After undergrad, he went for an MBA from Brandeis University.

He started his career back in 1999 as a Research Analyst. He has worked with many national and international companies in different capacities. In 2009, he founded Lacksons Investments Limited, and in 2020, joined MedznMore as a co-founder.

Why MedznMore?

MEDZnMORE partners with pharmaceutical companies and their authorized distributors across Karachi, Lahore, and Islamabad, where it operates through a network of warehouses, to deliver genuine products, and the best-in-class experience, to patients and retail pharmacies.

The company has seen phenomenal traction and according to previous stats has seen a growth of ~42% month over month for the past 12 months. Presently, the startup now controls over 1% of the Pakistani pharma market and delivers over 100,000 products from its 7 cold-chain enabled warehouses located across Karachi, Lahore, and Islamabad every day.

In a statement, Asad Khan, CEO MEDZnMORE said:

Ensuring the accessibility of affordable and authentic medicines is essential. At MEDZnMORE our aim is to make health and wellness products available in all corners of the country.

Funding Raised

Seed Round: Raised $2.6 million

In September 2020, the Karachi-based health-tech startup raised $2.6 million in a seed round for its medicines and healthcare product delivery operations. This seed round was believed to be the country’s largest seed round at the time.

MedznMore, which began operations in August 2020, closed the seed round with participation from a syndicate of seasoned local and international angel investors, the company said in a statement.

Pre-Series A Round: Raised $11.5 million

In May 2022, the startup raised $11.5 mn in Pre-Series A funding from a series of investors including:

Integra Partners
Nunc Gestion
Sturgeon Capital
Alta Semper
AlTouq Group
ACE & Company
Key Family Partners
Reflect Ventures
Atlas Asset Management

As well as, a few angel investors who are closely aligned with MEDZnMORE’s mission to transform and uplift the development curve of healthcare in Pakistan.

Future Plans

At present, the company has seven cold chain-enabled warehouses in three cities and plans to expand to a new city each month in 2022, enhancing its presence to 9 cities by the end of the year. The startup delivers over 100,000 products from its warehouses each day.

The startup’s Chief Executive Officer Asad Khan said in an interview:

By the end of this year, we expect to be in seven to eight new cities. A lot of this capital will be spent on these cities to build warehouses, have omni-channel stores, staff, and inventory.

While the startup’s future plans do sound promising, with the current global economic recession putting an end to some of the big names like Airlift, only time will tell whether the startup lives up to its promise.

STARZPLAY – Business Idea, Value Proposition, and Everything else about the company

Sarwat Rizvi — Mon, 19 Dec 2022 19:31:47 GMT

We all have seen how Netflix’s business model graced the company with tremendous success. This success gauged the attention of many other streaming channels as well as gave rise to many similar startups.

We all were there when HBO launched its subscription-based on-demand HBO max, Disney launched Disney+ and Amazon launched Amazon prime. While these are some big sharks, a lot of other baby sharks started out as well such as iflix and STARZPLAY.

STARZPLAY brings Hollywood movies, original TV shows, and children’s programs on on-demand entertainment subscription services – anytime anywhere.

What is STARZPLAY?

STARZPLAY is a Dubai-based Middle Eastern competitor of Netflix Inc. Launched in late 2015, as structured as a TV Everywhere-style, it’s a subscription-based on-demand service.

After the pandemic kicked in, the service witnessed an increase in its overall subscriber count, so on the one hand where Netflix suffered the effects of the pandemic to an extent and still is going through a tough time, STARZPLAY enjoyed massive growth.

Additionally, in 2021 the company had reached over 1.8 million in 20 countries across the Middle East, North Africa, and Pakistan (MENAP) paying subscribers and was reported to have been installed on over six million devices. With a market share of about 33 percent, the company claims to have recorded exceptional growth in 2020, including a 141 percent growth in the number of unique users.

The app is available to download on your iOS or Android devices, including Android TVs, and is compatible with Google Chromecast

Background of Founders

Maaz Sheikh

Maaz graduated from Oklahoma State University back in 1993, with a Bachelor’s in Science. In 1996, he completed his MBA from the University of Kansas and started working as the Corporate Finance guy for the Kansas-based company, Sprint.

Over the course of the next ten to twelve years, he served in different international firms in different leading capacities, til he founded STRAZPLAY in 2015.

Why STARZPLAY?

While there is stiff competition in the region’s SVOD space from the likes of Netflix, Amazon Prime, and more, StarzPlay co-founder and CEO Maaz Sheikh told the Entrepreneur, Middle East, that his enterprise has a significant advantage over the others since it’s located within the region and have a sound understanding of its user-base.

Starzplay saw growth of about 40 percent in 2020 in its paid subscriber base and expects the number of users to double over the next three to four years to around 4 million.

As for what makes StarzPlay stand out in the regional landscape, the company’s CEO and Co-founder Sheikh points toward the content it hosts on its platform.

Our subscribers appreciate the premium content we deliver through our partnerships with leading global studios, and how we leverage advanced technology to deliver a seamless customer experience. We also launched our first original production, Baghdad Central, in partnership with Fremantle, which received an overwhelming response, showing that stories from the region resonate with MENA viewers. In addition, the pandemic has created organic demand for our service -in the last 12 months alone.

In late 2020, the company further teamed up with Discovery Inc. to launch Discovery+ across Mena. The company also plans to go public by 2024.

Funding Raised

Debt Financing Round: Secured $25 million

UAE-based subscription and on-demand video service (SVOD) STARZPLAY, has secured a $25 million debt financing round from Abu Dhabi-based Ruya Partners, an independent alternative investment firm focusing on private credit investments in developing markets.

Equity Funding Round: Raised $125 million

In addition to the latest round of financing, Starzplay had previously raised $125 million in equity funding since its launch in 2015 from State Street Global Advisors and STARZ, a company owned by Lionsgate Entertainment Corp.

Future Plans

The funding will be used to expand the company’s customer and geographical reach, and acquire and produce original content.

According to Maaz Sheikh, Co-Founder, and CEO of Starzplay:

UAE’s strong tech-entrepreneurial ecosystem, and this new investment will further strengthen Starzplay’s capacity to create original content, expand our geographical footprint and cement our lead status as the MENA region’s digital champion.

Kitopi– Business Idea, Value Proposition, and Everything else about the company

Sarwat Rizvi — Fri, 09 Dec 2022 13:43:27 GMT

Over the last few years, the trend of cloud kitchens has seen a massive hike. Especially, after the advent of the pandemic, when people started working from home and started quarantining themselves, cloud kitchens proved to be a blessing for all those who couldn’t cook for themselves.

Models enabling home delivery of meals have generally experienced a boom in business since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, as lockdowns and government advisories have kept diners indoors.

According to AgFunder‘s global 2021 Agrifoodtech Investment report, VCs channeled more money into the Cloud Retail Infrastructure category last year, which includes cloud kitchens, in an effort to support skyrocketing demand for at-home dining.

So, what actually are cloud kitchens? Are they kitchens located on clouds? Well, cloud kitchens are kitchens that prepare food for delivery and are among one of the few businesses that immensely benefited from the shift to online buying during the coronavirus crisis.

Sometimes referred to as “dark”, “cloud” or “ghost” kitchens, cloud kitchens have no physical presence as standalone restaurants instead they offer delivery-only services from a centralized location via a mobile app.

Today, we’ll be discussing a startup, Kitopi, that started off as a cloud kitchen startup but has recently diversified into a grocery delivery app, along with offering subscription-based meal plans.

The cloud kitchen platform has also diversified its offerings by leveraging its supply chain to include subscription-based meal plans and on-demand groceries delivery

What is Kitopi?

Founded by Mohamad Ballout, Saman Darkan, Bader Ataya, and Andy Arenas, Dubai-based Kitopi offers cloud kitchen services, including sourcing ingredients, aggregating orders, as well as preparing and delivering meals for restaurant brand owners.

Kitopi, which stands for Kitchen Utopia, was founded back in January 2018, with a mission to satisfy the world’s appetite. Kitopi currently has a workforce of over 2500 Kitopians in its 4 markets, in addition to Krakow, Poland where the startup’s engineering hub is located. While its global CX center is in Dubai.

Currently, Kitopi operates 60+ cloud kitchens across the UAE, KSA, Kuwait, and Bahrain along with a number of other regions it has recently acquired. It partners with restaurants and F&B brands, enabling them to expand its reach through its kitchens, in a short span of 14 days. It has worked with over 200+ F&B partners, including several globally recognized brands such as Papa John’s, Nathan’s Famous, and iHOP.

Once it has a partner onboard, Kitopi takes care of everything, from the supply chain, staff training, food preparation, and delivery to customer experience.

Background of Founders

Mohamad Ballout (CEO)

Mohamad is an alumnus of the University of Warwick. He completed his undergrad with a Bachelor’s in Science, after which he completed his postgrad from Imperial College London with a Master’s in Science (Management).

In 2007, he co-founded BMP group and in 2017, became the CEO of another company called Rippled Capital. Then in December 2017, he co-founded the Dubai-based startup, Kitopi.

Saman Darkan (Chief Technology Officer)

Saman graduated from California State University in 2009, with a Bachelor’s in Science. In 2010, she joined ARC international as Digital Transformer Director, and in 2013 she became the CEO of CentralTickets.com.

Finally, in 2017 she joined Kitopi as Chief Product and technology officer.

Bader Ataya (Chief Growth Officer)

Bader is an alumnus of Tufts University. After completing her Bachelors’s, she completed her MBA from the University of Cambridge. In 2009, she joined Casper and Gambini’s as a Line Chef.

Then in 2011, she co-founded the Dubai-based Mumzworld.com and finally, in 2018 she joined Kitopi as a co-founder and Chief Growth Officer.

Andy Arenas (Chief Property Officer)

Andy is also an alumnus of the University of Warwick. After this, he completed his MSc in finance from Centrum PUPC.

After working at a number of reputable firms since the start of his career, in 2018 he joined Kitopi as a co-founder and Chief Compliance Officer.

Why Kitopi?

A large part of its competitive advantage lies in its proprietary Smart Kitchen Operating System (“SKOS”). SKOS is a suite of applications that optimizes the performance of its cloud kitchen operations in real time. The solution aims to deliver a distinguished customer experience across multiple brands in a single kitchen by maximizing operational efficiency. Since its launch, SKOS has enabled Kitopi to scale to 200+ brands in 60+ sites over a period of just 3 years.

In this period, its kitchens have been able to double the order volume while reducing kitchen preparation time by approximately 40 percent. For instance, one of its applications uses data science to predict when drivers will arrive and how long a menu item would take to cook, then the system auto sequences items in order of their cooking time, to enhance speed.

Funding Raised

Series C Round: Raised $415 million

Last year in July, the Dubai-headquartered Kitopi raised $415 million in a series C funding round led by SoftBank (9984.T). The round saw additional participation from investors including:

Chimera
DisruptAD
B. Riley
Turkey’s Dogus Group
U.S.-based Next Play Capital
UK-based Nordstar

Extended Series C Round: Raised $300 million

The startup raised an additional $300 million in an extension Series C round, taking the round’s size to $715 million, according to a Bloomberg report. The recent fundraiser brings the unicorn’s post-investment valuation to $1.55 billion.

The extension is part of Kitopi’s new growth strategy targeting investments in brick-and-mortar restaurants, as consumers head back to the indoor dining.

Future Plans

According to the startup, the new funding will be used to fuel its continued expansion within the Middle East and support entry to new markets such as Southeast Asia, which has a highly attractive and fast-growing online food delivery market. The startup further plans to continue to innovate and expand its tech stack, in addition to growing its strategic restaurant partnerships as well as building a best-in-class team across the organization.

The company’s CEO, Mohamad Ballout, in a statement said that:

Combining the technology used for cloud kitchens with the know-how required to run traditional restaurants will enable the firm to gain more data about customers and so better anticipate their needs.

Pure Harvest Smart Farms– Business Idea, Value Proposition, and Everything else about the company

Sarwat Rizvi — Thu, 08 Dec 2022 18:14:57 GMT

Pure Harvest Smart Farms is a regional innovator in sustainable agriculture focused on the production of greenhouse fruits and vegetables in the challenging climates of the Arab Gulf region using world-leading Dutch greenhouse growing technologies.

The startup specializes in vine vegetable crops including tomatoes, capsicum, cucumbers, eggplants, strawberries, etc. The company aims to leverage innovative growing technology in order to pioneer year-round production of affordable, premium quality fresh produce.

Established in 2016 in Abu Dhabi, Pure Harvest grows crops in smart greenhouses installed with controlled-environment agriculture technologies to deliver fresh produce that is as they claim cleaner-than-organic.

What are Pure Harvest Smart Farms?

Led by Sky Kurtz, Co-Founder, and CEO, Pure Harvest Smart Farms is a UAE-based, technology-enabled agribusiness.

The company deploys takes advantage of technology to circumvent the UAE’s hostile climate and create an environment that can sustain agriculture. The startup uses high-tech greenhouses, that provide precise climate & environmental controls, enabling increased productivity and reduced waste, including water, energy, and time.

An advanced system analyses data that adjust sunlight, temperature, and humidity, while keeping other variables such as levels of carbon dioxide, water, and airflow in check. There is also an advanced on-site water treatment to ensure food safety.

Pure Harvest packs its own produce: immediately cooling fresh-picked produce to extend shelf life – preserving freshness, firmness, and flavor. However, for now, the company only produces tomatoes.

Background of Founders

Sky Kurtz

Sky completed his Bachelor’s in Finance from Arizona State University. After which he worked at the NewYork-based firm, Lehman Brothers as an Analyst, at Global Leveraged Finance.

In 2009, he went for an MBA at Stanford University. After completing his postgrad he served at a number of international firms in different leading capacities. He co-founded the San Francisco-based Vence Corp in 2016. In the same year, he founded and launched Pure Harvest Smart Farms.

Why Pure Harvest Smart Farms?

In recognition of regional vulnerabilities associated with water scarcity and food import dependence, Pure Harvest has committed itself to resource efficiency and overcoming local climate challenges specifically, heat and humidity during the summer months to deliver European quality to its customers.

According to the startup, its technology is 7x more efficient than typical UAE greenhouse farms and over 30x more efficient than traditional field farming. The startup further claims that 83% of the water that they consume leaves the farm in our food. Furthermore, Pure Harvest grows year-round, even in the harshest summer months.

Funding Secured

Growth Capital: Secured $64.5 million

The startup announced on October 27, 2021, that it had secured $64.5m in growth capital to accelerate the company’s expansion and technology development efforts.

This funding had scaled the company’s cumulative invested capital to $271.6 million. The round was led by Korea’s private investment firm IMM Investment Corp., together with existing investors and management.

Latest Venture Round: Secured $180.5 million

In July 2022, raised USD $180.5 million in its latest growth funding round.

The financing was embraced by a group of key global investors, including:

Olayan Group from Saudi Arabia, representing the largest-ever convertible financing in the MEASA region
Citigroup served as the exclusive financial advisor.

This round represents the largest-ever convertible financing in the MEASA region. The funding round was vastly oversubscribed, and a few strategic investors are still in discussions for further upsizing, underscoring the strong institutional investor appetite for Pure Harvest.

One of the company’s latest investors, the Saudi Arabian-based Olayan Financing Company, said the climate and water challenges that Pure Harvest works to overcome are vital to the global economy.

Future Prospects

Focused on helping the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to significantly reduce the reliance on food imports for the past six years, agribusiness tech startup Pure Harvest Smart Farms is now keen to expand its footprint wider afield with plans to open new markets in Asia.

It is also looking to expand its reach across the GCC countries, which comprises Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman.

With its newly raised capital, the company is further looking to invest in research and development as well as investigating a number of new growth initiatives, including product extensions and water-efficient CEA solutions for fodder production.

Breadfast – Business Idea, Value Proposition, and Everything else about the company

Sarwat Rizvi — Wed, 07 Dec 2022 11:35:00 GMT

Over the past year, we’ve witnessed all kinds of online delivery startups, from fresh fruits and vegetables, and groceries to even snacks and sweets, the newly emerging startups have made everything accessible to the masses from quite literally the comfort of their homes.

But have you heard of a startup that’s solely devoted to delivering freshly produced bread to your doorstep? Well, Breadfast is doing just that. Breadfast is one of Egypt’s latest entrepreneurial ventures, that delivers fresh baked goods to its customer’s doorstep every morning.

What is Breadfast?

Established back in 2017, Breadfast started its bakery delivery business to deliver freshly baked goods every morning to customers’ doorsteps, before they leave for work or school. The startup allowed customers to even subscribe to get the products they need on any day of their choice via the company’s platform.

Presently, the startup offers over 2,500 grocery products, with fresh produce representing the largest portion of the company’s revenue today. The firm owns the full value chain, including bread production, transportation and distribution, technology, and customer service, and ships tens of thousands of orders every month.

Background of Founders

Muhammad S. Habib

Muhammad completed his Bachelor’s from the Modern Academy in Maadi, Egypt. After that, he completed his MBA at the Paris ESLSCA Business School. He started his career as a Web Designer at an Egypt-based firm and served at a number of organizations in different design capacities.

In 2021, he became the Co-founder, Chief Operations & Product Officer of a Cairo-based company, Nafham. In 2015, he co-founded MarginUX, a User Experience design and consulting firm. Then finally, in 2017 he joined Breadfast as a co-founder and CXO.

Mostafa Amin

Mostafa is an alumnus of the Higher Technology Institute, Egypt, and graduated with a Bachelor’s in Biomedical Engineering.

He started his professional career as a Marketing Communications Officer of a Cairo-based firm, Thomson Reuters. Later in 2014, he became the Chief Operations Officer at Speakol. In 2012 he co-founded an online news portal under the name of, Egyptian streets and in 2016 he co-founded Wassel.io, which is an extensive and standardized directory of startups, funders, and entrepreneurs in the Middle East.

Finally, in 2017, he became the co-founder and CEO of Breadfast.

Abdallah Nofal

Abdallah completed his Bachelor’s in Computer Programming from Alexandria University. After his Bachelor’s, Abdallah joined the Egypt-based company, Nafham, as a web designer.

In 2015, he became the CEO and a Partner at MarginUX, and in 2017, he co-founded and joined Breadfast as CTO.

Why Breadfast?

The startup aims to shape how customers in emerging nations plan and carry out their grocery shopping. What started off as a fresh bread delivery platform has now transformed itself into delivering groceries and other home needs on a schedule or on demand via its iOS and Android app. Deliveries are now available for under 60 minutes, but the business plans to reduce this to 20 minutes by using a portion of the additional money to expand its dark shop network.

Mostafa Amin, co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) at Breadfast, in a statement, said:

We started out baking and delivering fresh bread, and today we are able to give Egyptian’s access to thousands of items of their basic supermarket supplies at the click of a button. Our mission is to change how people consume their daily essentials in Africa and the Middle East and, through our dynamic technology and deep understanding of the end-to-end supply chain process in the region, we are growing a simple idea into a product we believe can benefit millions of people across the MENA and Sub-Saharan regions.

Funding Raised

Series A Round – Raised $26 million

In November 2021 the company secured USD 26 mn in funding in a series A round co-led by Vostok New Ventures and Endure Capital. Other investors who participated in the round included:

Tinder co-founder Justine Mateen’s JAM Fund
Y Combinator’s YC Continuity Fund
Abu Dhabi-based Shorooq Partners
Africa-focused 4DX Ventures and freight forwarding company Flexport.

The round brought Breadfast’s total investments to around USD 33 mn, according to the statement, which includes a seven-figure pre-series B funding secured in March 2020.

Future Plans

In a statement, the company shared a roadmap and areas where it plans to utilize the new funds. According to the roadmap, the startup plans to expand its operations to eight new cities in Egypt. Additionally, the financing will also help the company to expand in sub-Saharan markets.

On top of this, the company plans to support its network of distribution stores with the new funding by reducing product delivery time to 20 minutes, from about an hour at present, Breadfast is also seeking to develop its technical capabilities beyond its current application, and hire more employees.

Eyewa – Business Idea, Value Proposition, and Everything else about the company

Sarwat Rizvi — Tue, 06 Dec 2022 11:18:00 GMT

Over the course of the last two years, it’s not just the fintech, ed-tech, or health-tech startups that got a boost in funding but the pandemic revealed some other although minor but significant market gaps like the eyewear industry.

Today, we’ll be covering one such eyewear startup called Eyewa. Since its launch, the startup has developed itself into the largest online eyewear retailer in the Middle East.

What is Eyewa?

Founded back in 2017, with a purposeful intent to offer an advanced and easy-to-use platform to its customers, allowing them to purchase high-quality eyewear at affordable prices.

The startup’s objective is to create a unique, efficient, and memorable shopping experience for all. Ever since, it has become the largest and most trusted online eyewear store in the Middle East that provides the finest brands of prescription glasses, sunglasses, blue light glasses, color contact lenses, and corrective contact lenses.

Since its launch in 2017, the homegrown Middle East brand has built a trusted and reliable reputation in the UAE, KSA, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, and Bahrain

Background of Founders

Mehdi Oudghiri

Mehdi graduated from Tonji University, China, with a Bachelor’s in Science. After graduation, he completed his MBA from Stanford University.

He started his career as a Product Manager at a Shanghai-based company. In 2015, he joined foodpanda, Middle East, as a Managing Director. Over the course of the next few years, he served in leading positions at a number of international firms.

Then in 2017, he became the Co-CEO and Co-Founder of Eyewa.

Anass Boumediene

Anass is an alumnus of Concordia University and completed his Bachelor’s in Commerce and Finance.

He started his career as an Investment Analyst at Deutsche Bank. Then he joined Bain and Company, as a Consultant. In 2015, he became the Managing Director at foodpanda, Middle East. Then finally, in 2017 he joined Eyewa as a Co-CEO and Co-Founder.

Why Eyewa?

Not only does it stock and sell contact lenses and eyewear from all the major brands, but Eyewa has also invested heavily into building its house brands that cater to the untapped wants and needs of the local market. Eyewa has designed and developed three unique ranges spanning different price points; including the lifestyle eyewear brand 30Sundays, the fast fashion collection called Blackout, as well as a natural color contact lenses range, Layala. The homegrown brand has specifically created these for the modern Middle Eastern consumer.

Eyewa is now embarking on a journey to enter the retail sector. With many brands in the past year going from offline to online, Eyewa is heading in a different direction and exploring opportunities with bricks and mortar stores in key locations, taking customer experiences to the next level.

Mehdi Oudghiri, the startup’s co-founder said in a statement:

“We have built eyewa with customers in mind in every part of our journey. After building a truly disruptive online offering with best-in-class customer experience, we are very excited to embark on an omnichannel journey that will allow our customers to explore eyewa’s differentiated experience in both the physical and digital world. Our stores are built on the basis of what made our success online, with a vibrant look and feel in line with our times, leveraging technology in every aspect of customers’ interaction and exclusive products at accessible prices.”

In 2019, Eyewa was selected as one of the top 100 Arab startups by the World Economic Forum for its contribution to the region’s digital transformation.

Funding Secured

Series A Round: Raised $7.5 million

In 2019, the startup bagged $7.5 million in funding in a series A round led by Wamda Capital, with participation from GS shop, Equitrust (the investment arm of Choueiri Group), 500 Startups, and Faith Capital among others.

Series B Round: Raised: Raised $22.1 million

In 2018, Eyewa raised a $1.1 million seed round led by EQ2 Ventures. Then in June 2021, it raised an additional $21 million series B funding round. The round, which was co-led by Kingsway and Nuwa Capital, with participation from:

French Partners
Endeavor Catalyst
Derayah
Palm Drive
Hardy Capital

This brings the total funding to date of Eyewa to $30 million.

Future Plans

This round of investment will be used to support Eyewa’s expansion plans, investing in its technology and product teams as well as in its retail and omnichannel strategy.

Anass Boumediene, the co-founder of Eyewa, shared his plans for the company’s future:

“This fundraise will boost our expansion plans and will enable us to offer a better customer experience in the eyewear vertical, both online and offline. The customer response since our launch four years ago has been formidable and we count on keeping our promise of offering the best products at the best price across the region. While we have focused our first few years in our home markets of UAE and KSA, we are now expanding beyond to the rest of MENA and will bring our successful formula of affordable eyewear and amazing customer experience to a wider audience.”

Huspy – Business Idea, Value Proposition, and Everything else about the company

Sarwat Rizvi — Mon, 05 Dec 2022 17:09:00 GMT

A few years back, who would’ve thought that one could apply for a mortgage loan simply from the comfort of their couch and without having to make a visit to the bank?

Well, it is 2022, and while we might not have flying cars as we predicted in the past we do have some everything else just a tap away, even mortgage loans. Huspy is one such platform that allows masses to apply for a mortgage loan without having to pay a visit to the bank.

Even during the pandemic, real estate continued to be an in-demand asset class around the world, showing a growth of 59 percent YoY in 2021. However, less than 1 percent of home-buying transactions are completed through digital channels. With this addition, Huspy aims to solve many such challenges across every stage of the home-buying process.

What is Huspy?

Founded back in 2020, Huspy is a Dubai-based proptech, that serves as an online mortgage platform. The startup aims to streamline the otherwise complex and confusing process of mortgage, in the UAE, for an average customer by allowing them to secure home loans through its web and mobile app, without any paperwork.

The Huspy portal allows the customers to do everything in one place, from calculating their loan size, and viewing personalized bank offers to submit their application, and getting pre-approval, all gets done online.

The startup is currently expanding at a rate of 25 percent month on month to become one of the UAE’s leading housing platforms.

Background of Founders

Jad Antoun

Jad is an alumnus of the University of San Francisco and graduated with a bachelor’s in applied economics.

After completing his bachelor’s, he served at a number of reputable international firms in different capacities, until he co-founded Huspy in 2020.

Khalid Ashmawy

Khalid completed his bachelor’s in Computer Science from the German University in Cairo. After his graduation, he started his career as a Software Engineer at Microsoft and later, joined Uber as Senior Tech Lead Manager.

Then in 2021, he joined Huspy as its Co-Founder and CTO.

Why Huspy?

Huspy is building the new wave of PropTech to disrupt the real estate industry starting with home financing.

The company promises customers a quote with the best price guarantee in under one minute and the ability to close the transaction three times faster than the traditional process. While only two years old, Huspy is already one of the largest brokerages in the country with more than $200 million in annualized GMV, 150+ transactions, and growing 40%+ every month with their current core product focusing on home buying and refinancing.

The best part? Its service is entirely free for customers. Huspy does not charge a broker fee. Explaining how it’s able to do that, the company’s CEO in a statement said:

Given that we use tech to deliver our value proposition we don’t need to hire an army of people and therefore are able to pass on the savings to the customer.

But then, how does the startup generate revenue? Huspy makes money by charging the banks financing the loans a commission for every loan.

Funding Raised

Seed Round: Raised $10 million

In 2021, the platform raised $10 million in a seed funding round led by Athens-based VentureFriends. Beco Capital’s former managing partner Amir Farha also participated in the deal (through his new firm COTU) along with B&Y Venture Partners, Plug and Play, and some family offices from the region.

Series A Round: Raised $37 million

Then in 2022, the startup raised $37 million in Series A funding led by Sequoia Capital India. Founders Fund and Fifth Wall made their Middle East investment debut in this round. Other investors included:

Chimera Capital joined returning investors Breyer Capital
VentureFriends
COTU
Venture Souq
BY Venture Partners.

Future Plans

Huspy plans on using the newly raised funding to focus on investing in products and technology and double down its growth with plans to expand to new verticals and markets.

Khalid Ashmawy, co-founder and CTO of Huspy said:

The team has built tools and systems to leverage technology in a highly operational business. This gives us the ability to scale Huspy in a significant way, giving our team a powerful edge over any competition. We also designed our systems and architecture in a way, where we can launch in new markets quickly so we’re ready for international expansion.

Abwaab – Business Idea, Value Proposition, and Everything else about the company

Sarwat Rizvi — Fri, 02 Dec 2022 11:04:00 GMT

The advent of the pandemic bought with it many new normals for the world. One such normal that took academia by storm was the choice of online learning, which in turn birthed many new online learning platforms around the globe.

One such Jordan-based online learning platform is Adwaab, which made education accessible to secondary school students throughout the MENAP region and provided tough competition to some of the newly emerging platforms such as Noon Academy, Edkasa, and Ashtar.

EdTech ecosystems in emerging venture markets secured great investor traction in 2020, with 31 deals raising more than $40 million for EdTech start-ups in Mena last year, according to data platform Magnitt. Mena-based EdTech start-ups have raised 39 percent fewer deals so far this year, with a 38 percent drop in capital deployed year to date.

What is Adwaab?

Abwaab is an e-learning platform that claims to have changed the way students learn outside the classroom by making high-quality, outcome-driven education more cheap and accessible to all. By offering short, engaging video lessons, continuous assessment, and performance analytics, the platform allows students to get ahead, learn at their own pace, and test themselves with expert tutors anytime and anywhere.

Since its launch in 2019, Abwaab has expanded into Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Pakistan, covering the 12th and 10th grades of different education boards. During the pandemic-induced lockdown, when children were unable to attend regular school, Abwaab experienced rapid development. According to stats, the startup grew 10x in terms of the number of active users in 2020-21.

In a statement, Hamdi Tabbaa, co-founder, and CEO of Abwaab chalked out the startup’s objective:

Our objective since origin has been to make learning more accessible, inexpensive, and exciting, by establishing a full ecosystem that improves the way students learn, while also equipping them with the tools needed to move ahead in life

Background of Founders

Hamdi Tabbaa

Hamdi is an alumnus of the King’s College London and graduated with a bachelor’s in Business Management. After completing his undergrad, he went for a Masters in Real Estate Economics and Finance at the London School of Economics.

In 2009, he founded and launched Dukkan. In 2015, he joined Uber as Operations and Logistics Manager. Over the course of the next five years, he served at Uber in different capacities. Then finally in 2019, he co-founded Abwaab.

Sabri Hakim

Sabri graduated from the New York Institute of Marketing with a bachelor’s in International marketing. In 2007, he co-founded the community Talasim and in 2011, he co-founded the community Jeeran. In 2015, he joined Careem, Jordan as General Manager.

Then in 2019, he joined Abwaab as a co-founder and COO.

Hussein AlSarabi

Hussein graduated from Princess Sumaya University for Technology with a bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering. After that, he completed his MBA at the German Jordanian University. Later in 2017, he completed his second Masters in Interactive Intelligence.

In 2006, he founded ELSIRAJ and in 2008, he joined Communities Tech as a Founder and General Manager. He founded a number of other startups including, Bangaia, Instructit, and Zaawi. Then for the next couple of years, he served at Mawdoo3.com in different capacities, until in 2019 he joined Abwaab as co-founder and CTO.

Why Adwaab?

According to Abwaab, it competes by providing micro-lessons in bite sizes that correspond to each country’s national curriculum; assessments for test prep; chat or video tutoring; at a low annual US $15 subscription, which compares to the cost of one hour of tuition.

Students participate in lessons, receive feedback, and participate in discussion boards via online and native apps. In July, the company acquired Pakistan’s Edmatrix, an e-learning platform. With this new acquisition Edmatrix, Abwaab can provide high-quality, affordable education to 50 million students in Pakistan, which is the 5th most populous country globally.

Funding Raised

Series A Funding: Raised $20 million

The startup has successfully raised $20 million in its latest funding round. The Series A funding round was led by existing investor BECO Capital (UAE) and joined by:

4DX Ventures (US)
GSV Ventures (US)
Watar Partners (KSA), among others

Seed Round: Raised $5 million

In March 2021, the startup raised a $5 million seed round, which positioned Abwaab as one of the best-funded regional EdTech start-ups in the Middle East, North Africa, and Pakistan, a region with 160 million students.

Future Plans:

The new investment will be used to fuel its expansion plans. In a statement, BECO Capital’s Abdulaziz Shikh Al Sagha said:

Abwaab is on a clear path to establishing themselves as market leaders within the region and we are proud to have had the chance to further deepen our partnership with Hamdi, Sabri, Hussein and the whole Abwaab team.

Sehteq – Business Idea, Value Proposition, and Everything else about the company

Sarwat Rizvi — Thu, 01 Dec 2022 11:25:00 GMT

The covid-19 crisis and resulting lockdown didn’t just cripple the global economy but also crippled the global healthcare systems. Amid the lockdown, going to the doctor for a check-up was no longer feasible for many and so the only viable solution that proved effective was online healthcare and consultation.

Over time people became more comfortable with using health tech services in response to the pandemic, which not only resulted in a surge in telemedicine, remote monitoring, and home testing but there has also been a spike in insurtech startups in the region.

Insurance is one of the most regulated industries, and Insuretech companies have to innovate and navigate through this complex system by making necessary investments in licenses and bank guarantees mandated by the Insurance Authority to operate. Unfortunately, many of those startups are licensed as IT providers and this limits what they can offer.

However, the crisis has already inflicted drastic changes to healthcare systems worldwide and has kicked off a digital makeover of the industry in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena). Among such startups, lies the Dubai-based, Sehteq.

What is Sehteq?

Sehteq is a Dubai-based health tech startup and insurance platform. Launched in 2018, the startup positioned itself as a technology-driven health insurance platform aimed at making insurance accessible, affordable, and most importantly automated for its customers. Through its platform, the startup leverages AI to digitize the supply of insurance plans to individuals and families in the UAE, radically accelerating and fully automating the sale & post-sale processes.

The most noteworthy thing here is that platform is white-labeled to brokers and agents within 60 seconds and has more than 120 versions implemented in the UAE and Oman markets.

Since its launch, the startup is hailed for its user-friendly experience and customization options, which allow users to tailor their insurance plans easily. Additionally, the startup has also expanded to other forms of insurance, quite uniquely.

The startup grew through a number of M&A transactions to be the 4th largest provider of health insurance services in the region.

Background of Founders

Saif AlJaibeji

Saif completed his Master’s from Harvard in General Management in 2017, after completing his undergrad in Medicine and General Surgery from the University of Baghdad.

He started his early career as a Physician. In 2008, he joined Dubai Health Authority, as a specialist in Health Insurance and Funding. Over the course of the next few years, he served at different international organizations in various capacities, and in 2015 he joined the United Health Group as Senior Vice President & Regional CEO, of Middle East & Africa.

Then in 2017, he co-founded Sehteq and in 2021, he joined the UAE-based National Health Insurance Company, Daman, as Chief Government Business Officer.

Noor AlKamil

Noor completed her MBBS from the Dubai Medical College for Girls. After which she pursued a Master’s degree in Microbiology and Immunology at Harvard University.

She started her career as a general physician in 2006 and served at different organizations in different capacities until she finally joined Sehteq as Chief Medical Officer in 2018.

Why Sehteq?

In a highly user-friendly experience, Sehteq’s users are able to tailor their own insurance plans seamlessly on their AI-driven platform.

In the backend, Sehteq integrates machine learning to automate post-sales service and claims management. Driven by an innovative evidence-based rules engine, they are able to automate up to 100% of the back office work saving innumerable amounts of time and expenses in the process.

Their tech-driven approach was what helped the platform in putting a dent in the insurance market as co-founder Saif AlJaibeji remarks:

Sehteq was born to be the innovation lab of the industry, and after a successful launch of products and technology solutions for the health insurance market we have expanded our offering to travel, life and other lines of insurance and in partnership with our competitors.

Funding Raised

Venture Debt: Secured $3 million

In July 2021, Sehteq successfully secured $3 million in venture debt investment dispatched by key investor 971 Capital.

Venture Round: Secured $20 million

In August 2020, the startup secured a $20 million commitment to set up a reinsurance vertical from their anchor investor 971 Capital.

Future Plans

The newly acquired investment is a cornerstone of the platform’s newly launched Techcelerate project, which aims at building two business units and expanding the technology arm to regional Insurtech, on the road to transitioning the insurance business unit from startup to enterprise.

As they set forth to develop their offering and expand their markets, co-founders Noor Al Kamil and Saif AlJaibeji are hopeful of Sehteq’s future.

Bayzat – Business Idea, Value Proposition, and Everything else about the company

Sarwat Rizvi — Wed, 30 Nov 2022 17:41:00 GMT

Over the course of the last few years, we’ve witnessed a surge in the number of newly emerging insurtech startups focused on different niches, aimed at making the lives of the masses easier for the better.

One such HR and insurance startup is the Dubai-based Bayzat.

What is Bayzat?

Established in 2013, Bayzat aims to make world-class representative encounters available to each little and medium-sized endeavor (SME). At its core, the startup is a free online platform intended to assist organizations with overseeing and mechanizing HR organization, finance, and health insurance, fundamentally streamlining procedures for HR and money groups.

Bayzat has hit several major milestones in 2022 including recording 1 million total logins per month keeping in line with the company’s mission of making world-class employee experiences accessible to every company.

One of the startup’s objectives is to help individuals and companies buy and use health insurance and has connected over 12,000 individuals in the region with health insurance, and receives more than 50,000 visits every month from those looking to learn and compare insurance plans from different regional providers.

Owing to the gradual implementation of mandatory health insurance across Dubai, the startup has seen a growth of over 350% per annum and has grown its workforce to support its expanding database.

Background of Founders

Amir Farha

Amir completed his undergrad at the University of Bath, with a major in Computer Information Systems. He later furthered his studies and completed his Master’s in Management at the same University.

He started his professional journey as a Junior Analyst at an IT company, Mars. Later, he joined CLS Holdings as an Investment Analyst. In 2009, he became a co-founder at Tandem Partners. Over the course of the next few years, Amir served at different companies in the capacity of an Investor or as a Board member, including Bayzat.

In 2015, he became the co-founder and managing partner at BECO capital. And in 2020 he co-founded COTU ventures.

Talal Bayaa

Talal completed his Bachelor’s in Bioengineering at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Talal started his career as Assistant Relationship Manager at Millennium Finance Corporation. In 2011, he joined the Dubai-based company, Dar Al Mal Ltd as Assistant Manager of Private Equity and Corporate Finance.

Then finally, in 2011 he joined Bayzat as Chief Executive Officer.

Why Bayzat?

The company offers an all-in-one HR and employee benefits platform. Companies can automate HR, payroll, and insurance processes to redirect resources to more important and time-sensitive tasks.

Its payroll services allow a company to generate payslips in multiple currencies and automate gratuity payments in a few clicks. As for insurance, the platform offers easy-to-understand medical policies and gives access to manage the company’s group health insurance. It also boasts real-time employee additions and deletions, health benefits, and analytics.

Funding Raised

Series A Round: Raised $11.6 million

The startup has raised a total of $11.6 million through multiple Series A funding rounds via multiple investors, in addition to AED3.7 million in a round led by BECO capital.

Series B Round: Raised $16 million

In October 2019, Bayzat raised $16 million in a Series B led by Mubadala’s newly launched fund for MENA and US-based Point72 Ventures. Other investors that participated in the round included:

Saudi-based Elm and Tech Invest Com
US-based Endeavor Catalyst
London-based Greyhound Capital

Venture Round

The company has also reportedly raised funds from The Mohammed Rashid Innovation Fund (MBRIF).

The Mohammed Bin Rashid Innovation Fund (MBRIF), is an initiative launched by the UAE Ministry of Finance to support nationwide innovation. The initiative announced support for the UAE’s leading employee benefits platform, Bayzat, as part of its Guarantee Scheme. Bayzat will use the fund secured with MBRIF’s guarantee, to expand its workforce with a focus on further strengthening its technical development team.

Future Plans

Currently, the platform is in the process of expanding across the GCC and other international markets, with a focus on Saudi Arabia. Over the coming year, the FinTech startup further plans to add new features and employee benefits to the platform.

TruKKer – Business Idea, Value Proposition, and Everything else about the company

Sarwat Rizvi — Tue, 29 Nov 2022 11:27:00 GMT

After the introduction and massive success of Uber and Careem in the region for the common man, we saw many other startups following a similar business model.

Furthermore, the massive hit that hampered the progress of the logistic sector at large during the Covid-19 pandemic-driven lockdowns and movement restrictions, including the shortages of shipping containers and freight delays have led start-ups such as Trukker to disrupt the space with digital solutions.

The UAE-based TruKKer, provides an Uber-like digital network for lorries and pick-up trucks in the Mena region.

What is TruKKer?

TruKKer is a Digital Freight Network that integrates Demand & Supply for land freight services. The network is built on real-time data analytics that creates reliability, transparency, and utilization-based savings for Shippers and thousands of transporters.

The network’s rapid growth and scale are creating multiple opportunities through data monetization and consolidated procurement. In addition to this, the startup has become the region’s first technology-enabled truck aggregator with 11,000 percent growth achieved in its first two years.

The company services 150+ businesses every day and 500+ retail clients daily for their cargo movement requirements including line haul, port movements, home relocations and last mile. Through its platform, TruKKer has onboarded 12,000+ drivers and trucks and employs an average of 180-210 drivers and trucks daily to service its demand.

Background of Founders

Gaurav Biswas

Gaurav is an alumnus of CEPT university Ahmedabad, India, where he completed his Bachelor’s in Construction Technology.

He started his career as a Project Manager at a UK-based company, Arup. After spending a good few years there, he joined UAE-based AECOM as a director. In 2016, he launched TruKKer alongside his co-founder and colleague.

Pradeep Mallavarapu

Pradeep is an alumnus of the University of Madras. He kicked off his professional journey as a Software Engineer at the Ahmedabad-based, Zydas Cadila. After that, he joined Spectrum Business Solutions as a Manager Projects. Over the course of the next few years, he served at a number of local firms. In 2015, he joined TruKKer as a co-founder.

Why TruKKer?

TruKKer aims to organize the fragmented on-road logistics landscape using a digital freight platform that thrives on transparency, reliability, and exceptional business availability.

TruKKer provides its clients with advanced technology solutions that offer automated order bookings, real-time price discovery, real-time status updates, track and trace, reduced counter party risk, and more. Its cloud-based freight solutions offer end-to-end coverage and a full-service portfolio for shippers, carriers, and businesses alike.

The company’s real-time data and analytics, power its predictive algorithms to determine supply information in real-time and up to 48 hours in the future to allow immediate demand fulfillment and advance bookings. The startup currently enjoys 30%+ lower operating expenses as compared to traditional and large logistics and road freight businesses.

Funding Raised

Series C-Finding: Raised $100 million

The investment round was led by Bahrain-based asset manager Investcorp, with participation from other investors including:

Saudi Arabia-based Riyad Valley Capital
Egypt’s Reliance Group
Iraq-based conglomerate March Holding
Abu Dhabi wealth fund Mubadala Investment Co.

The latest financing comes after the company undertook a series of technology upgrades, expansions, and growth across its home markets in the Middle East and new ones in Turkey and Central Asian nations.

Future Plans

The newly raised funds would be used to expand into new and existing markets to accelerate growth before its planned float, TruKKer said in a statement.

The startup believes that its drive to improve the lives of thousands of truck drivers; who are delivering daily in one of the most difficult professions in the world, will keep it on the path of continuous innovation and ahead of competition from traditional players.

Nana – Business Idea, Value Proposition, and Everything else about the company

Sarwat Rizvi — Mon, 28 Nov 2022 11:45:46 GMT

After the advent of the COVID-induced lockdown, we saw the emergence of many food and grocery delivery startups, across the region.

These newly launched platforms, delivered everything and anything, from medicine, fruits, and vegetables to cooked food and even everyday groceries. Among such startups, one is the Riyadh-based Nana, which fulfills online grocery orders from its dark stores and delivers within 15 minutes

In response to the COVID-19 outbreak, Nana has witnessed a significant spike in demand as people look toward technology to stay safe and fulfill their needs in a time of crisis.

What is Nana?

Since its launch in 2016, Nana has emerged as the leading online grocery marketplace in the region, having developed a first-rate product and a reputation for superior quality service.

Currently operating in 14 cities, the startup has established strong partnerships with the top supermarket chains in the Kingdom. The company claims that its intuitive mobile app helps customers browse through the aisles of their favorite stores from the comfort of their own homes and order groceries and commodities to have them delivered right to their doorstep whenever it is most convenient.

The startup is on a mission to provide households with a convenient solution to fulfill their everyday grocery needs online. Through a network of micro fulfillment centres or dark stores fully stocked with up to 2,000 SKUs, NanaExpress ensures that all daily grocery needs are delivered straight to customers’ doorsteps within 15 mins.

This impressive business model has successfully redefined the meaning of the traditional grocery store and supported the founders’ vision of elevating the e-grocery industry both locally and regionally thus contributing to its rapid growth within Online Groceries to claim a market leader position with an 18 percent market share.

Background of Founders

Sami Alhelwah

Sami is an alumnus of the Qassim University, Saudia Arabia, and graduated with a Bachelor’s in Computer Science. In 2014, he co-funded Sadeem io, an all-in-one cloud management solution.

In the same year, Sami founded another Riyadh-based startup named, Exa Information Technology. Impressively during the same year, he also founded Nana.

Ahmed Alsamani

Ahmed is also a graduate of the Qassim University, Riyadh, with a Bachelor’s in Computer Science. In 2002, he founded the Riyadh-based company, ExaServe.

In 2014, he founded and became the Cheif Product Officer at Nana.

Why Nana?

Nana has partnered with major hypermarkets in KSA and numerous specialty stores, to provide its users with a wide selection of goods and facilitates deliveries with the click of a button. The company’s solutions and products are catered to all grocery stakeholders alike, i.e., consumers, stores and retailers, shoppers and deliverymen as well as Consumer Packaged Goods companies.

The impressive thing is, that having been launched in 2016, today, 90 percent of Riyadh’s daily grocery needs are covered through NanaExpress with plans to cover 100 percent of Riyadh in addition to Saudi Arabia’s major cities throughout the year.

Funding Raised

Venture Round: Raised $50 million

In February 2022, the Riyadh-based Nana raised a total of $50 million in a round led by FIM Partners and STV – which brings the startup’s total funding to $80 million to date.

The round also observed participation from new and existing investors including:

Quencia Capital
Faith Capital
Jahez
Sunbulah Group

Alongside other strategic investors with participation from initial investors including MEVP and Impact46.

Series B Round: Raised $18 million

In March 2020, Nana announced that it had raised $18 million in a Series B round, led by STV. The funding round included participation from investors including:

Water Partners, MEVP
Saudi Venture Capital Company (SVC)
Wamda, as well as an angel investor

Series A Round: Raised $6.6 million

In February 2019, the startup raised a $6 million investment from Middle East Venture Partners, Impact 46, and Saudi Venture Capital Investment Company. This round was one of the biggest funding rounds ever raised by a Saudi startup, at the time.

Future Prospects

With the newly raised investment round, the startup is preparing to launch operations and solidify its geographical footprint by entering into neighboring GCC countries as a first move outside of Saudi Arabia and increasing its partnerships with chains and retailers.

SwissBorg enters the UAE to redesign the banks of the future

Press Release — Mon, 28 Nov 2022 07:38:52 GMT

SwissBorg, Europe’s leading cryptocurrency wealth management app, today announced its launch in the UAE, to offer the safest and easiest app to invest and earn interest on assets through Web 3.0. The award-winning app’s formula for mass adoption is two-fold — simplicity and automation — to help anyone regardless of age or skills, become a community member. SwissBorg brings more than six years of expertise to the UAE, introducing a digital asset management app that takes the guesswork out of crypto investments.

In the first year of its operation, the organization raised AED 200 million via a successful Initial Coin Offering across 146 countries from 25,000 individual contributors across the globe. Today, the platform has 700,000 active users across multiple countries, having established strong relationships with various banks with fiat gateways for 16 currencies and credit cards.

In the UAE, the adoption of cryptocurrencies has gained popularity, with both local and international players in healthy competition. According to Gemini’s 2022 report ‘Global State of Crypto’, 35% of the UAE population have adopted some form of crypto tokens, compared to 17% uptake in developed nations. And of the part of the population that has not yet invested, 32% are likely to purchase crypto in 2023. A third of the crypto owners use it to make in-person purchases at brick-and-mortar retailers, compared to just 19% of owners globally.

Anthony Lesoismier, Co-Founder & Chief Strategy Officer at SwissBorg, commented on the launch, said: “We are pioneering a new era in asset management and private banking supported by blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies assets. We see cryptocurrencies as a serious investment, and our goal is to provide a variety of long-lasting crypto financial products that everyone can use to participate in the largest wealth transition in human history. The UAE serves as our perfect Middle Eastern launch pad because it is the region’s commercial, technological and cultural hub. Our extensive experience will enable UAE investors to make more confident cryptocurrency investments.”

Alexander Fazel, Chief Partnerships Officer added: “The UAE is on a trajectory to becoming the crypto capital of the world by gathering industry leaders from all corners of the globe. At SwissBorg, our goal is to be the bridge between traditional finance and decentralized finance and contribute to a world where one community will reshape centuries of broken finance. We’re at the crossroads of a new era and are forever grateful to be a part of this vibrant community. We are bringing in people from all walks of life and there is nothing more rewarding than having teenagers to senior citizens with the same purpose. SwissBorg will redesign the Bank of the Future layer by layer by educating new crypto investors in the UAE to be a part of this paradigm shift.”

SwissBorg has entered partnerships with local leaders Crypto Oasis in the UAE and is also currently raising funds in the region for a strategic round focusing on short to long-term value creation. The company wants to help the region gain knowledge and expertise on cryptos as a technology, collaborate with local authorities and build a deeper understanding and trust over the long term.

SwissBorg is the first company to give complete transparency on Proof of Assets and Proof of Liabilities trackable at any time in real-time using blockchain technology, creating new norms to restore trust among centralized exchanges in the wake of the recent FTX incident. SwissBorg also offers a live dashboard with key analytics to understand the business activity.

SwissBorg considers it to be a conflict of interest for it to be both an exchange and a custodian. The company strongly believes that all assets must be kept separate from the exchange to avoid significant failures, like Celsius and FTX. SwissBorg does not hold custody of users’ funds and uses Fire Blocks, the most trusted custodian with MPC Technology to protect users’ assets at all times.

The all-in-one crypto investment mobile app’s interface is simple yet robust to use. It provides a welcoming environment for first-time crypto investors, offering a wide range of services for novice to advanced users. Binance, Kraken, LMAX, Bitfinex, and SwissBorg, are connected to the order management system (OMS), which actively searches for the best pricing for its users resulting in the platform becoming their main trading account.

Users can start investing in three simple steps — upload their personal information and proof of identity, which is completely automated, make a deposit with their credit card or cryptos and they can then start investing.

SwissBorg’s aim in the market is to provide local investors with a reliable platform to invest in cryptocurrencies to encourage the use of technology that reduces the wealth gap. The business has never required venture capitalism funding or institutional finance and has sailed through two different crypto crises. It comes as an alternative of choice for investors that are valuing trust, integrity, and long-term investment.

For more information and to start investing today visit https://swissborg.com/.

Punjab IT Minister Dr. Arslan Khalid Urges SBP To Reverse Its Decision To Suspend DCB Mechanism

Shaheryar Ehsan — Sun, 27 Nov 2022 09:15:40 GMT

Punjab Information Technology (IT) Minister Dr. Arslan Khalid has urged the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to revisit its decision to revoke the payment of $34 Million to international service providers.

In a statement on Saturday, Dr. Arslan Khalid stated that the Pakistan’s IT industry has tremendous potential to increase our exports, contribute to economic growth, create employment opportunities, earn foreign exchange and catapult Pakistan to the forefront of the world. SBP’s decision could be a serious blow to the nascent IT industry already struggling to take off. This is likely to jeopardise the future prospects of IT in Pakistan and the damage maybe devastating and long term.

“If SBP’s decision to revoke the $34 Million payment to international service providers isn’t revised, the international companies will put Pakistan off their radars in making IT investments in Pakistan leading to job loss and a severe trust deficit that will take a very long time to heal ,” stated the minister.

Punjab Information Technology (IT) Minister Dr. Arslan Khalid

“Pakistan is struggling to embrace IT as part of the vision of Digital Pakistan and the IT sector will be needing tremendous support from all the stakeholders especially the State to allow it to benefit all the social and economic sectors,” Dr Arslan Khalid maintained.

The IT minister further added that the non-payment of outstanding dues to the major service providers will seriously impact the users in Pakistan as they will be unable to access digital banking, e-Commerce, e-Education, e-Health etc which will be a massive blow to the e-Governance.

“In this age of social media, any outage of digital services in the country would tarnish the image of Pakistan on the international level, hence such a situation must be avoided at all costs,” Dr Arslan Khalid added.

It is pertinent to mention here that the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has suspended the Direct Carrier Billing (DCB) mechanism, due to which the annual payment of $34 Million from mobile companies to the international service providers remains suspended.

This unfortunate development will force the consumers to add Credit Card/Debit Card details in order to download/upload international Apps from the Google Play store. A majority of cell phone users will be deprived of Google services as the credit/debit card facility is limited to a relatively small number of customers. “I request the senior management of State Bank of Pakistan to immediately reverse their decision in the larger interest of Pakistan and the nascent IT industry”, Minister stated.

Halan – Business Idea, Value Proposition, and Everything else about the company

Sarwat Rizvi — Fri, 25 Nov 2022 11:06:00 GMT

More than 70 percent of Egypt’s fast-growing population of over 100 million is young and financially under-served and overlooked by traditional financial institutions, yet mobile penetration in the country exceeds 90 percent.

This is where the fintech Halan entered with a viable business model, that provides digital solutions, including lending, BNPL, e-commerce, payments, and on-demand logistics, supporting its mission to empower underserved communities, address inequality, and encourage female economic participation.

What is Halan?

Founded back in 2017, as a ride-sharing and delivery app, Halan has since ventured into new services and now connects consumers, vendors, and micro-enterprises through a digital platform and payment solutions.

Halan evolved in 2018 from a ride-hailing app to a super fintech services company providing funding solutions for small businesses and consumer financing away from the banking system.

The startup’s objective is to financially include 100 million underserved and underbanked Egyptians digitally, through their services and technology, which allows the scalability of financing a growing customer base and provides them with expertise through simple and accessible solutions.

Background of Founders

Ahmed Mohsen

Ahmed is an alumnus of the American University in Cairo, who completed his Bachelor’s in Computer Science. He started his career as a Software Engineer at IBM. Over the course of the next few years, he worked at a number of national and international firms in different capacities.

He founded a number of startups including, Sort6, MusiQ, and Halan in 2017 that transformed into MNT-Halan in 2018.

Mounir Nakhla

Mounir completed his undergrad at the Regent’s University London, with a major in International Business Studies. After this, he went for and completed his Master’s at the London School of Economics.

He started his early career as a Microfinance consultant at Environment Quality International. During the course of the next few years, he founded a good few startups. In 2009, he founded Mashroey, then in 2015, he joined Tasaheel as founder and executive chairman.

In 2017, he became the CEO and founder of Halan and then in 2018, he along with his colleague launched MNT-Halan.

Why Halan?

The startup’s proprietary fintech ecosystem connects customers, vendors, and micro-enterprises through its consumer-facing app, merchant app, distributed lending and payment processing software, and payment solutions, as well as offering services such as ride-hailing and logistics.

With around one million monthly active users, MNT-Halan serves more than four million customers in Egypt, of which 3.1 million are financial clients and 1.8 million are borrowers. The company has disbursed more than $1.7 billion of loans and is now targeting further growth and overseas expansion after raising $120 million in funding.

The fintech company has been granted micro, consumer, and nano finance licenses from the Egyptian Financial Regulatory Authority. It is also the first licensed independent electronic wallet from the Central Bank of Egypt. These licenses enable the company to provide services to both businesses and consumers across Egypt.

Funding Raised

Private Equity Round: Raised $120 million

In September 2021, the Egypt-based MNT-Halan raised $120 million in investment from major global and regional growth investors including:

Apis Growth Fund II
Development Partners International (DPI)
Lorax Capital Partner

Additionally, the company had also attracted venture capital backing from Middle East Venture Partners, Endeavor Catalyst, and DisruptTech.

Debt Financing Round: Raised $150 million

In June 2022, the startup closed a securitized bond issuance of approximately $150 million, as part of a $600 million program with Commercial International Bank (CIB).

Other investors that participated in the round included:

TAQA
Ofi
Abu Dhabi National Oil Company
Waha Capital

Future Prospects

Currently, MNT-Halan is looking at cross-border expansion, with plans to tap markets where there are large unbanked populations that need serving, according to CEO and co-founder Mounir Nakhla. He further added, the startup is looking at several options in Africa and elsewhere, for expansion.

Additionally, the firm could also look to add more to its service menu in Egypt in the short term including cards and supply chain financing, Nakhla said.

Ekar – Business Idea, Value Proposition, and Everything else about the company

Sarwat Rizvi — Thu, 24 Nov 2022 11:28:00 GMT

If like me, you find the cost of having a car too much and need a car for only a few hours or once in a blue moon, then ekar is for you. Enabling you to drive a car without owning one, ekar is the Middle East’s first self-drive mobility startup, offering users on-demand access to a network of vehicles available for rent and a leasing subscription.

Through its mobile app (available for both Android and iOS devices), users can pay by the minute, hour, day, or weekly, or even opt for long-term monthly rentals, which will include fuel, complimentary public parking, insurance, maintenance, and 24-hour customer support service.

What is Ekar?

Founded in 2015, Ekar enables users to rent cars by minute, hour, or day through its platform in the United Arab Emirates and now in Saudi. Users after downloading the app have to register themselves with a valid driving license, ID, and valid credit card.

Once registered, they can locate cars on the app and book the closest on a pay-per-minute for up to 5 hours conveniently, whether it’s on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. The users can then unlock the booked car with the app and find the key inside its glove box (which can be retrieved using the personalized pin code).

In November 2020, the company announced its new product called the ekar fleet. The objective of ekar fleet was to extend ekar’s software-as-a-service platform to third-party car rental companies, thereby allowing them to list their vehicles on the ekar app, and hence, benefit from increased fleet utilization, the contactless rental process, and tracking of vehicles in real-time.

Consumers, on the other hand, found themselves greeted with a lot more options in any particular area. In May 2021, the startup took a step further in this direction by partnering with CarPro, a rental fleet management platform, to allow rental car companies with over 500,000 vehicles to utilize ekar’s Mobility OS within its fleet management software.

Background of Founders

Vilhelm Hedberg

Vilhelm is an alumnus of the University of Florida – Warrington College of Business and graduated with a Bachelor’s in International Business.

He started his early career as a Commerical Analyst at Jacksonville-based firm, Sea Star Line. Then, over the course of the next few years, he served at a number of national and international firms in different capacities. And finally, in 2016, he became the founder and CEO of the UAE-based Ekar.

Why Ekar?

The platform is quite user-friendly. You are required to simply download the app, register with a valid UAE or KSA driving license, and an Emirates/Iqama ID or passport, and you will soon receive a confirmation email from the ekar customer service team. Then, it’s just a matter of you locating the nearest ekar vehicle around you, customers can pick up and drop off at any location in the UAE, eliminating the need to visit a rental shop. Furthermore, unlike traditional car rental companies, ekar’s promise is that you only pay for how long you’re actually using the car.

On top of this, all cars come with maintenance and roadside assistance and can be switched, traded up, or returned at any time. A user selects a desired model on the app and a sterilized car will be door-delivered within 24 hours. So far, the company has serviced more than 200,000 customers and booked 1.3 million trips in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

The startup recently also added Tesla cars to its fleet, becoming the world’s first brand to offer Tesla car share. Vilhelm said that while the cars are currently limited to Masdar city, as they need to be brought back to the charging stations, the government is planning to put charging nodes across hotspots in Abu Dhabi, which will facilitate more Tesla and electric car drives.

Funding Raised

Series B Round: Raised $17.5 million

The pay-per-minute car rental startup has raised $17.5 million in a Series B round, the round was closed in June earlier this year. The round was led by Dubai-based Polymath Ventures and joined by Al Yemni Group and Audacia Capital.

Future Prospects

Ekar aims to provide UAE residents the freedom of getting around in a car without ownership hassles and strives to promote sustainability

The company is entering an inflection point as it arrives in Saudi Arabia, where a young and tech-savvy population of 20 million smartphone users is bypassing traditional car ownership in favor of alternative mobility solutions. ekar is a natural extension of the transportation vertical in KSA and is perfectly suited to address a growing demand for cost-effective transportation. In addition, more than 70,000 women in the Kingdom have been issued driving licenses, and ekar is well-positioned to be the ‘first-car solution’ for these drivers.

PayTabs – Business Idea, Value Proposition, and Everything else about the company

Sarwat Rizvi — Wed, 23 Nov 2022 23:19:00 GMT

With the advent of technology in our daily lives, there has been a massive boost in the emergence of fintech startups over the last decade. The label Fintech alone has been heating Silicon Valley as well. Fintech has proved to be one of the fastest-growing sectors in the tech industry, over the last few years.

Financial technology, or fintech, is revolutionizing the way financial services companies operate. Companies across the Middle East are racing toward digitization, to put customers at the forefront of their focus by using technologies such as voice, data, and AI.

The UAE-based PayTabs is doing the same. PayTabs is a global payment processing platform, specializing in processing payments in multiple currencies and providing a wide range of alternative payment methods.

What is PayTabs?

The UAE-based PayTabs was launched in January 2014 with a mission to provide a simple and secure platform to individuals and organizations for transactions across the world.

Being the first homegrown company to provide seamless B2B e-commerce solutions to SME’s, PayTabs was an early starter in the space which was later termed “fintech”. Backed by private Saudi investment, PayTabs in-built and exported a full stack of game-changing mobile applications, hospitality, governmental, education, airline, travel, transport, and biller solutions, to interlink the multi-billion-dollar enterprise market chain in the MENA region.

Background of Founders

Abdulaziz Fahad Al Jouf

Abdulaziz Fahad Al Jouf is a Saudi entrepreneur and the Founder and CEO of PayTabs, a Saudia-based payment processing company that started in 2014.

Abdulaziz started work in 1999 with the oil giant Saudi Aramco where he acquired Microsoft MCP, MCA, MCSE, MCSE +S, and Cisco Networking Engineering Admin CNA. He later moved to the USA where he gained a BSc in IT from the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and an ECE & E from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He later went on to complete his MBA from the New York Institute of Technology.

Why PayTabs?

PayTabs is an award-winning payments solutions powerhouse founded by Abdulaziz Al Jouf. Having processed the first live payment gateway transaction in June 2014, PayTabs now processes transactions in multiple currencies and markets, swiftly and securely.

In 2017, three years after its launch the startup was listed by Forbes as one of Saudi Arabia’s 50 most promising startups of 2016. Using API plugins, the startup facilitates seamless e-commerce, m-commerce, and social commerce solutions for merchants and super merchants as well as “plug and play” payment features via their platform.

In 2021, the company launched PT Touch, the ﬁrst soft POS solution in the MENA market to transform smartphones into merchant point of sale (POS) terminals. While in 2022, PayTabs made a leapfrog move to pioneer next-generation payments, by launching its home-owned, globally validated unified payments as well as next-generation transaction processing platform called, PayTabs SwitchOn.

Funding Raised

Series-B Round: Raised $20 million

In 2017, PayTabs raised $20 million from investors, with the lead investor being Saudi Aramco to kick off an aggressive expansion plan across 20 markets over the course of the next two years.

Future Prospects

PayTabs aims to support its customers in progressing towards a cashless society with increasing mobile payments. Since raising its last round of investment, the company has concentrated on expanding across the MENA region, Southeast Asia, and many African and European nations.

PayTabs focuses on B2B payment solutions, and the business claims to have completed transactions in 168 currencies across 49 sectors.

Ajeer- Business Idea, Value Proposition, and Everything else about the company

Sarwat Rizvi — Tue, 22 Nov 2022 12:10:02 GMT

During COVID efforts were carried out by Saudi Arabia’s government sectors and agencies to ensure that job opportunities are made available to both men and women in public and private sectors alike.

The Kingdom has further taken several measures and initiatives designed during the pandemic to contain the private sector’s financial and economic repercussions. Various sectors have taken the initiative in response to these efforts. Additionally, the Kingdom allocated 17.3 billion riyals to support private-sector enterprises and enable them to grow during the post-pandemic period and one such startup is Ajeer.

Supported by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development to mitigate the impacts of the pandemic, Ajeer facilitates access to the workforce by enabling individuals wishing to work for establishments to register on the platform’s website. It publishes the CVs of labor in the market for direct contracting. While at the same time, allowing establishments to benefit from job seekers by contracting them based on specific requirements and offer submissions.

What is Ajeer?

Founded back in 2016, Ajeer offers more than 30 home maintenance services by connecting handymen with customers through its mobile app. These services include plumbing, electrical work, AC maintenance and repair, and cleaning.

The platform claims to have over 3,000 handymen on, which according to it is greater than any number for a home services platform in the Middle East & North Africa.

Speaking to MENAbytes, Faisal Alzahrani, in a statement said:

We have this thing called Ajeer 30x30x30. So we connect the customer with a provider within 30 seconds, deliver the service in 30 minutes, and offer 30 days of warranty for all jobs so if the customer is not happy, we will send a technician again within 30 days for free

Background of Founders

Turki Alarjani

Turki is an alumnus of King Saud University and graduated with a Bachelor’s in Engineering. He started his career as a Graduate Engineering Trainee at Samba Bank Limited.

Later, he joined Saudia-based Advanced Electronics Company as a Software Developer and simultaneously launched Ajeer in 2016. Then in 2022, he joined Riyadh-based Spoilz as a Business Advisor.

Faisal Alzahrani

Faisal is an alumnus of King AbdulAziz University. After his graduation, he joined Al-Suraihi & Associates Law Firm as a Junior Associate and later got promoted to the position of Partner in the firm.

However, in 2022 he joined the Red Sea Development Company as Senior Governance Associate.

Abdulaziz Al-Taleb

Abdulaziz is also an alumnus of King Saud University and graduated with a Bachelor’s software engineering. He started his early career as a Software Developer at the General Organization for Social Insurance. Then in 2016, he alongside his colleagues co-founded and launched Ajeer.

Currently, he serves as System Development Manager at the Riyadh-based company, THIQAH Business Services.

Why Ajeer?

The platform aims to enhance flexibility and mobility with regard to manpower solutions in the Saudi market, to cover the needs of the market, and raise the productivity and effectiveness of the workforce in the market.

Ajeer currently has its services available in two-three cities of the Kingdom of Saudia Arabia including Riyadh where it is headquartered. The startup plans to expand its operations to 10 cities across the Kingdom and take the number of home maintenance services to 50 with this latest investment.

Commenting on the matter, Faisal shared:

Our plan is to continue adding more services and eventually dominate the whole maintenance market in GCC.

Funding Secured:

Seed Round: Raised $533k

In 2018, Ajeer raised $533,000 (2 million Saudi Riyal) in seed funding. The investment came from two angel investors, one of which was an Ajeer customer.

Future Plans:

Ajeer plans to add more sectors to serve a larger portion of the market in the future. Through its business model, the platform plans to create a huge impact and help facilitate the supply of temporary workers for huge construction projects or consultancy service arrangements when no other permanent alternative is available.

Noon Academy- Business Idea, Value Proposition, and Everything else about the company

Sarwat Rizvi — Mon, 21 Nov 2022 11:58:18 GMT

Over the course of the last two years, edtech has gained tremendous momentum. Especially, after the advent of the pandemic when academic institutions resorted to online education, edtech startups started playing a pivotal role in providing students with much-needed tutions and additional course material to help them understand their curriculum better.

While previously EdTech was largely focused on serving education, we see the next generation of EdTech companies adopting a student-centric approach. Noon Academy is one such startup, which is focused on spearheading efforts toward direct-to-student learning.

What is Noon Academy?

Founded back in 2013, by Mohammed Aldhalaan and Dr. Abdulaziz Alsaeed, the Saudi-based firm spent seven years and thousands of data-driven experiments to be finally able to launch Noon Academy as a comprehensive online learning platform, with over six million registered users. Over the past year, the startup claims to have seen an exponential rise in student growth.

The Saudi startup claims to have doubled its user base adding 3 million new students to its platform since the start of the Covid-19 outbreak. The company’s main differentiator lies in its functionality. Its platform incorporates social and gamification features which makes the learning experience not only unique but also enjoyable and collaborative. This is done through study groups, peer engagement, and contests. This feature alone has resulted in its social learning platform achieving 5 times the global industry average of a student’s daily engagement.

Background of Founders

Mohammed Aldhalaan

Mohammed is an alumnus of King Saud University and graduated with a Bachelor’s in Computer Science. He started his early career at the Riyadh-based company, SIDF as a Senior Credit Analyst.

In 2011, he co-founded the Ridah-based startup CloudTech Company. Then over the course of the next few years, he served at Elm Company in different capacities until finally in 2014 when he joined Noon Academy as a co-founder and CEO.

Aziz Alsaeed

Aziz like his colleague is also an alumnus of King Saud University and graduated with a Bachelor’s in Computer Science. After completing his undergrad, he went for a Master’s in Computer Security and Resilience at Newcastle University.

In 2014, he joined Noon Academy as a co-founder and Chief Operating Officer(COO). Then in 2015, he completed his Ph.D. in Computer Science at Newcastle University. While in 2017, he completed his executive education at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Why Noon Academy?

The startup plans to incorporate additional functionalities, in an attempt to enable schools around the world to use the platform easily for their specific needs. This is particularly relevant as students will continue to follow a hybrid educational model for the foreseeable future.

On top of this, Noon’s web and mobile-based platform offers tutoring and free educational content following a premium model, while providing users with free access to basic content. For advanced content and access to private tutors, the users are required to pay a monthly fee. The platform, according to a statement, has attracted 2 million students and 1,500 certified tutors to date.

Noon Academy also focuses on helping students pass the Saudi general aptitude test and the achievement test, and is accredited by the Saudi National Centre of Assessment (QIYAS).

Mohammed Aldhalaan, Noon Academy’s co-founder and CEO, in a statement, said:

Our fully interactive and fun platform has been built on the insight that the biggest obstacle to learning isn’t comprehension, but rather boredom. With this investment, we’re aiming to bring together 50 million students and tutors from around the world by 2023.

Funding Secured:

Pre-Series B Round: Raised $13 million

In 2021, Noon Academy raised $13 million in a series B funding round led by Riyadh-based Saudi Technology Ventures (STV) where additional investors include Alturki Holding and Ahmed El Kalla’s NFX Ventures, according to a joint statement by Noon Academy and STV, the three-year-old fund anchored by Saudi Telecom Company also participated.

Series A Round: Raised $8.6 million

In 2019, the startup raised $8.6 million in Series A co-led by Raed Ventures and Saudi Technology Ventures (STV). At the time, this was the largest-ever funding round raised by an EdTech startup from the Middle East & North Africa.

The round also included participation from:

Saudi-based Alisamiah Investment
Saudi Venture Capital Company (SVC)
Careem co-founder Abdulla Elyas
Dr. Abdulrahman Aljadhai, CEO of Elm, and Mazen Aljubair

Future Plans:

The platform plans to use the recent round of investment to support the opening of a new company hub in London, where Product, Design, and Data Science teams will be based, and further aims to bring together 50 million students and tutors from around the world by 2023.

JustClean- Business Idea, Value Proposition, and Everything else about the company

Sarwat Rizvi — Sun, 20 Nov 2022 11:45:04 GMT

The pandemic induced new normal bought with it some new requirements for the now-new world. Among many such requirements, one was the need for a one-stop shop that could connect people with independent service providers.

JustClean is one such startup that not only identified the market gap in this domain but created an entire business model around it. Given that independent service providers dominate the $3 billion cleaning sector in the Gulf area, JustClean was one of the first to digitize the industry, combining offline operators into a user-friendly platform that now includes some of the region’s largest cleaning companies and a large user community that continues to grow as we speak and as the company develops additional services and expands into new regions.

What is JustClean?

Founded back in 2016, by Mr. Al Enezi and his brother Nouri Al Enezi, as a marketplace application, a logistics operation, and a SaaS (software as a service) business. Since its launch, JustClean has expanded its laundry marketplace operations from a B2C model which was previously active only in Kuwait to a B2B & B2C model with active users now in Kuwait, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates.

On top of this, the startup also acts as logistical support for marketplace vendors, a point of sale, and a comprehensive laundry management software solution. The startup’s mobile app allows people to select a laundry outlet in their area and place an order with dates and times for pick-up and delivery.

In a statement, the startup said:

We enable service providers to promote their service and provide professional cleaning services to our users, by building a platform that organizes peoples weekly cleaning needs from laundry to home cleaning and a car wash using justcleans mobile car wash service. we’re fulfilling a mission to grow local businesses and help people start-up.

Background of Founders

Athbi Alenezi

Athbi completed his Higher National Diploma in Information Technology at the Shrewsbury Colleges Group. He started his career working in the Human Resource department at the National Bank of Kuwait.

In 2016, he co-founded the Kuwait-based startup Masbagti. While in 2017, he co-founded another Kuwait-based startup JustClean.

Nouri Alenezi

Nouri like his brother completed his High School Diploma in Mechanical Engineering at the Shrewsbury Colleges Group. After that, he alongside his brother founded the Kuwait-based startup Masbagti.

Then in 2017, he co-founded another Kuwait-based startup JustClean.

Why JustClean?

Co-founder and managing partner, Athbi Al Enezi, in a statement said:

JustClean has become the preferred aggregator for laundry services across the region, through the combined efforts made by hundreds of our valued laundry partners and our 200+ team members. Our technological solutions have proven to be effective and as such, we have built our brand on being the go-to solution provider of choice for cleaning business owners across the Mena region.

The Al Enezi brothers, who founded the startup, plan to invest their resources to further improve the technology and expand the portfolio of services beyond laundry and vehicle washing, ensuring that JustClean transforms into a cleaning super-app worldwide, not just in the GCC.

Additionally, Al Enezi pointed out that during the Covid-19 pandemic, the company’s business model has been reaffirmed to be versatile and adaptable to market conditions, creating new revenue streams that are diversified and sustainable.

Funding Raised:

Pre-Seed Round: Raised $1.3 million

In February 2017, the startup raised $1.3 million in a pre-seed round led by Faith Capital.

Seed Round: Raised $3.6 million

In March 2018, JustClean raised $3.6 million in a seed round again led by the investor, Faith Capital.

Series A Round: Raised $8 million

In February 2019, the startup raised a series A round worth $8 million led by the investor Faith Capital Holding.

Series B Round: Raised $8 million

Then in September 2020, the startup raised a series B round worth $8 million again led by Faith Capital Holding.

Venture Round: Raised $6 million

This year, in March JustClean raised $6 million in a round led by Gulf Investment Corporation (GIC) with participation from other regional investors.

Future Plans:

This recent round of investment coincided with the launch of a new car wash proposition, offering the service to car owners either at home or in stations in the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, and recently KSA. The vertical expansion is part of JustClean’s ambitious plans to dominate the industry, which will continue with a rollout of the newly launched service in Qatar.

The startup plans to deliver a full suite of these services in Qatar by the end of the year, as well as a gradual launch of the SaaS solution in Saudi Arabia.

What makes MENAP the ideal environment for E-commerce startups?

Sarwat Rizvi — Sat, 19 Nov 2022 11:30:27 GMT

Over the last few years, the B2B marketplaces have gained more popularity than ever, with no signs of slowing down. According to recent research by Digital Commerce 360, collective sales on B2B marketplaces grew 130% year on year in 2021 to $56 billion, making them the fastest-growing segment in B2B e-commerce.

This growth was further fueled by the shift from traditional buying to digital, which wasn’t merely a regional but a global phenomenon. In 2021, B2B E-commerce platforms Sary, MaxAB, and Capiter raised $163M collectively to drive MENA’s E-commerce ecosystem.

The MENA region has contributed immensely to the growth of the startup space, catalyzed by the pandemic which unlocked a whole new dimension for entrepreneurs and startups to explore. The E-commerce sector was especially reshaped by grocery shopping and B2B startups, which highlighted a critical shift in the digital economy.

While E-commerce has seen success in regions across the world, MENAP in particular has been a hotbed of innovation owing to the following reasons:

Shifted trust towards Ecommerce

While previously, user experience set many stores on cost-saving, the pandemic-induced lockdowns brought forth the need for speed and convenience. Post-pandemic people had developed an increased dependency on electronic devices to complete their day-to-day businesses and requirements.

Although financial infrastructure was and still is a challenge across remote and rural areas, widespread access to mobile networks seems to have bridged the gap. The Middle East has a 97% smartphone penetration, which is one of the highest in the world.

Additionally, this led to a spike in funding with E-commerce in MENA recording its all-time funding high in 2021 at $457M with a YoY increase of 224%.

Market Scalability

Driving the growth of the E-commerce proposition in the region is also the golden child of the sector, Q-commerce. Q-commerce unravelled new heights during the pandemic. With the promise of delivering groceries in 30 minutes or less, startups like Egypt’s Rabbit and Pakistan’s Airlift were able to scale their businesses in 2021, riding the wave of instant delivery galvanized by the pandemic.

The scalability of the market offering and the innovative technologies especially in the B2B sector is what drove the investors to initially dip their toes in the E-commerce pool to later fully immerse in it. Among the most active investors in the region are Flat6Labs, 500 Global, and OQAL.

Key Markets are Driving the Trends

If we zoom into the different markets across the region, the UAE and Saudi Arabia have the lion’s share of e-commerce and digital payments, making them prime markets for e-commerce.

There have been at least nine startups in Egypt and Pakistan alone serving in the B2B category that have raised $1 million or more. In Pakistan, four startups, including Jugnu, Tajir, Dastgyr, and Bazaar have raised $10 million or more.

Sary, the Riyadh-headquartered Saudi B2B e-commerce marketplace is the best-funded player in this category with over $112 million in funding. It had raised its latest $75 million in a Series C round last year.

Regulation is on its way but growth will continue

Like in other parts of the globe, regulation around e-commerce is topical for those operating in the region. Encouragingly, though, regulators in MEANP are proactively encouraging innovation and enabling fintechs. And, while the exact perimeters of regulation will and do vary from country to country, it is fair to assume that the e-commerce trajectory will not be curtailed in any of them.

Owning both the business and merchant relationship gives them a great advantage and lots of data points and insight into spending habits to help drive future embedded services in the region.

All in all, the year 2022 witnessed the B2B Ecommerce Market size up on a new generation of digital buyers, shifting the curve of organizational purchasing permanently online and unravelling new trends that could drive the growth in digital sales.

In addition to all this, the new B2B buyers have made digital transformation the key to surviving and thriving in the e-commerce world. The process of shifting from traditional to digital can be long and hard, but with the right strategy and tools, it can also be accelerated.

Vezeeta- Business Idea, Value Proposition, and Everything else about the company

Sarwat Rizvi — Sun, 13 Nov 2022 17:33:09 GMT

The post-pandemic era made people more aware of their wellness, including their physical well-being as well as prevalent health issues. This is because when quarantines and social distancing became a daily norm, people took to digital technologies to interact with the world, especially to get any and all kinds of healthcare assistance.

Hence, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that COVID-19 had a significant effect on technology. The pandemic greatly challenged medical systems in the developing economies of the MENA region, some of which were already particularly weak and overcrowded. The situation, however, was obviously, not the same for the richer Gulf countries.

All this lead to the healthcare industry becoming one of the fastest growing sectors in the world and inturn giving rise to newer business models such as telehealth and next-gen managed care. One such startup that ceased this opportunity way before the pandemic set in, was Vezeeta.

What is Vazeeta?

Founded in 2012, Vezeeta offers appointment management software for doctors and healthcare providers to manage their day to day appoinments and operations better. It does so by providing the patients with a free platform to book their appointments and allowing doctors to opt for the platform using a subscription model.

Vezeeta which currently operates in 50 cities across Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Lebanon claims to have generated 4 million annual appointments, which it further adds is tripling year over year.

Additionally, over the past decade, Vezeeta’s digital healthcare platform has continually transformed to stay ahead of the ever-evolving needs of the patients it serves. Through dynamic and ambitious product and business diversifications, the platform’s original doctor’s consultation booking solution advanced into a single point of care for digital outpatient services to create value for its patients, its healthcare providers and the healthcare ecosystem at large.

Background of Founders

Right to left: Amir Barsoum, Ahmed Badr

Amir Barsoum

Amir is an alumnus of the Ain Shams Univeristy of Cairo, Egypt and complted his Bachelors in Pharmaceutical Studies. After completing his undergrad, he went for a MAsters at the American University in Cairo.

Amir started off his early career as a management consultant at one of the world’s biggest consultancy, McKinsey & Company. After serving there for two years, he went ahead and joined AstraZeneca as a MENA Business Development Manager until in 2012, he launched his own startup Vezeeta.

Ahmed Badr

Ahmed completed his Bachelors in Computer Science, at the American University in Cairo. After which, he went for an MBA at the same university. He started off his early career as the Vice President Software Engieering at the Cairo-based software company ITWorx Limited.

In 2012, he co-founded and joined Vezeeta as its Cheif Technology Officer (CTO). He has co-founded another US-based startyp called, Zollect. Ahmed is currently serving as the Vice President Software Engineering at the New York-based company, Si-Ware Systems.

Why Vazeeta?

Amir Barsoum, Founder and CEO, Vezeeta, said in a statement:

It took seven years for our healthcare marketplace to acquire the trust of 5 million patients. In contrast, our digital provider vertical, including online pharmacy and digitally-managed clinics, has achieved the same mark in less than two years. This remarkable performance is a testament to the effort and commitment of our talent, our partners from doctors, clinics, pharmacies and labs, and definitely, our shareholders and investors, without which this feat would not be possible.

To adapt to the changes in the healthcare landscape brought upon by the pandemic, Vezeeta introduced several key growth drivers including its pharmacy solution.

Vezeeta’s Pharmacy Solution elevated consumers’ pharmacy experience in Egypt by offering 60-mins home deliveries across key cities. Today, the solution has witnessed 5X growth in medication orders and has multiplied across Cairo, Giza, and Alexandria, and is now offering e-prescription integration and geo-location tracking.

The platform also offers a two-hour lab sample collection, which further expanded Vezeeta’s already robust healthcare offerings across Cairo and Giza to offer effortless healthcare convenience to patients.

The startup is presently busy in reimagining the modern clinical experience for patients with its different technology solutions currently being tried in 20 outposts in Egypt. The platform is already seeing improved efficiencies for its medical doctors and clinical partners, and increased throughput and productivity of the locations.

Funding Secured

Venture Round: Amount Undisclosed

In October 2022, the startup raised an undisclosed amount as part of its Venture round from from Abu Dhabi-based Gulf Capital and Sweden-based VNV Global.

Series D Funding: Raised $40 million

In Februray 2020, the startup raised a $40 Million Series D funding round led by UAE-based Gulf Capital, alongside further investment from existing Riyadh-based investor Saudi Technology Ventures (STV), which had previously led Vezeeta’s Series C round in September 2018. Other investors included:

BECO Capital
Silicon Badia
Vostok New Ventures
Crescent Enterprises’ CE-Ventures
Endeavour Catalyst

Prior to this raise, the company had raised a collective $23 million via various Series A, B and C rounds. This round was one of the largest funding rounds of any tech startup in the Middle East and Africa till 2020.

Future Prospects

After reaching profitability, Vezeeta is now set to spearhead its expansion into new products and search for acquisitions across the region, to empower a wider base of patients with cutting-edge healthcare solutions.

The company’s growing profitability will allow it to roll out its product roadmap faster and to target new areas of growth, including expansion via M&A across MEA. This development underlines the platform’s commitment to empowering patients and providers with the best health-tech solutions while positively shifting the dynamics of the healthcare landscape.

Farmdar – Business Idea, Value Proposition, and Everything else about the company

Sarwat Rizvi — Sun, 13 Nov 2022 14:07:37 GMT

The Agriculture sector in Pakistan has been picking up since last year with vast lands and immense untapped opportunities, offering significant potential for digitization and tech disruption. The first quarter of the financial year 2022, reported a dominance of international investment in the region.

Pakistan has one of the highest international investor proportions across the top emerging venture market, as over 70% of all investors backing Pakistan-based startups in Q1 2022 were international investors. Almost all the major rounds recorded by the region this year including the likes of Bazaar, Jugnu, Truck It In, and NayaPay saw increased participation of international investors with big names like Tiger Global (USA), 100 Ventures (KSA), Seedstars (Singapore), and Kingsway Capital (UK) among others with regional investors also showing no hesitancy in supporting local homegrown startups.

Among the startups that are trying to gauge the country’s untapped sectors with immense business potential, one such agritech is Farmdar.

What is Farmdar?

The startup was launched back in 2021, by childhood friends Muhammed Bukhari, Muzaffar Manghi, and Ibrahim Bokhari who himself is a third-generation large farmer.

The Farmdar journey kick-off when the founders started exporting produce and soon after discovered that Pakistani produce was considered low quality in the UK and UAE markets. This prompted the founders to do something about it. One of the founders, Ibrahim Bokhari said in a statement:

We looked at supply chain improvements first, like a cold chain, which allowed us to extend shelf life but our underlying quality was still poor. We then tried remote sensing and precision agriculture technology and it created a step-change in quality and yield whilst reducing our input costs.

The startup’s objective is to use data and artificial intelligence to build a food-secure world. This will further empower farmers with actionable data to lower costs, increase yield, enhance quality and reduce waste.

Background of Founders

Left to right: Muhammed Bukhari, Muzaffar Manghi and Ibrahim Bokhari

Muhammed Bukhari

Muhammed is an alumnus of the Queen Mary University of London and graduated with a Bachelor’s in Science. He started his professional career as Group Financial Analyst and Product Manager at Cobra Beer.

Later, he moved to McKinsey & Company as an Analyst. Throughout the course of his journey, he remained affiliated with a number of international companies. Then in 2021, he alongside his childhood friends founded Farmdar.

Muzaffar Manghi

Muzaffar is an alumnus of Karachi University. After completing his undergrad he joined JWT as a Creative Director and later joined Ogilvy and Mather in the same capacity.

In 2017, he became the CEO of Manghi Communication Solutions and finally, in 2021 he co-founded Farmdar.

Ibrahim Bokhari

In 2016, Ibrahim completed his Higher National Diploma from Nottingham Trent University, in Business Administration and Management.

Then in 2021, he co-founded Farmdar.

Why Farmdar?

Keeping in view, the rapidly growing global population, Farmdar’s vision is to create a food secure world and empower farmers in Pakistan with technology to harness control over their produce and its true value.

The startup creates usable data for farms and businesses by combining cutting-edge technology with high-resolution, multi-band satellite images. This information directly impacts both farmers’ and businesses’ efficiency and profitability.

By virtue of yield increase with waste and input reduction, Farmdar’s data also helps reduce the impact of agricultural activity on climate change. Farmdar is also a part of the Greentech Alliance.

Funding Raised

Seed Round: Raised $1.3 million

In June 2022, Farmdar announced that it had raised $1.3 million in a seed funding round led by Indus Valley Capital with participation from other strategic investors from Pakistan, the Middle East, and the US, including:

Deosai Ventures
Tricap Investments
United Distributors Pakistan Limited
The Community Fund VC
LMKR, and K2 Global Ventures.

Future Plans

All in all, the agritech’s use of technology with remote sensing through satellites makes their growth scalable and aligns with the vision to solve a global problem of agricultural sustainability.

Furthermore, the recently raised funding will enable Farmdar to scale rapidly across Pakistan, hire and develop tech talent, and also apply use cases from Pakistan in foreign markets such as Thailand, Turkey, Bangladesh, Malaysia, the Philippines, and across the Middle East.

Foodpanda, Wasl Investment Finance Ltd to offer delivery riders affordable motorcycle financing

Tehreem Farooqi — Sat, 12 Nov 2022 12:52:23 GMT

To help address the needs of its delivery riders, the country’s leading online delivery service foodpanda has teamed up with Wasl Investment Finance Ltd, a non-bank finance company (NBFC), to provide accessible and flexible motorcycle loan options for its rider fleet.

A signing ceremony was held in this regard recently which was attended by senior officials from both organizations.

As per the arrangement, foodpanda riders can now get motorcycles on installments as low as Rs. 999/- per week. For riders’ convenience, the process to acquire a new motorcycle is also kept very simple. Any eligible rider can visit a nearby foodpanda pit stop with his valid CNIC and driving license for registration and a new motorcycle is handed over in the next few days.

The new bikes, compared to what the riders are mostly driving, offer significant fuel efficiencies which improve the economics of working as delivery riders. Furthermore, with affordable installment payments, the riders are able to own the asset within 18 months or less.

Speaking about the partnership, Muntaqa Peracha Managing Director & CEO foodpanda Pakistan said, “Safety and welfare of our delivery heroes is our top priority and partnerships like this will spell convenience and benefits for one of the company’s important stakeholders–the riders.”

“We are glad to be working with foodpanda in this project that will benefit and create an impact both financially from the new bike efficiencies as well as improve the overall experience for the riders. With this partnership, riders will no longer need to go through a stringent process, which is often the case when applying for a motorcycle loan,” said Faraz Zaidi, CEO Wasl Investment Finance Ltd.

Foodpanda is a leading delivery platform in Pakistan dedicated to bringing consumers a wide range of food, groceries and more, quickly and conveniently. Powered by technology and operational excellence, foodpanda is spearheading the growth of quick-commerce (q-commerce) across the country with its network of retail partners, as well as pandamart cloud stores to provide more on-demand options beyond the millions of food delivery options. Operating in more than 35 cities, foodpanda provides self-employment income opportunities to thousands of home chefs and delivery riders to earn a successful living as and when they choose to.

Wasl Investment Finance Limited is incorporated as a non-bank finance company (NBFC) which operates with an Investment Finance Services (IFS) License. The company mainly operates by making loans in the SME and microfinance sectors with a focus on cash flow-based program lending. The company has been in operation since 2020 and offers receivables factoring, agro loans and mobility finance as its frontline products.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Information Technology Board and Amazon Web Services sign Memorandum of Understanding to explore use of cloud technology and upskill local government personnel

Press Release — Tue, 01 Nov 2022 11:59:46 GMT

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Information Technology Board (KPITB) today announced it signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS) to advance its journey towards the digital transformation of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Government. The MoU can help enable the KP Government to understand and experiment with the application of cloud technology to improve efficiency, reliability, and security at a lower cost.

As part of the MOU, KPITB will work with KP Government agencies and AWS to identify pilot workloads that could benefit from AWS’s services, as well as educate the agencies about the advantages and capabilities of using cloud technology. They will be able to access AWS’s world-leading infrastructure and security capabilities to leverage the broadest and deepest portfolio of services including analytics, computing, database, Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning, mobile and storage services, and other cloud technologies. This will encourage experimentation with new ideas within the KP Government, as well as help enable agencies to deliver new citizen services more quickly and at a reduced cost.

“Cloud services will enable the KPITB and other Government departments to strengthen their existing IT infrastructure, and provide a sustainable long-term solution for keeping the data on a secure and reliable platform,” said Mr Atif Khan, Media Minister for Science and Technology & Information Technology of the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. “This MOU with AWS is part of our larger vision of digitally transforming Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to deliver faster and better citizen services.”

Going digital is helping to drive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s and the broader Pakistan economy, and this innovation will require a digital workforce equipped to meet the rising demand for cloud computing. An AlphaBeta report found that cloud and cybersecurity skills will be the top two most demanded digital skills by employers by 2025.

To accelerate innovation within the KP Government, AWS will collaborate with KPITB to develop a training plan to upskill government personnel and build their understanding of how to use cloud technologies. These training initiatives aim to help government employees develop the skills and expertise needed to implement cloud technologies at scale, make better data-driven business decisions, and innovate new services to drive improved outcomes for citizens. Additionally, the KP Government and AWS will explore how to prepare unemployed and underemployed individuals in Pakistan for cloud careers through classroom-based training through programs such as AWS re/Start, a 12-week full-time skill development program that prepares individuals for careers in the cloud. Through coursework and hands-on labs, using real-world scenarios, individuals can gain the technical skills they need for entry to mid-level cloud roles. AWS re/Start also provides learners with professional skills training like resume and interview coaching to prepare them for job interviews.

“This MOU aligns with the digital policy 2018 of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Government, which aims to leverage Information and Communication Technologies(ICTs) for job creation, connectivity, empowerment and inclusive economic growth,” said Dr Ali Mahmud, Managing Director, KPITB. “Our collaboration with AWS, the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud offering, will equip our teams with the skills and technology to innovate in the digital world and digitize citizen services.”

“We are excited to collaborate with KPITB, our first official engagement with a government agency in Pakistan, to drive transformative innovation for the country,” said Mr Eric Conrad, Worldwide Public Sector Regional Managing Director of ASEAN, AWS, who directs AWS’s Asia Emerging Markets business. “This MOU will help pave the way for KPITB to explore the potential of cloud technologies, and empower their employees with the necessary digital skills to accelerate innovation. This will allow KPITB to focus on their core digital transformation mission to leverage technology for inclusive economic growth.”

360VUZ – Business Idea, Value Proposition, and Everything else about the company

Sarwat Rizvi — Wed, 26 Oct 2022 23:59:00 GMT

Since the concept of metaverse was introduced by Facebook, we’ve seen a number of other tech companies and startups picking up on the concept. Though there’s enough debate on the topic, it might not be long before the concept materializes itself into our reality.

To add to the ongoing debate, we see telecoms betting on immersive media as it is one of the most robust use cases for 5G and the future of video streaming. One such startup that we’ll be covering today is the UAE-based startup, 360VUZ.

What is 360VUZ?

Launched in 2017 by founder and CEO Khaled Zaatarah, 360VUZ is an immersive social app that allows users to virtually become a part of live events, concerts, sports, conferences, and other experiences around the globe using its 360-degree live streams. On top of this, the app also features streams and videos with celebrity interviews, masterclasses, as well as behind the scenes content.

The platform bridges the gap between the physical and virtual worlds by providing its users with the biggest premium immersive content library in the world having more than 20,000 hours of immersive content covering entertainment, creators, and sports segments, and XR, VR, and AR experiences from virtually anywhere in the world.

VUZ’s vision is bringing people together and connecting the world through authentic immersive experiences while removing the constraints of TTA, i.e., Travel, Time, and Access to billions of people around the world.

Background of Founders

Khaled Zaatarah

Khaled is an alumnus of the American University of Sharjah and graduated with a Bachelor’s in Design Management. He started his early career as a Client Manager at the American company Leo Burnett.

After that, he joined Procter & Gamble(P&G) as a Senior Associate Brand Manager and served there in different capacities over the course of the next few years. Then in 2017, he founded VUZ.

Why 360VUZ?

VUZ, which was known previously as 360VUZ has offices in Dubai, Los Angeles, and Riyadh, and has worked with a number of prominent clients including Dubai Government Media Office, Choueiri Group, Samsung, OMD, du, Bentley, Zain, Dubai Film and TV Commission and more.

According to a statement, the platform has connected users in more than 15 countries and provides users and top creators around the world with the latest immersive technologies, different authentic views, and top immersive experiences. Creators’ immersive content collaborations have been one of the core drivers of VUZ where it has top creators with a total reach of over 100 Million globally.

About 70% of the platform’s content is free. However, users must pay between $4-8 for its add-free exclusive content. The company is planning to allow users access content via different media: Meta/Oculus headsets, Qualcomm, immersive avatars, and a web platform, Zaatarah said in a statement to TechCrunch. The extended reality immersive platform reached over 1 Billion Screen Views and is presently aiming to reach 3 Billion Screen Views by 2023.

Funding Raised:

Seed Round: Raised $1.4 million

In December 2017, the startup raised a seed round of $1.4 million

Series A Round: Raised $5.8 million

In April 2020, the startup raised $5.8 million in a Series A round led by Shorooq Partners with the participation from:

KBW Ventures
Media Visions
Vision Ventures
Hala Ventures
500 Startups, and some other top global investment firms.

The round was also joined by Careem’s co-founder Magnus Olsson and Samih Toukan, the founder of Maktoob and Jabbar Internet Group, and Facebook’s former MD for MENA & Pakistan Jonathan Labin.

Then in June 2021, the startup raised an additional $2.3 million as part of an extended series A round, which brought the startup’s total funding raised to $9.4 million.

Series B Round: Raised $20 million

In 2022, VUZ raised $20 million in series B funding led by international investors including:

Caruso Ventures
Vision Ventures VC Fund
e& Capital
investment pillar of e& (formerly known as Etisalat Group)
DFDF (Dubai Future District Fund)
SRMG
WIN (Webit Investment Network)

Investors in the round included three strategic funds from Europe including WIN, Elbert Capital, and Yasta Partners. Additional Investors that joined the round are Faith Capital, Panthera Capital, and seven of the existing previous investors followed on. With this round, VUZ is now backed by a mix of investors based in the US and EMEA that will play a major role in supporting VUZ in its international expansion.

Founders Games Grant Secured: €500K

In July 2022, the startup further secured a grant of €500K via the Founders Games, which is an influential event for startups, providing over 1 Million EUR in grant in marketing budgets for up to 200 startups.

Future Prospects:

The funds will be used to fuel VUZ’s expansion plans in growing its core, accelerating the company’s by 10% month over month in its recurring subscription revenue, investing in top content, hiring additional key senior hires, new social features, launching Web3 products, NFT projects to own and trade virtual assets derived from the metaverse and scaling with asset-light operations into 8 additional new international markets.

Zaatarah further mentioned that partnership and integration with 45 telecom operators is the backbone behind the company’s global expansion. Secured funds will also support VUZ to further scale its Los Angeles office and scale with creators and content in the USA, Asia, and Europe.

The startup said that it has plans to offer additional proprietary technologies as it has recently received a patent related to augmented reality, artificial intelligence, machine learning, virtual control, and new advertising solutions, from the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

YAP Pakistan partners with Bank Alfalah to launch B2B financial services

Press Release — Sat, 10 Sep 2022 06:23:18 GMT

September 09, 2022, Lahore, Pakistan: YAP Pakistan, the first regional financial super app providing consumers and businesses with a one-stop shop of innovative financial products, has partnered with Bank Alfalah, one of Pakistan’s largest commercial banks, to offer customized digital financial products and services for small and medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the country.

The collaboration paves the way to create a more financially inclusive ecosystem for customers and businesses by enabling users to access a comprehensive array of digital financial services, including a fully operational business bank account, payroll, reporting, analytics and expense management. YAP customers will also be able to access over-the-counter services at Bank Alfalah’s vast network of branches across Pakistan.

YAP Pakistan secured the In-Principle Approval from the State Bank of Pakistan for an Electronic Money Institute (EMI) license, which will equip users with a digital account and an app that will enable users to perform various financial tasks at the touch of a button.

“SMEs have unique needs and are looking for a more seamless approach to banking and we are pleased to partner with Bank Alfalah to create a suite of products and services to support them. SMEs contribute to 40% of Pakistan’s GDP and 25% in overall exports, which emphasizes the demand for an easier way to manage finances when in the early stages of growing a business.”
YAP Pakistan CEO, Meharyab Niazi

Bank Alfalah has been on the mission to collaborate with various partners in a bid to increase the adoption of digital payments in the industry. The bank’s online acceptance business is clearly the market leader with more than 50% market share. Bank Alfalah’s Cash Management enables Corporate, Middle Market and SME clients to securely prepare their payment and transfer instructions to the bank in real-time. Bank Alfalah was also awarded the Best Transaction Banking Award in 2021.

“Bank Alfalah is committed to supporting Pakistan’s growing Fintech startup ecosystem. YAP’s regional experience with SMEs promises to bring innovative payment solutions to this largely unserved market in the country. We look forward to supporting YAP by providing them access to our financial products and jointly developing new ones.”
Bank Alfalah Retail Banking Group Head, Ms. Mehreen Ahmed

About YAP Pakistan

YAP Pakistan is a division of YAP Global, the first financial super app in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia, providing consumers and businesses with a one-stop shop of innovative financial products through the YAP Store, YAP Financial Marketplace, and YAP Hub. With an easy onboarding experience, customers receive a digital bank account as well as debit and virtual cards, plus a suite of versatile features such as analytics and budget tools, card controls, easy money transfers, real-time purchase notifications, and more. YAP operates in five countries in the MEASA region. YAP’s application is available on iOS and Android. For more information, please visit: https://www.yap.com/

About Bank Alfalah

Bank Alfalah is one of the largest banks in Pakistan with a network of 800+ branches across more than 200 cities in the country and an international presence in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bahrain and the UAE. Bank Alfalah is owned and operated by the Abu Dhabi Group.

DevNation – Business Idea, Value Proposition, and Everything else about the company

Sarwat Rizvi — Sun, 04 Sep 2022 13:34:01 GMT

Over the past decade, the need for software engineers in the industry has increased as the world progressed in the field of technology. Though the average salary of a software engineer is around $92,824 per annum as per the reports, yet still many students still struggle to secure an opportunity in the technical domain. This has been mainly attributed to the massively outdated curriculum of STEM fields in Pakistan’s education system. As a result, students often resort to Coursera, Udemy, and CodeAcademy courses.

All these reasons lead to a major gap between academia and industry, leaving students with no sense of direction once they’ve completed their undergraduate degrees. While some do reach their ultimate goals through extensive research, a larger portion of such students is still left directionless in the fast-growing industry.

Understanding the need to bridge this gap and equip the students with valuable skills and education, DevNation came into being. DevNation is a startup started by three entrepreneurs based in the US and UAE with years of technical experience. The startup aims to disrupt the education ecosystem by providing students with hands-on training in software engineering while prepping these students for their respective careers in a few months’ time with zero upfront cost.

What is DevNation?

Established back in 2021, DevNation is an online tech accelerator for the top 5 percent of software developers in Pakistan that was founded by NYU alums Raheel Ahmad, Muddassar Sharif, and Hamd Bilal Tahir.

The company provides an intensive computer science course which is delivered through live lectures by tech leaders and subject matter experts, with the objective of the program being the enhancement of the skills of future software leads through the implementation of a modern curriculum with exposure to the latest technologies.

DevNation is on a mission to harness the technical talent of Pakistan and make Pakistan the software engineering powerhouse in the region.
Raheel Ahmad, Co-founder DevNation

Background of Founders

Raheel Ahmed, Mudassar Sharif, and Hamd Bilal Tahir

Raheel Ahmad

Raheel is an alumnus of the NewYork University. He started his professional journey as a Business Analyst at the China-based firm Emerging Strategy. He has worked for a number of international companies and has co-founded the Shanghai-based firm, mltrons, NewYork-based explainX.ai.

Then in 2021, he co-founded DevNation along with his partners.

Muddassar Sharif

Mudassar is also an alumnus of NYU and graduated with a major in Data Science and a minor in Computer Science. In 2015, he co-founded the company MARC&CO that aimed at helping Chinese companies implement Business Intelligence Platform Sisense.

Over the years, he remained affiliated with a number of international firms and in 2019 became the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at mltrons. Finally, in 2021 he co-founded DevNation.

Hamd Bilal Tahir

Hamd completed his undergrad at NYU in 2018. He has remained affiliated with a number of national and international firms both before and after his graduation.

He started off as a research assistant and later pursued data in the capacities of either a Data Analyst or a Data Science Consultant. Then in 2021, he joined DevNation as one of the co-founders and CTO.

DevNation’s Value Proposition

DevNation is currently upskilling students in front-end development and looks to further train students in different domains later on. Students will get to learn the latest technological skills for free from the comfort of their homes.

Once the training is done, DevNation will then help their students land their dream jobs while providing further career-based mentorship. As soon as the student lands his or her job, the student will be able to pay later on.

The best part about DevNation’s initiative is that its program is open to all and welcomes students irrespective of their technical backgrounds.

Funding Secured

Pre-Seed Funding: Raised $176K

In July 2021, DevNation closed its pre-seed round with an investment of $56,000. Then in October 2021, the startup secured another pre-seed funding of $120,000, in a round which was led by CrossFund. Multiple other investors also joined the round, including:

Benjamin C.
Davide Calì
Jeffrey C.
Katherine Lui
Javier Sabas
Marcos Parada
Corrado Licata
Giuseppe Tomasello
Sherif Nessim, and Hassan Mughis.

Future Plans

All in all, DevNation is looking to skill up passionate and capable students of Pakistan with this five-figure funding to enable them to compete in the already competing market of engineers internationally instead of just landing an average job. The startup further informs that their programs will consist of key training sessions from notable global tech companies such as the likes of Google, Facebook, etc.

DevNation is ultimately on a mission to create 1 million software engineers in Pakistan by 2030, and this round of investment will surely contribute to achieving that goal.

Nord A1 launches AI-powered quartz watch – The first smartwatch designed for what matters

Tehreem Farooqi — Wed, 31 Aug 2022 12:43:00 GMT

‘Startup of the Year’ finalist Nord A1 has developed an AI-powered quartz watch that interprets and filters information to only notify of what is essential to the user: enabling a digital gatekeeper against information overload.

People receive an average of 64 push notifications per day. Over half of the notifications are considered distracting, irritating, and inconvenient, and one of four are deemed entirely irrelevant to the user, leading to stress, anxiety, and loss of focus.

Nord A1 Board of Directors

Nord A1’s innovative information filter is incorporated into classic watch designs under the Scandinavian brand Chroneering, meaning “reengineering time”, which signifies the company’s AI-based vision for timekeeping.

“Today, everyone is approachable about anything, anywhere, and at any time, regardless of the needs and wants of the recipient. Regular notications are based on sources and the only way to avoid them is to turn them off, but that leaves the risk of missing something important. Instead, we notify based on content and the actual context of the information, which ensures there is enough substance worth telling the user about before notifying.”
CEO & Founder, Robin Schultz

Creating digital sustainability

The common notification model used in today’s smart devices is called “random reinforcement”, which rewards the user with dopamine at irregular intervals. This system is highly addictive and plays a major role in how much time people spend with their online devices. With Nord A1’s focus on mental well-being and natural language processing, the team has challenged Big Tech’s efforts to maximize user engagement, which has changed the fundamentals of digital communication to give power back to the individual.

By developing a framework consisting of different types of emergencies, hazards, urgencies, requests, conflicts, and more, each notification is automatically categorized and given a certain value, which provides the user with insight into the substance of the notification before interacting with it. This allows the user to ignore the vibrations from the smartphone, and instead use the watch as a guiding mechanism of whether they should engage with the notification or not. In that sense, the watch becomes the first line of defense to the user, which decreases screen time and increases quality time, all with 100% data privacy through minimization and non-human interference.

The future of wristwear

Chroneering offers the world’s first AI-integrated watch that focuses on optimization rather than maximization. With in-house movements and analogue appearances, the technology is incorporated without compromising on the watch industry’s fundamental values of craftsmanship and design. The AI wristwear contains Nordic and Swiss components, 316L grade stainless steel, AR-coated sapphire crystal, 100 meters of water resistance, and a low-energy design with up to two years of smart battery life.

The official ‘101’ launching series includes several models with customizable designs and features, such as activity tracking, time management, reminders, and remote controls. The AI filtration is expressed through the innovative Infometer®, with the main hands moving on a severity scale related to the importance of the information, similar to a thermometer reacting to heat. The subdials also point to different slots to communicate specific topics, channels, and apps, along with three pushers on the side for customizable actions.

The highly anticipated launch of Chroneering’s AI wristwear takes place on Kickstarter in Q4 of 2022, where the watches will be sold at a 30% launch-day discount ranging between 345€ and 415€. The company is also planning to launch an exclusive NFT of the first gold model, which will give the buyer 5% of eternal profits.

Chroneering is owned by Swedish ‘Startup of the Year’ finalist Nord A1: a company focused on creating digital sustainability by countering information overload. The company was founded in late 2019 by Robin Schultz and is backed by the Swedish governmental agency for innovation systems, a senior Board of Directors in the Kronaby co-founders Pål Borge and Sarandis Kalogeropulos, financial expert Anders Bergqvist from Manpower Group, business veteran and Chairman Stefan Johansson, as well as accredited investors from IBM, Ericsson, and Accent Equity. The team consists of specialists with over 80 years of experience in watches and electronics, with competencies from companies such as Sony, Timex, GANT, Intel, and Hugo Boss.

Pakistan’s leading consumer electronic marketplace PriceOye raises $7.9M series funding

Tehreem Farooqi — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 15:11:09 GMT

PriceOye has raised $7.9 Million in a series funding round to strengthen its position as the leading electronics marketplace in the country. The platform has emerged as the go-to choice for Pakistanis to buy gadgets from top brands in the last few years. The National Science & Technology Park (NSTP) based startup has raised a total of $8.4M in 5 funding rounds over its lifetime.

The seed funding round was led by the US-based JAM Fund. Additional investors include Beenext, an early investor in Indonesian decacorn eCommerce platform Tokopedia, DG Daiwa Ventures – GP of DG Lab Fund, Mantis VC, HOF Capital, Jet.com’s investor Palm Drive Capital, and Atlas Ventures among others.

Additionally, notable unicorn founders Peter Thiel, Immad Akhud of Mercury Bank, and Asif Keshodia of Souq also participated in the round, as well as previous investors Fatima Gobi Ventures, SOSV, and Artistic Ventures. This marks Peter Thiel’s first investment in Pakistan.

Adnan Shaffi and Adeel Shaffi founded PriceOye in 2015 with a vision to make buying electronics easier for consumers by providing honest reviews and detailed product information. Their unique features like open-box delivery really helped with making them successful.

PriceOye’s managed marketplace not only gives access to authentic products at great prices but also helps consumers make better shopping decisions through its recommendations system,” Adnan Shaffi, co-founder and CEO of PriceOye, said in a statement.

WTS Talks to Edversity – Creating Next Generation Technopreneurs

Sarwat Rizvi — Sat, 20 Aug 2022 11:00:28 GMT

The outbreak of Covid-19 had confined students of all ages to their homes for months on end. In particular, lower-income schools were having a hard time keeping their students engaged, and most if not all, did not even have a Learning Management System in place for imparting basic remote education to students and/or parents.

While the students attending schools that did have a learning management system in place (even in higher education) had expressed grave concern and dissatisfaction over the quality of learning that was being imparted, what was even more concerning was the fact that even after all such problems, there was no unified national education strategy devised despite some preliminary evidence suggesting that the virus will have a longer-term impact than we originally predicted. This paved way and created a number of opportunities for digital and tech-based learning solutions.

Among many such, newly emerging ed-tech Startups, one is Edversity. Launched back in 2021, Edversity leverages technology to build distance learning solutions – often increasing accessibility and affordability of education. The startup aims to equip the youth with affordable, accessible, effective, and modern skills education, to enable them to launch their remote tech careers

We Talk Startups sat down with Edversity’s CEO, Saad Siddiqui, to discuss the startup’s impact since its launch and his personal experience building this platform.

We Talk Startups [WTS]: What is your story and what led to you building a platform like Edversity?

Saad Siddique [SS]: I’m Saad Siddique, currently working as the founder of the platform Edversity. Previously, I served Coursera and World Literacy Foundation as the Country Head for Pakistan. I along with my team was behind getting Coursera integrated with HEC-recognized Pakistani universities after COVID hit.

While working with Coursera, we saw that despite its recent integration with Pakistani universities, the student course completion rate was quite low in Pakistan. Upon further analysis, we found out that Pakistani students prefer a local language over a foreign language when it comes to learning. And it was this revelation that led us to build Edversity.

[WTS]: What is the unique value that Edversity brings to the table?

[SS]: At Edversity we are creating the next generation TECHNOPRENEURS by partnering with the top 1% of instructors worldwide. But we have an edge over other platforms since all our content is in Urdu.

So, we offer some of the best and most in-demand training on subjects like AI, IoT, and Blockchain development but in our local language. We’ll soon be launching training on Ethereum 2.0 which is not being offered by any other platform as of yet.

On top of this, our platform is very advanced when it comes to detecting plagiarised content by students during assignment submission. We also have a very close-knitted community of students where they can help each other with course matters and understanding. And if a student requires additional support then within 60 minutes our platform can connect the relevant student with a mentor.

We also have tech placement partners, so once a student gets graduated from the platform we connect them with our placement partners for jobs.

Furthermore, our technology is backed by Microsoft. Currently, we’re the only organization in the country currently linked with Microsoft.

[WTS]: Why the name Edversity? Is there a specific reason behind it?

[SS]: Since the aim of the startup is to make education accessible to everyone, so, we combined Education and University and this gave us the name Edversity.

[WTS]: What is the process of onboarding educators at Edversity?

[SS]: We have two streams, as I previously mentioned – one includes the courses and specialization designed by adversity itself. For that stream, we have a very rigorous selection process, that’s mapped on three screening tests and two interviews.

However, those who wish to apply as an educator can submit their application via the platform and our team will contact them within three weeks regarding their placement.

[WTS]: Since, for any startup, quality is the most important thing in addition to user experience. What steps have you taken to ensure quality education for the students of Edversity?

[SS]: As far as the quality of education is concerned, our curriculum undergoes a review every week, to keep it updated and at par with the industry requirements.

[WTS]: At an international level, do you have any startup/company that serves as a model of what you would want to be?

[SS]: Yes, we very closely follow Udacity and try to incorporate its practices within our company as well. We started Edversity to make it the Udacity of Pakistan and I think we’ve reached that position.

[WTS]: How has NIC empowered your startup in reaching your goals and what are the services that NIC offers, that you would like to share with other founders?

[SS]: NIC and the people here are very cooperative and they try to facilitate startups in every capacity possible. It’s worth mentioning here that, if there’s something a startup founder fails to understand they are always there to back you up. They offer courses to help startup founders and you can also ask mentors and experienced entrepreneurs for any help you need.

[WTS]: Our last question from you is, what advice would you like to give to other startup founders before they start their journeys?

[SS]: I’d say consistency and be unique in your ideas don’t change your ideas according to the likes of someone else. And just have passion for whatever you’re doing.

Additionally, if you think that I’m capable enough to mentor you, then you can always book a free consultancy session via my website: saadghufran.tech

Educative Inc, an Edtech company from Pakistan, starts a conversation about diversity and inclusion with a powerful message

Shaheryar Ehsan — Wed, 10 Aug 2022 10:21:57 GMT

Educative Inc. is an Edtech learning platform for software developers with its offices in Pakistan and the US; the company has had a global community of learners, authors and employees since 2017.

Educative is one of the few startups that are engaging in an important conversation that calls for action against discrimination by being brave enough to embrace differences and work for inclusion across all forms of diversity.

Digging deeper into the background story of “Embraced as I am” campaign, Amanda Cable, Global Head of People said, “one of the first things I noticed was how diverse our team was and then thought – but how inclusive are we being? After meeting the Head of Employee Branding to discuss our employee experience from the perspective of red carpet in, red carpet out – we agreed more could be done to ensure our teams felt included in every decision we make as a company”.

The world is now a global community with people from different religious backgrounds, ethnicities, cultures, experiences and interests. Having a system of equal opportunities across professional development and education has always been a major concern of many. To get towards true inclusion, a collective effort on all fronts is required.

“Inclusion is something we can all get behind, everyone wants to feel they have a chance to succeed, their differences are being celebrated, and our first priority will always be – having conversations about our differences with courage so we can better understand each other because it’s the smart thing to do. It’s time we all got comfortable with being uncomfortable on the topics about inclusion and diversity”-Amanda Cable, Global Head of People, Educative Inc.

Taking a look at their social media pages, we can actually witness the diverse workforce that Educative is composed of, and it’s interesting to see how diverse individuals understand the concept of diversity differently.

“Our campaign launch is not another PR stunt, but a promise we’re making to our current and future employees. The conversations don’t stop on social media but continue in the workplace. We’re talking about biases, how they creep into specific areas of the workplace – for example performance reviews – and how to tackle them and also keep everyone accountable. We’re hosting a blind spots (unconscious biases) workshop this week. We’re talking about biases in how we hire. These types of conversations and training will continue and we will build on them, similar to legos, as we progress”
Amanda Cable

Globally, we have seen big brands like Apple, Loreal and many more being prominent in talking about building an inclusive culture. It’s a positive sign to see startups like Educative joining in on the efforts for having a non discriminatory culture.

Watch video:

AimFit – Business Idea, Value Proposition, and Everything else about the company

Sarwat Rizvi — Sat, 06 Aug 2022 07:51:42 GMT

According to a report by the Global Wellness Institute, Pakistan shockingly ranked 149 out of 150 countries for recreational physical activity. The stats are appalling given that we have the 5th largest population in the world. On top of that, other health indicators such as low life expectancy compared to regional benchmarks also point to significant room for improvement, which presents a massive, under-tapped opportunity.

That’s where AimFit saw a massive opportunity and decided to seize it. The AimFit sisters are set on changing this statistic, a feat that the boom in online fitness start-ups of the west have not managed to tackle, as of yet.

AimFit emerged as yet another healthcare startup but one that is more dedicated to providing a healthy and fit lifestyle to stay-at-home people during COVID-19 lockdown.

What initially started as a personal passion, quickly expanded from a small rented place in Lahore to four of its own studios served by a team of 55 instructors, all of whom were trained through AimFit’s own instructor academy and certification.

AimFit launched a bootstrapped online offering within 24 hours of the COVID-19 lockdown to strengthen online traction from its members.

What is AimFit?

In September 2014, two sisters Mahlaqa Shaukat and Noor Shaukat returned to Pakistan from the UK to conceive a fitness movement, led by women, for women. This movement materialized in the form of AimFit. The business is now recognized as a leading platform that provides fitness classes to females belonging to the well-off segments of Lahore and Islamabad’s population.

AimFit is on a mission to revolutionize female fitness in Pakistan as well as across other similar geographical regions. What actually differentiates AimFit is the transformative impact it has had on its members and on the fitness industry in the country at large. The team at AimFit envisions a Pakistan where a fit and healthy lifestyle is a choice for everyone.

AimFit’s Value Proposition

The need for such a startup stemmed from the lack of dedicated spaces for women to achieve their fitness goals. That is, of course, an opportunity, especially with the global post-covid inclination towards a fit and healthy lifestyle. It wasn’t, therefore, unlikely for two Oxford University-graduated women with a passion for fitness to do something about it and cash in on the opportunity.

For an underdeveloped country like Pakistan, thinking about physical fitness is expensive, and considered an upper-class endeavor. The seedy gyms that do exist in the underbelly with iron cast dumbbells and tin cans filled with concrete as weights are not usually the kind of places that are welcoming to women. But even in the upper classes, the opportunities for women are limited.

And this is where AimFit comes in with its business plan tapping into an untapped market.

Background of Founders

Left to right: Mahlaqa Shaukat and Noor Shaukat

Mahlaqa Shaukat

Mahlaqa completed her Master’s from the University of Oxford with a specialization in Engineering. She started her professional journey as a Research Analyst at Deloitte and continued at the same company for a few years. In 2014, she joined Teach for Pakistan as a City Programme Manager.

Then, finally, in 2015 she co-founded AimFit with her sister.

Noor Shaukat

Noor is a LUMS alumni and graduated with a Bachelor’s in Management Sciences. After that, she completed her Master’s at the University of Oxford in Physics and Psychology.

In 2015, she co-founded AimFit alongside her sister.

AimFit’s Business Idea

While the last few years have seen a boost in health and fitness clubs in the major cities of Pakistan, smaller cities and the female population have been mainly ignored.

In addition to having female co-founders and an all-female management team, over 90 percent of all the employees of AimFit are women.

However, with the increasing usage of smartphones and high-speed internet connectivity, AimFit plans to leverage its online fitness solution to reach this segment. Post COVID-19 lockdown, AimFit had shut down its fitness studios and launched online, home-based workout sessions for its members. The popularity of these pre-recorded fitness classes, ranging from Dance Fitness to HIIT and Yoga, propelled the company into its next growth phase in the online fitness market.

Currently, access to studios is available as class bundles valid for a certain period of time (e.g. a 12-class package valid for 1 month) or unlimited classes contract for one year where every month, the members pay a subscription fee.

The current online platform allows subscribers to access an on-demand, professionally filmed, recorded, and edited fitness library (ranging from Dance Fitness, Yoga, Pilates, HIIT, and other programs, all localized to the Pakistani market). AimFit also releases a brand new featured workout for its paying members on a daily basis. All its classes are 45-minute follow-along workout sessions.

Funding Raised

Seed Funding: Raised $1 million

In September 2020, the startup raised a Seed round of $1M to become the first VC-backed fitness startup in Pakistan.

The round was led by Indus Valley Capital, a Pakistan-focused fund started by LinkedIn’s former VP Growth Aatif Awan. Angel investors include an unnamed unicorn founder and the founding team of Atoms amongst other high-profile investors.

Future Plans

AimFit plans to turbo-charge its growth through its online platform complemented by the expansion of its studio footprint across the country, by launching Flagship studios across major cities of Pakistan. Additionally, it will also be rolling out its online platform across all Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities.

CaterpillHERs Partners with Upwork to Coach Women on their Freelancing Careers

Press Release — Fri, 29 Jul 2022 06:51:46 GMT

CaterpillHERs, a Pakistan-based company that helps women launch and scale their businesses and careers, has partnered with Upwork, the world’s work marketplace, to provide women in the CaterpillHERs cohort access to coaching on Upwork Academy, an interactive learning hub that provides career tips, upskilling opportunities, and other educational resources. As part of the collaboration, members of the CaterpillHERs career accelerator program will receive tools, resources, and coaching related to working and succeeding on the Upwork platform.

“The partnership between Upwork and CaterpillHERs will allow us to bridge the gender gap in the freelancing industry by providing women in our career accelerator with verified and vetted content on using the platform and also receiving hands-on coaching by the team at Upwork. Upwork’s support and coaching to women in our cohort have definitely been a game-changer for us,” said Hira Saeed, CEO, and Founder of CaterpillHERs.

Pakistan has massive potential for freelancing growth with 63% of the total population in the country below the age of 25. The country also ranks 4th in the world for its growth in the freelancing market.

Women can become the epicentre of this growth by leveraging their existing skillsets and learning new skills remotely. Due to the care work responsibilities women have in a country like Pakistan, freelancing can be a life-changing career option for them.

“The hands-on coaching from Upwork’s team makes the platform more approachable and less scary for these aspiring freelancers,” said Faiza Yousuf, Director of CaterpillHERs. “I have worked with Upwork before and their team is always super supportive. They truly are an inclusive organization and that is why our values align so well.”

“One important aspect of building and scaling a freelance career is learning and growing from people that have done it before and having the support of a like-minded community,” said Fran Murphy, Vice President of Community at Upwork. “We’re proud that we can provide coaching for members of CaterpillHERs so that they can connect, learn, and grow, and have a more engaging Upwork experience.”

For more information on the CaterpillHERs cohort, please visit the Freelance Career Accelerator program page, and for additional information on Academy, please visit Upwork Community.

CaterpillHERs is a platform that helps women launch and scale their businesses and careers. The company provides a world-class curriculum vetted by experts, 1:1 high-touch coaching & mentorship, and an action-packed yet flexible learning experience through acceleration programs. The freelance track of CaterpillHERs career accelerator is a 12-week remote, flexible, and interactive course that enables women to launch and scale their freelance careers to new heights. For more information, visit caterpillhers.com/apply

Upwork is the world’s work marketplace. We serve everyone from one-person startups to over 30% of the Fortune 100 with a powerful, trust-driven platform that enables companies and talent to work together in new ways that unlock their potential. Our talent community earned over $3.3 billion on Upwork in 2021 across more than 10,000 skills in categories including website & app development, creative & design, customer support, finance & accounting, consulting, and operations. Learn more at upwork.com and join us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.

YAP Pakistan partners up with Faysal Bank for innovative banking solutions

Tehreem Farooqi — Wed, 20 Jul 2022 14:01:56 GMT

Lahore – 18th July, 2022: After successfully obtaining the In-Principle Approval from the State Bank of Pakistan for an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) license, YAP Pakistan has now entered into a strategic partnership with Faysal Bank to introduce digital financial services through the Fintech Express program. This marks the first step towards YAP’s pilot phase.

Faysal Bank’s Fintech Express program is focused on identifying and fostering fintech startups with promising, high-potential innovative technologies from Mastercard and facilitating these companies in developing seamless digital payment journeys.
YAP Pakistan’s primary objective is to revolutionize the banking industry through the provision of dynamic, intelligent and easy-to-use digital financial products and services. This collaboration will enable both entities to accelerate their missions of promoting financial inclusion and digitizing the banking ecosystem of Pakistan.

The agreement was signed by Meharyab Niazi, CEO YAP Pakistan and Mr. Yousaf Hussain, CEO Faysal Bank Limited.

Speaking at the signing ceremony, Meharyab Niazi, CEO YAP Pakistan shared:

“Obtaining the In-Principal Approval for our EMI license was a critical first step as we work towards a more digitally inclusive world; encouraging financial inclusion only paves way for us to reach our real goal that is to improve quality of life by providing access to essential financial services. YAP is committed to bringing digital financial services to underserved communities as a way of reducing inequality, promoting prosperity, and empowering individuals. We are thrilled to be partnering with Faysal Bank in Pakistan and hope to use technology and innovative products to create value for our customers.”

Adding on the occasion, Mr. Yousaf Hussain, CEO, Faysal Bank Ltd. said, “Faysal Bank wants to be the cornerstone of the digital product revolution in Pakistan. We are eager to create partnerships with EMI and Fintech and further support State Bank’s financial inclusion initiative in Pakistan. Faysal Bank’s agreement with YAP demonstrates our commitment to facilitate FinTechs and startups in Pakistan.”

YAP is redefining the fintech sector in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia by creating smarter and faster financial tools. The app offers a suite of versatile features such as analytics and budget tools, card controls, easy money transfers, real-time notifications of purchases, virtual cards and more. With an extensive database of resources at their fingertips, users can go from financially inexperienced to expert money managers.

Faysal Bank Limited was incorporated in Pakistan on October 3rd, 1994 as a Public Limited Company under the Companies Ordinance, 1984. The Bank’s shares are listed on Pakistan Stock Exchange. Faysal Bank is engaged in Commercial, Retail, Corporate and Islamic banking activities. Faysal Bank’s footprint now spreads over more than 220+ cities. As of 27th June 2022, the bank has a network of 625 branches of which 620 are Islamic banking branches.

TAG – Business Idea, Value Proposition, and Everything else about the company

Sarwat Rizvi — Tue, 19 Jul 2022 12:06:56 GMT

According to a survey conducted by World Bank, over 100 million adults in Pakistan do not have a bank account, which makes Pakistan the third-largest unbanked population in the world. This means that there’s a huge financial inclusion gap in the country waiting to be closed.

The financial services industry in Pakistan is primarily dominated by big banks which mostly lend to the government, and corporations, hence ignoring retail consumers most of the time. As a consequence, Pakistan has a large unbanked population. This need resultantly gave rise to many fintech startups like TAG, SadaPay, and NayaPay.

TAG is Pakistan’s first digital retail bank that allows customers to open a bank account within three minutes and access banking services from anywhere online.

What is TAG?

TAG is a mobile application that allows its users to open mobile wallets and get debit cards. The platform’s users can use the app anytime to perform online transactions such as money transfers, bill payments, and mobile top-up payments.

The startup aims to build Pakistan’s first truly global financial app. In 2020, TAG was launched in the country offering an E-Money Account with a Debit Card. Today, the startup aims to be the first account for millions of unbanked Pakistanis.

Background of Founders

Talal Ahmad Gondal

Talal completed his Bachelor’s in International Business and Management Studies from Rotterdam School of Management. He started his career as a Trade Specialist at Netherlands-based investment banking firm, BNY Mellon.

During the course of the next few years, he worked at a number of German firms, and then in 2016, he co-founded Germany-based Scalebridge Partners. Then in 2019, he joined Amazon services and finally, in March 2021 he founded TAG.

Alexander Lukianchuk

Alexander is an alumnus of the Moscow State Agroengineering University with a Bachelor’s in Information Technology.

He started his career as a Lead Software Engineer at Deutsche Bank. After that, he worked at a number of firms including Quotix (An FxPro Company), Naspay, and DataTravel LLC. Then finally, alongside his colleagues, he founded TAG and is currently serving as its Co-Founder and Cheif Technology Officer.

Value Proposition of TAG

The Rawalpindi-based startup offers banking financial services in the South Asian market, enabling local public and private firms to pay their employees’ salaries on TAG accounts as well as offers virtual and physical cards powered by Visa. It only takes three minutes for a new user to sign up on the platform, after which they can make payments online and top up utility bills.

The platform also provides a range of B2C offerings such as the ability to pay others online and top-up utility bills that are available to any user in Pakistan who signs up to the platform.

Funding Raised

Pre-Seed Round: Raised $5.5 million

In June 2021, TAG had raised $5.5 million. Investors in the pre-seed round included:

Quiet Capital
Fatima Gobi Ventures
Polymath Digital doubled down in this round while Khwarizmi Ventures and the co-founder of Plaid William Hockey also participated

Seed Round: Raised $12 million

In September 2021, TAG had raised $12 million in a pre-seed round that had put the company at a valuation of $100 million. The funding was led by Liberty City and also included additional investors:

Addition LP
Mantis Venture Capital
Banana Capital LP

Future Plans:

The startup has been setting new standards and changing the way Pakistan banks by building a digital bank for the masses, with an aim to encompass the entire financial life of users, from basic banking such as bank accounts and Visa Debit cards to employer payrolls, salary advances, savings, and neo-brokerage in future.

In an interview, Talal Gondal, Founder of TAG remarked:

There is more demand than we had initially anticipated. Other than many retail customers still on the waiting list, we have also been approached by several organizations to digitize their payroll system that has been dealing in cash until now.

QisstPay – Business Idea, Value Proposition, and Everything else about the company

Sarwat Rizvi — Thu, 14 Jul 2022 12:36:48 GMT

Over the course of the last two years, Pakistan’s eCommerce marketplace has hit a major growth spurt, with reported revenue growth of over 35 percent in the first quarter of the financial year 2021 alone. Additionally, the younger demographic i.e. 40 percent of the population being under the age of 30 is also one of the major contributing factors. On top of that, the increased access to digitization with even rural areas having 3G at this point – has served to give commerce a massive shove forward.

The country’s growing inclination towards eCommerce has bought about a rise in BNPL(Buy Now Pay Later) services. How, you ask? Well, thanks to a series of fintech startups coming to the table as payment platforms and partnering with leading e-commerce retailers to offer interest-free credit at checkout.

BNPL is a ‘during purchase’ payment option which is predominantly present in eCommerce. Other consumer credit options include PoS finance, and revolving credit cards. PoS finance is typically initiated in-store when purchasing electronics and household goods, and such solutions have historically had socioeconomic status around them.

But what Pakistan has always lacked in this entire discussion of financial liberties, is an easy way to access credit. In a country where credit card penetration is low, and cash remains king when it comes to making payments, the market clearly needed another option and this is where QisstPay comes in.

QisstPay is an easy solution for the masses. To put it simply, it’s the Pakistani version of BNPL that aims to offer as it introduces buy now, pay later (BNPL) as a tool for the Pakistani market. The revolving credit card is perhaps most under threat from BNPL, as of now.

What is QisstPay?

QisstPay is an instalment payment service for emerging markets. The startup addresses the lack of flexibility, integration, and the hidden fees currently plaguing Pakistan’s payments landscape by giving customers an efficient, adaptable and interest-free platform. When chosen at checkout, QisstPay allows customers to pay for their purchase in instalments with 0% interest and no late fees.

The service allows Pakistanis to pay for everyday necessities, effectively building better cash management in what is otherwise considered a very cash-driven society.

According to reports, the startup has been growing rapidly and has seen a 92% growth rate week to week. Presently, they serve over 500 retailers in Pakistan, including the likes of Samsung, Camelbak, Diesel, Philips, Xiaomi, and Lenovo including regional leaders such as Sapphire, Uniworth, Logo Shoes, and ELO.

What makes QisstPay unique is its business model. While the concept is not new to Pakistani consumers, the business model has never been tapped into before. It’s like the Pakistani dream come true. While previously, consumers could obtain instalment plans from certain merchants such plans included interest, ultimately increasing the cost of the product for the consumer.

QisstPay, on the other hand, charges merchants for these services, which results in increased sales due to instalment plans. While the only penalty a customer has is that QisstPay blocks the defaulters’ account, and he would not be able to make any more purchases unless his outstanding balance is cleared.

Background of founders

Jordan Olivas

Jordan graduated from the University of New Mexico with a Bachelor’s in Business Administration. After that, he completed his MBA from the University of North Texas. He’s been part of the services industry for over a decade now and has a diverse experience in different domains.

It was this experience that prompted him to launch QisstPay alongside his colleague in 2021.

Syed Saad Ahmed

Saad graduated from Comsats in 2017 with a Bachelor’s in Computer Software Engineering. He started his career at Invictus Zone as a Backend Developer. He has served in multiple front and backend development roles over the course of the last few years. Then finally, in 2021 he co-founded QisstPay alongside Jordan.

Why QisstPay?

The majority of people in Pakistan don’t have the financial background to get approved for credit cards and therefore rely on QisstPay to help them manage their day-to-day expenses. QisstPay helps address this by letting people buy the things they actually need and pay for them gradually over time.

What basically QisstPay offers is an instalment payment service, that responds to this problem by enabling consumers to pay for their purchases in four instalments without having to pay interest or worry about late fees. Purchases of between 1,500 and 500,000 PKR (approximately $9 to $3,000 USD) are eligible, and consumers can use both debit and credit cards to make their repayments. The company has also shared that it plans to enable repayment via digital wallet soon.

Funding Secured

Pre-Seed Round: Secured $15 million

The round was led by MSA Capital with institutional investment participation from other investors including:

Global Founders Capital
Fox Ventures
First Check Ventures
With a series of strategic angel investments from Simone Mancini and Johnny Mitrevski, Co-Founders of Scalapay
Ashley Davies, former CFO of Venmo and current Sylp CFO; former C Suite at Affirm; Adam Mawdesley, VP of Partnerships & Product at Splitit; and United Bank Limited of Pakistan.

Seed Round: Secured $15 million

In October 2021, the startup announced that it had raised $15 million in seed and pre-seed rounds through a mix of equity and debt.

Future Plans

QisstPay intends to use the proceeds from its funding rounds to expand its services, which include transaction funding and partnerships with traditional Pakistani financial institutions, as well as its team. Additionally, they are also expanding their services to Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

The power of a service like QisstPay isn’t just about driving higher average order values and better conversions, but they aim to offer up a service that makes it easier for consumers to get what they want and need, and easier for merchants to grow their businesses by supplying it.

By providing a manageable way for consumers to borrow and repay with the interest (where applicable) built into the repayment plan with a fixed-end date, Qisstpay is providing consumers more assurance that they can repay without falling into a revolving credit repayment.

Airlift to close operations nationwide starting 13th July

Shaheryar Ehsan — Tue, 12 Jul 2022 15:44:34 GMT

This recession is a big one and it’s just getting started.

Airlift will reportedly close nationwide operations starting from July 13th as the startup is failing to generate profits for investors and hit revenue targets. Reportedly all operations are going shut down from tomorrow in order to preserve investor money and as a means to exit the market altogether.

What does this mean?

It means one of Pakistan’s “hypergrowth” startups is exiting the market and shutting down which is a huge blow to our startup ecosystem and for the job market as well. They had already laid off 30% of employees and had conducted a hiring freeze but apparently, this would not suffice.

In regards to background, Airlift’s founding team included: Usman Gul, Meher Farrukh, Zohaib Ali, Awaab Khakwany, Muhammad Owais and Ahmed Ayub. In August 2021, the company announced raising a record high revenue of $85 million in Series-B funding, and a valuation of a little over a quarter of a billion dollars ($275 million).

Airlift also did a strategy shift in the past. 1st July 2020, Usman Gul, co-founder and CEO of Airlift announced Airlift closing $10m in Series A-1 Financing. At the same time, Airlift announced the launch of Airlift Grocers under the umbrella of Airlift Technologies. The founders are experienced to change management but apparently the recession was too much for them.

Where to next?

We hope that Airlift will provide a good severance package to the laid-off employees and they will be able to adjust soon in the market. WTS will be looking out to create a directory as needed for the alumni of Airlift, assuming this news is true.

She’Kab – Business Idea, Value Proposition, and Everything else about the company

Sarwat Rizvi — Fri, 08 Jul 2022 05:51:40 GMT

If you’re a working woman in Islamabad in search of a safe carpooling app, then we might have just the solution for you! She’Kab is an application that allows groups of women in the same area to carpool and split the fare for a single driver on a monthly basis.

According to a 2018 report co-led by the UN, approximately 90% of women who travel by bus experience harassment. So, in a country where only three percent of households own a car, commuting can be a real barrier for women entering the workplace.

In 2016, 50% of girls who used public transportation reported harassment, and the few who continued working ended up spending up to 40% of their monthly salaries on safer travel alternatives.

In addition to all this, mobility is a multi-faceted phenomenon and bears a significant impact on the overarching aim of women empowerment. Prevalent social/cultural norms, transport infrastructure, physical/area planning, women’s presence and participation in the informal sector, and car financing schemes as well as access to information and communication technologies (ICTs) are some of the major problems facing today’s Pakistani women.

She’Kab was introduced with an aim to address such issues and provide a viable solution to solving them.

What is She’Kab?

Headquartered in Islamabad, the venture started in December 2015 and made it into the lives of the masses in no time. She’Kab is a subscription-based monthly carpooling service for working women. The startup connects registered riders to its pool of trusted cab drivers who provide shared-monthly transportation services to women & girls. Once the user subscribes with their pickup and drop-off locations, the platform contacts them within 2-3 days and connects them with all respective partner drivers in their area.

Furthermore, the platform also provides an estimate of the commute. The application is available on Android and iOS stores. You can also share your ride with other riders to make your commute fun and affordable.

Background of Founder of She’Kab

Hira Batool Rizvi

Hira completed her bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering after which she obtained her Master’s in Science and Technology Policy as a Fulbright Scholar from Georgia Institute of Technology, USA. Around the same time, she saw companies like Uber take off. This gave her the idea for She’Kab, a ridesharing service designed for women.

Due to her business model, she was also selected as one of the finalists of the Shell Tameer Awards 2017.

Why She’Kab?

She’Kab is Pakistan’s first shared-taxi service for women that allows multiple riders to travel together as fellow travellers. Riders subscribe to the SheKab website which further provides them with the estimated costs for their respective areas.

The startup’s monthly subscription model uses a web-based platform that connects riders to partner drivers. Their pool of drivers comprises thoroughly vetted male and female drivers. Their solution is the first of its kind in addressing issues of mobility by recognizing and confronting social/cultural norms-like a woman’s ability to lease a car or the cultural/religious pressure of not travelling alone.

From the pre-existing taxi infrastructure, as well as female drivers who own cars. The startup has started working on car financing models designed for women drivers; that would allow them to own cars.

Funding Raised

Seed Funding: Raised $150k

In July 2017, the startup raised $150k in a seed funding round led by Norway-based investment company, Katapult.

Additionally, the startup also competed in Shell LiveWIRE’s Top Ten Innovators Competition, a global competition for businesses that demonstrate excellence in innovation. She’Kab won the runner-up award and $10,000 in funding.

Future Plans:

She ‘Kab plans to expand its subscription-based monthly carpooling service to different cities of the country to allow women to own cars, which is quite a notable challenge in South Asia. The rideshare is currently exploring several different financing options with potential partners that would allow women to reasonably afford a car.

Dastgyr – Business Idea, Value Proposition, and Everything else about the company

Sarwat Rizvi — Mon, 04 Jul 2022 09:46:00 GMT

2019 was one tough year around the globe. Where the world was fighting the modern-day pandemic era, we saw the emergence of many startups that made the process of retail for both buyers and sellers an easy task. Over the past two years, we’ve seen the emergence of many B2B marketplace startups catering to the needs of the people and excelling at doing that.

Among such startups one is Dastgyr. The startup was launched under strict lockdown conditions by the two founders Muhammad Owais Qureshi and Zohaib Ali in 2020 with a total investment of $300,000. Dastgyr was launched with an objective to solve inventory procurement challenges for more than 2 million retailers across the country.

What is Dastgyr?

SME retailers are the backbone of Pakistan’s economy, representing a combined market of roughly $125 billion dollars, about 30-40 percent of the country’s GDP. Dastgyr aims to empower and uplift this segment with a near-perfect supply chain and financial inclusion to increase that contribution even further.

Dastgyr is a B2B e-commerce marketplace that uses technology to connect retailers directly to manufacturers and wholesalers with guaranteed next-day delivery and telephonic helpline support. Through its operations, the company plans to fix the fragmented supply chain. Dastgyr’s platform partners include Coca-Cola, Nestle, and Reckitt.

Additionally, the platform’s retail services apply wholesale research to the lowest possible rates on inventories over a wide variety of products. Product categories on the app include fast-moving consumer goods, stationery, mobile accessories, and more. The startup claims to have grown the gross merchandise value 7x between September 2020 and July 2021, while boasting 5,240 daily active users on the app.

Dastgyr has also introduced a Buy Now Pay Later offering and further plans to extend lending products for its sellers as well. In an interview, the company’s co-founder, Muhammad Owais, said that the platform aims to become a unicorn in the next few years.

Background of Founders

Left to right: Muhammad Owais Qureshi and Zohaib Ali

Muhammad Owais Qureshi

Owais is a LUMS graduate with a bachelor’s in Science. He kicked off his professional journey as a Strategy Associate at the Karachi-based firm, Teamants. In 2015, he joined Hilal foods as a Business Analyst and in 2016 got promoted to the position of Business Development Officer.

He has worked with a number of firms including, Careem and Domino’s Pakistan. In 2019, he cofounded Airlift and in May 2020, he founded Dastgyr with his colleague.

Zohaib Ali

Zoahib is also an alumnus of Lahore University of Management Sciences(LUMS). He graduated with a Bachelor of Science and started his career as an intern at a German firm named Everest Capital. After that, he joined the UK-based company, Pepperstone as a Foreign Exchange Trader.

In 2019, alongside his colleagues he co-founded Airlift. And in 2020, he along with his partner founded Dastgyr.

Why Dastgyr?

It allows users to purchase inventory from a wide range of over 2,000 products listed on the app and provides next-day doorstep delivery and microloans.

Dastgyr’s asset-light model functions on a cross-docking approach: goods are delivered to sorting centers, sorted into individual orders and routes, after which they are dispatched to retailers. Currently operational in both Karachi and Lahore after its official launch in September 2020, it has fulfilled hundreds of thousands of orders worth millions of dollars to roughly 30,000 customers.

Funding Raised by Dastgyr

Seed Funding: Raised $3.5 million

In July 2021, Dastgyr raised $3.5 million in a seed round led by SOSV on top of a $500,000 investment, which it has raised in an angel round back in 2020. The seed round took its total raise to $4 million and also involved participation from:

Asian Development Bank’s VC arm ADB Ventures
Seedstars, Edgebrook Partners
Bahrain’s Zayani Venture Capital
Dubai’s Tricap investments
Some other angel investors – including Twiga Foods’ founder Grant Brooke and Tokopedia’s VP of Marketplace Albertus Aldo.

The impressive thing was that it was the first Pakistani investment for most of these investors.

Series A Funding: Raised $37 million

In June 2022, the startup raised another $37 million but this time in Series A funding, the first round of financing for a new business after seed capital that too for the biggest investment yet in Pakistan at this stage.

In this round, VEON venture invested $15 million which is its largest investment in a startup in Pakistan.

Other participants in the round included:

Zinal Growth
DEG
Khwarizmi Ventures
OTF Jasoor Ventures
Cedar Mundi
Reflect Ventures
Century Oak Capital
Hi2 Global
GoingVC
Astir Ventures
K3 Diversity Ventures
Chandaria Capital

Along with the founders of Property Finder, Ayoconnect, Quiqup, and senior management from DoorDash.

So far, Dastgyr has raised $41 million from SOSV and other global investors. Previously, the duo were part of the team that helped found Airlift, a mass transit startup that in November 2019 raised a record $12 million in Series

The startup claims to have grown 300%since its last funding and added 42,000 retailers across five cities since its inception in 2020 during the peak of the pandemic.

The Veon Partnership

In a statement, Atyab Tahir, the CEO of JazzCash said that the “possibility really is that we are a digital financial services enabler in the market and when we talk about digitization of cash in the economy, there is a large chunk of cash that SMEs have. The outreach Dastgyr is trying to build, we can be their embedded financial services partner.”

Atyab added:

To put it simply, for now, Dastgyr would have access to a large merchant base of Jazz and JazzCash to onboard them for eCommerce services. Wherever Jazz or JazzCash has an outreach, to couple with the merchant and agent network that Jazz and JazzCash have to be able to digitize the underlying financial services. We will enable the underlying digital payments, and Dastgyr will provide B2B eCommerce services to them

Future Plans

While the company started by catering to grocery stores, it’s now venturing into new domains of business-to-business categories, including cement, steel, and other building materials. It is also looking at electronics, pharmaceuticals, and other retail sectors, said Owais.

Furthermore, the company plans to use the newly raised funds to improve its tech stack and strengthen its seller app, which provides credit to sellers, giving them additional working capital for growth.

Besides looking to expand in 15 new cities in Pakistan, Dastgyr is also understood to be wanting to ramp up its global presence and tap emerging across Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa.

Marham: Business Idea, Value Proposition, And Everything Else About the company

Laiba Tariq — Mon, 27 Jun 2022 15:13:00 GMT

Today almost every product or service is digital, be it getting your groceries delivered, booking a concert ticket, or digital health.

With Marham, you can connect to a doctor of your choice from an opposite corner of the country with just a few clicks. It has been successfully bridging the gap between the healthcare officials and the public of Pakistan for almost seven years now.

Marham is making rounds in the health care and business world with its unique approach to providing a digital health care platform. It is designed to connect patients with verified and authentic doctors. Through the platform, patients are able to look for doctors or specialists, book appointments, leave feedback, locate health experts or laboratories, and get medication online.

It also allows its users to stay updated on healthcare-related news in the blog section thus helping them to save a lot of time while scheduling doctor consultations or performing any other medical task.

Marham’s CEO Ehsan remarked on one occasion:

“My father was ill. During the consultation and constant back and forth shifting to different hospitals, I realized that there is a need for an authentic central database with complete and reliable information of the doctors.”

So Ehsan went ahead and created one himself.

Marham: All-in-one Digital Health Care solution

Marham is a healthcare start-up based in Lahore. It was founded in 2015 by two determined individuals. It began as a simple doctor booking platform for the public.

Sine then Marham has evolved into a vast healthcare program. It claims to have served millions of people in Pakistan with more than 20,000 expert health officials, doctors, therapists, and health care professionals. It has successfully created a community where it has brought patients and doctors into an entirely digital setting to get things done.

Marham aims to not only help people solve their health issues but also educate them constantly. It is transparent with its users and has established trust with them through its 50k+ reviews and amazing user experience.

Background of the Founders

Left to right: Ehsan Imam and Asma Salman Omer

Two motivated individuals founded Marham as they witnessed the deteriorating state of patients suffering in Pakistan. This is due to the inaccessibility of timely care, lack of information, and the GP Triage.

Ehsan Imam

In Pakistan, Ehsan Imam works as a digital health evangelist to transform the healthcare industry. He is the co-founder and CEO of Marham.pk, Pakistan’s largest digital health platform, has been recognized by Google with its Demo Day Asia 2018 Award for creating health awareness and accessibility in the country.

Ehsaan has worked with many organizations and clients. He has a background in software development and big data solutions and is capable of providing his expertise across various tech sectors.

Asma Salman Omer

Asma is the designer of Marham. She has the vision to provide affordable, accessible, and timely health care.

As a co-founder, she has played a vital role in setting the foundations of Marham. Her career is versatile and impressive, to say the least in her honor. She is a software engineer who loves art and design. Her avid love for programming and a keen eye for design birthed Marham and sustained Marham

Asma Omer, the co-founder, and COO of Marham says Marham’s services will make healthcare more accessible and affordable for the masses:

[Marham’s services will] save millions of lives in the years to come as patients will be able to access quality healthcare from qualified doctors without having to leave their homes.

Funding Raised by Marham

$1 Million in seed funding

In 2021, Marham raised an exceptional amount of $1 Million in a seed round led by Indus Valley Capital with significant contributions from a South-Asian angel investor.

Funding partners of digital health care Marham:

Indus Valley Capital
Weihan Lew: Angel Investor

Partner Indus Valley Capital on Marham,
“We are pleased to be working with Marham in their effort to offer quality healthcare to everyone in Pakistan at an affordable price. While bootstrapping, the founders’ dedication is fascinating, and their progress has been impressive. Our goal is to help Marham grow as quickly as possible.”

Future Plans of Marham

The Future Plans of Marham are reflected in its mission,

“To make quality digital health care accessible for all!”

It has gained a lot of traction from its users who have shown their love through 1 Million+ subscribers on Youtube. Marham was also nominated for Asia’s Favourite Startup.

The health-tech startup is now teaming up with other startups in the tech and health sector to expand the horizons of its business and objectives. Recently, Plan9 and Marham have teamed up for active collaboration on improving society. It is their goal to create awareness and improve the technology healthcare sector in Pakistan.

Looking at the data, the response of the public, and the exceptional services provided by Marham, the future looks bright for this startup.

Careem terminates new hires days before their joining date

Tehreem Farooqi — Sat, 25 Jun 2022 15:17:13 GMT

The so-called “global economic recession” is especially hitting hard on the working class as many lost their jobs in the previous months. We have been seeing news of layoffs and closed operations from many startups including Swvl, Truckitin, Retailo and Dawaai. But Careem seems to have figured out a completely new way to appear in the news.

A LinkedIn user recently shared a story on the platform telling how the ride-hailing service terminated their employment days before joining. According to the post, they were supposed to start their job at Uber-acquired Careem on July 4th, 2022 and they had completed all of their documentation with the company when all of a sudden they received the email saying that the company cannot proceed with their hiring. This announcement came only after the new hire had already handed over their resignation to the previous employer.

The LinkedIn post author also noted that the same has happened to at least 10 new hires at Careem. Another user also shared in the comments section how they were told that the role they have applied for is no longer available as the company is undergoing some organisational changes on the 16th of June. However, Careem still hasn’t released a response to the post.

Like many other Pakistani startups, the ride-hailing giant Careem does not seem to be doing good in the current economic situation. The company announced a few weeks ago that it has suspended its food delivery service in Pakistan citing shifting economic conditions. This decision resulted in one lay-off while other employees were accommodated in the mobility segment, according to a Careem spokesperson.

Many LinkedIn users have expressed concerns about this event and warned others about accepting job offers from Uber and Careem. While a lot can be said about this unfortunate incident, we feel and express sadness. Sadness over the declining situation of the startup industry of Pakistan which saw massive growth just last year. We hope that things will get better and we will again see new opportunities being produced and funding being raised in our country.

We will update this space with more information as it becomes available.

Zaraye – Business Idea, Value Proposition and Everything else about the company

Sarwat Rizvi — Wed, 22 Jun 2022 15:22:04 GMT

The year 2021 was indeed a boastful year for the startup ecosystem of Pakistan. Where we saw the best of the best business models raising millions of dollars and easing away the lives of the masses. From fresh produce startups to cash-on-delivery to everyday essentials and now to even raw materials providers for manufacturing businesses.

Although, this only leaves us wondering how many other business models are just waiting to be tapped and enter our lives? I guess we’ll know this in due time. Although, one such startup is Zaraye.

Pakistan’s $50 Billion industrial manufacturing markets still rely on primitive sourcing methods, which ultimately leads to efficiency losses in procurement value chains. This makes Pakistani Industries not only uncompetitive in both global and local markets but also keeps them in a loop of low-profit margins.

Enter Zaraye, a platform that brings together all the supplies one needs to run a business, with convenience, efficiency, and reliability. Zaraye aims to revolutionize the process of traditional raw material procurement with its reverse-bidding platform, assuring the best prices and highest quality of raw materials.

What is Zaraye?

Founded in late 2021, Zaraye is a business-to-business platform that helps manufacturing businesses procure raw materials and finance working capital. It currently serves the textile and construction industries, with more than 300 partners and suppliers in about 20 cities.

Zaraye works through an app and a website where buyers meet a fairly large number of suppliers. A buyer posts an inquiry that he wants a certain quantity of a product by a certain date. The suppliers of that product post rates at which they would sell, giving the buyer the option to choose from the best available prices in a transparent manner, instead of just relying on a broker.

Once the buyer has made a deal with a suitable supplier of his choice, Zaraye then delivers the materials to the desired location of the buyers through third-party logistics providers and also provides after-sales service. Through its financing facility, the company provides credit to both buyers and sellers to help them meet their working capital requirements.

Presently, the materials on the platform include cotton yarn, which is the single biggest raw material used for creating fabric in the textile industry. While for the construction industry, Zaraye provides cement, sand, gravel, and crushed stone. The company focuses on smaller manufacturers, whose annualized revenue margins vary between $250,000 and $2 million USD.

Background of Founders

Left to right: Ahshan Ali Khan, Hashair Junair Ahmedani, Taha Iqbal Teli

In September 2021, three schoolmates and friends, Ahsan Ali Khan, Hashair Junaid, and Taha Iqbal envisioned making procurement of raw materials for buyers and sellers efficient and founded Zaraye.

Taha Iqbal Teli

Taha is an IBA alumnus, with a bachelor’s in Business Administration. After his bachelor’s, he completed his post-graduation from the University of Bath with a Master’s in Marketing.

After his Masters’s, he joined Careem as a Supply Associate and left after over two years from the position of Expansion Manager of Careem Now. In April 2020, Taha joined Swvl as Corporates and Categories Manager. Then in September 2021, he alongside his other co-founders launched Zaraye.

Hashair Junair Ahmedani

Hashair is also an IBA graduate with a bachelor’s in Business Administration. After completing his Bachelors, he went for a Masters in Business Management and Marketing at the University of Bath.

He kicked off his professional career as a Director at New Zeenat Textile Mills. He is also the founder of Cafe Praha, in Prague, Czech Republic. In 2021, he co-founded and launched Zaraye.

Ahsan Ali Khan

Ahsan is also an IBA graduate, with a bachelor’s in Business Administration. He started off his professional career as a Category Manager at Dawai. Later, Ahsan joined Careem as Supply Lead. After that, he got affiliated with Swvl as a Supply Manager.

In 2021, Ahshan alongside his other two friends co-founded and launched Zaraye.

Why Zaraye?

Pakistan’s Industrial manufacturing sector makes up 20% of the country’s economy, with the annual $35 billion raw-materials markets accounting for as much as 65% of the total costs for the manufacturers. Zaraye brings together multiple buyers and suppliers, reducing the need for manufacturers to make multiple phone calls to get prices.

Traditionally, the buyers and suppliers of industrial raw materials operate by reaching out to a handful of brokers that help buyers procure and sellers sell their raw materials and goods. The process is painfully long and time-consuming and involves the broker getting a cut from both parties involved in a transaction. According to a general consensus, the presence of a middleman creates inefficiencies that a marketplace-like model can fix.

This is where Zaraye comes in, it helps buyers source raw materials at competitive and transparent prices from sellers. This helps businesses procuring raw materials achieve cost efficiencies which are crucial for surviving and thriving in the thin net margin industries they operate in. Not only this but suppliers of raw materials also see consolidated demand from Zaraye’s network of buyers.

Besides solving the problem of pricing, the company also provides working capital financing to both parties. Small buyers and sellers are mostly overlooked by formal financial institutions like banks for credit facilities but Zaraye solves this problem.

Funding Raised:

Pre-Seed Funding: Raised $2.1 million

In April 2022, Zaraye raised $2.1 million in pre-seed funding from Tiger Global and Zayn Capital. This also marks the first time Tiger Global has made a pre-seed investment in a Pakistani startup. Other investors include:

+92 Ventures
Alan Rutledge
Jack Rizvi and current and former employees of Careem.

Future Plans:

Ahshan told the profit that the startup’s focus right now is collecting data to make well-informed lending decisions. “The fragmentation in the market is huge, so the challenge for our fintech leg is how do we collect the right data,” Ahshan said.

Once they have collected sufficient data on buyers and sellers, it will help Zaraye assess credit and disburse credit based on actual creditworthiness.

Although Zaraye has started off with securing customers in the textile and construction industries, it plans to expand the platform’s offerings in these sectors, as well as open new categories as they grow. Its mission is to help manufacturers find opportunities to scale and optimize their business to compete not just in the local but in the global markets as well.

What is Ethereum and how can you mine or purchase it?

Shaheera Faheem — Tue, 21 Jun 2022 09:40:33 GMT

Bitcoin was the uncrowned king of the crypto world. Many cryptocurrencies came, some stayed, and most vanished, yet the market share of bitcoin remained unmatchable. It was only in 2015 that a cryptocurrency named Ethereum was launched that transformed the crypto norms and paved the way for many tech developments.

The idea behind Ethereum was published in a white paper in 2013 that described an alternative platform that would allow developers to create their own decentralized applications using a built-in programming language. Many developers were drawn to this idea because these new applications would be accessible to a global audience, highly secure, and much faster to build because there are no intermediary services to integrate.

What is Ethereum?

Ethereum is the world’s second-largest crypto project by market capitalization and was the first to introduce smart contract functionality to the industry. Ethereum is not merely a store of value or a medium for exchange; instead, it calls itself a decentralized computing network built on blockchain technology.

“Ethereum serves two purposes: One, it acts as money and can be a store of value, But Ethereum is also like a highway for decentralized finance.” ~ Bill Noble, chief technical analyst at Token Metrics

This additional feature in cryptocurrency that Ethereum introduced led to the foundation of NFTs, DeFi, stablecoins and other smart contracts built on blockchains. Co-creator of Ethernet, Vitalik Buterin, now has his eyes set on decentralizing social media, gaming, governance and more to further explore the vast potential Ether blockchain holds.

The units used in Ethereum are not called Ethereum or Ethereums. Ethereum is the protocol itself, but the currency that powers it is simply known as ether (or ETH).

Ethereum vs Bitcoin

Ethereum is very different from Bitcoin in terms of the purpose of creation. While Bitcoin was created with the goal of disrupting online banking and day-to-day transactions, Ethereum’s creators aim to use the same technology to replace internet third parties and to give users more control of their finances and online data. This vision if executed according to plan would shortly introduce social media platforms that users would trust with their data.

How does Ethereum work?

The basic working of Ether is through a blockchain network like all cryptocurrencies. A blockchain is a decentralized, distributed public ledger where all transactions are verified and recorded. All participants of the Ethereum network have access to this ledger that shows all past transactions. The network isn’t operated or managed by any centralized entity; instead, it’s managed by all of the distributed ledger holders.

The thing that differentiates the working of Ether from bitcoin and other traditional cryptocurrencies is that the network can perform computations as part of the mining process. This computational capability enables Ethereum to function as a decentralized global computing engine and openly verifiable data store.

Ethereum does have its fair share of volatility and instability but like Bitcoin, Ether too has shown an upward growth graph which makes it the most reliable among the rest. Ethereum was also used as an investment vehicle as the interest in the crypto space elevates in recent years. Ethereum hit an all-time high late in 2021, and ever since it has been gaining on Bitcoin in terms of global market capitalization.

Ethereum Mining

The mining process of any cryptocurrency is integral to securing and updating the blockchain. Miners put transactions on the blockchain through complex computations which is a costly process, and as a reward, the protocol rewards them with ether. They also receive freshly-generated ether – 2 ETH at the time of writing.

Unlike Bitcoin, Ethereum does not have a set limitation on how many of the currencies could ever exist. The token emission schedule for Ether remains open-ended, as it stays focussed on using the blockchain as a foundation for decentralized applications.

How to buy Ethereum?

There are three major steps that most people take in buying Ethereum:

Choose a cryptocurrency exchange.
Ethereum is trending and widely circulated cryptocurrency thus all cryptocurrency exchanges offer it. Crypt exchange ranges from online brokers, centralized exchanges and decentralized exchanges.
Decide how to pay.
Ether can be bought through fiat currency (paper money) or some other cryptocurrency.
Store your Ethereum.
Digital assets require digital wallets, which store the private keys you can access or spend your digital currencies. You can choose from on-platform wallets and non-custodial wallets, both having their pros and cons.

Future of Ethereum

No matter which cryptocurrency you invest in, it’s vital to understand the risks, including the potential loss of your entire investment. Crypto investments are volatile and risky thus a measured approach with considerable risk tolerance is necessary for all investors.

The crypto news outlet Coinpedia predicted ETH could end 2022 between $6,500 and $7,500 if the upswing that started in mid-2021 were to continue. However, 2022 witnessed a downturn in the crypto market, reinforcing the risk in cryptocurrencies. The blockchain now has considerable competition from similar platforms that are filling in its gaps while the Ethereum team works to transition to its second-generation updates.

Ethereum launched a new update, Ether 2.0, which could potentially make Ethereum more affordable for users to mint and develop products, the service fees to use Ethereum are extremely high for now. As per coinpedia predictions, Ether’s price could rise up to $12,962.33 in 2022 if Ethereum’s upcoming transition to Ethereum 2.0 is successful.

Dawaai closes operations in Hyderabad leaving the whole team jobless

Tehreem Farooqi — Mon, 20 Jun 2022 15:27:41 GMT

It seems like every other day brings the news of another startup taking cost-cutting measures in the middle of the economic recession. Whether it be downsizing or closing down operations in some areas, the startup industry of Pakistan is taking a major hit because of the global downturn of events.

Dawaai is the latest addition to this list after closing operations in Hyderabad. As a result of this decision, at least 35+ employees were laid off at once. The company has yet to release an official statement regarding the layoffs but several ex-employees have taken to LinkedIn to share the sad news and look for other opportunities.

Dawaai has raised a total of $9.5M in funding over 7 rounds with 500 Startups and Sarmayacar Ventures being the major investors but even that couldn’t help them against the extreme economic conditions we are currently facing.

Headquartered in Karachi, Dawaai was founded in 2014 and currently has multiple fulfilment centers across the country. There is no clue if operations in any other city were also closed.

We will update this space with more information as we receive it.

PostEx – Business Idea, Value Proposition and Everything else about the company

Sarwat Rizvi — Sat, 18 Jun 2022 16:01:19 GMT

The pandemic bought a boost to the trend of online shopping. While online stores existed well before the pandemic as well but it wasn’t until after it, that a vast majority of people took to online stores and websites even for their everyday essentials. This not only benefitted the previously existing online retailers but now, even those who didn’t have an online presence before, well acquainted themselves with social media and other platforms to boost their sales and reach a wider customer base.

This in turn created a new market gap and gave rise to a business model, which though did exist before but wasn’t as big a part of the everyday life of the masses. Now, there was a need for a service that would act as a bridge between the online stores and the customer, a service that accepted both cash on delivery, and online payments. It wouldn’t be an understatement to say, that after only a few months into the pandemic the market saw the ingression of a great many cash-on-delivery services. We even witnessed the rise of some buy now and pay later services, but that discussion is for another time.

Among such cash-on-delivery startups, one was PostEX. PostEx functions as a hybrid of receivables factoring solution and courier service and pays invoice values upfront to E-commerce companies offering cash on delivery as one of their modes of payment.

What is PostEX?

Founded back in 2020 the company offers online retailers upfront payments for their cash-on-delivery orders, for a fixed fee. While the startup works with online retailers as their last-mile logistics partner, what gives it an edge over other players in the market is that it doesn’t make sellers wait in order to receive the payments for their cash-on-delivery orders.

The startup aspires to make delivery service smooth and instantaneous by transforming conventional delivery into modernized delivery with instant and upfront cash on customer orders.

Background of Founders

Muhammad Omer Khan

Omar is a CFA level 3 candidate, who started his professional career as a Financial Analyst. In 2013 he joined EY as a Senior and after three years there, joined Nasco Middle East as a Wealth Manager. In 2017 he joined the Dubai-based, Querencia Financial Analysis & Consultancy as an investment analyst and then finally in 2019 founded PostEX alongside his partners.

Adil Naseem

Adil is an alumnus of the National College of Business Administration and Economics, with a bachelor’s in Business Finance and Marketing. He started his professional journey as a TeleSales Supervisor at Ovex Technologies.

In 2011 he joined the Dubai-based Al Hanoo Holding Company, as a Business Development Officer. Then in 2015, he joined Systems Limited as Senior Business Development Executive. Adil has worked at a number of well-known organizations including CureMD, Careem, and the Dubai-based, Hala. Then in 2020, he joined PostEX as a co-founder.

Saad Mahmood

In 2015, Saad joined Packages Limited as Finance Specialist. Then after a year, he join 24 News as head of operations and worked there for over two years. Finally, in 2020, he co-founded PostEx.

Babar Razzaq

Babar is a University of Punjab alumnus, with a bachelor’s in IT(Computer Science). He started his career at NetSol technologies as a Software Engineer. Then in 2010, he joined InfoTech as a Senior Software Engineer.

After 7 years he switched and joined Nisum as Senior Technical Lead. In 2018, he joined Systems Limited as a Managing Consultant and then joined PostEX in 2021 as Director and CTO.

Why PostEx?

A vast majority of the consumers who are well versed in the customs of online shopping in Pakistan, pay using the cash-on-delivery payment method, while the payment cycles for such orders easily range between a week to a month which creates cash flow issues for the online sellers. This is where PostEx’s model comes into play. The company is trying to find a solution to such problems via its fintech and logistics platform. In addition to a cash-on-delivery service, PostEx also offers a payment gateway that the retailers can integrate on their respective websites to accept online payments using cards, bank accounts, and mobile wallets.

Currently, PostEx’s competition in the market includes Rider, Swyft, and Trax, other than the giants such as TCS and Leopards. However, despite facing heavy competition the company’s fintech-first approach makes it stand out in the market and allows it to reach out to businesses with the value proposition of solving their liquidity problems first, coupled with a delivery service.

So far, this strategy has helped PostEx grow by signing up merchants for financing their invoice values upfront, on which PostEx earns by charging a fixed commission. At the same time, providing the merchants with the option to sign up for delivery services as well.

Features Offered by PostEx

Secure payments: PostEx authentication, both non-3D, and 3DS is intended to assist the user in capturing more money.

Lowest Price: With PostEx, users can start accepting online payments for as low as 3 percent.

Go Global: Customers from all around the world can use any major debit or credit card at PostEx.

No transaction fee: The retailers are not charged a fee for any transaction, allowing them to expand their business with Paid.

One-click integrations: PostEx also provides one-click prebuilt plugin interfaces for systems like Shopify, wooCommerce, Magento, and others. This once integrated can be up and running in a span of 10 minutes.

Zero integration fee/annual fees: You can make your transaction accept digital payments seamless at zero charges with PostEx.

Funding Raised

Seed Funding: Raised $8.1 million

In October 2021, the company raised a seed round of $1.5 million. The round was led by MSA Capital, while other investors including Shorooq Partners, Zayn Capital, VentureSouq, PNO Ventures, +92 Ventures, and Arbisoft’s CEO Yasser Bashir also participated in the deal.

Then only after a month, in November 2021 PostEx extended its seed round by securing an additional $7.1 million. The extension round was led by Global Founders Capital (GFC) with participation from:

FJ Labs — an investor in companies such as Alibaba and Ant Financial
Russian venture capital (VC) firm ru-NET
Alma Capital
Zayn Capital
MSA Capital
Shorooq Partners and
Swvl’s Chief Financial Officer Youssef Salem.

In a statement, Tito Costa, Partner at Global Founders Capital said:

PostEx offers a unique product to e-commerce players in the Pakistani ecosystem, allowing them to unlock precious capital to accelerate their growth. We are excited to back the team as they build out their suite of financial and fulfillment products.

Future Plans

Last year PostEX also launched a digital payments feature to help meet the growing demand for digital payment services. The digital payments features provide an all-encompassing platform for online merchants to keep a track of their cash flows, payments, and deliveries.

According to the company, the newly raised funds are going to be directed towards strengthening the existing system as well as introducing new digital payment products and services, to provide a better experience for merchants and their consumers.

Furthermore, the balance is going to be used to fund the company’s geographical expansion.

While talking to menabytes, Omer Khan, co-founder, and CEO of PostEX said:

Pakistan’s e-commerce landscape is rapidly evolving and a lack of access to financing opportunities is hampering the growth of online merchants and the e-commerce landscape broadly. Our goal is to be the first and last source of funds for fast-growing e-commerce businesses to meet all their capital requirements to accelerate their growth. With fresh funds and a capacity to provide over $50 million a year in financing to companies, we are on a mission to change the face of lending in Pakistan.

Retailo lays off workforce from engineering and logistics teams amidst recession

Shaheryar Ehsan — Sat, 18 Jun 2022 12:27:33 GMT

Retailo is the latest addition in a line of startups which are downsizing amidst recession. The company has not made an official statement but many employees are coming up on LinkedIn to announce that they are being let go as part of the downsizing in the company.

Retailo calls itself the fastest growing B2B startup in the MENAP but given the layoffs, it seems like the Executive team wasn’t prepared to tackle the upcoming changes in market and business. At the start of Feb this year, Retailo raised $36 million in a Series A round and total funding in the company amounts to $45 million.

Retailo was founded by former Careemers Talha Ansari, Wahaj Ahmed and Mohammad Nowkhaiz and it is headquartered in Riyadh. There is no clue as to how much of the workforce is being laid off and how is the company working to support the members being let go.

We will update this space with more information as we receive it.

A compilation of Car Pooling startups in Pakistan

Sarwat Rizvi — Tue, 07 Jun 2022 06:48:04 GMT

The recent economic recession in the country has impacted the lives of many people. While some lost their jobs as a result of the sudden layoffs, many lost the mode of transport they used for their daily commute to the office. On one hand, we saw Careem shutting down its food delivery service, on the other Swvl close down its intracity bus service in an attempt to reduce central costs in order to accelerate profitability and achieve positive cash flow by 2023. Swvl’s intracity service fell under one of the major economical modes of transport and provided comfort for the working class and student class alike.

The closedown took many by surprise when in an official notification, SWVL announced that it is discontinuing intracity rides in Multan, Faisalabad, Islamabad, Lahore, and Karachi. It further added that its city-to-city and business-to-business travel service is still available. However, there’s a possibility that this pause might boost the profitability of some car-pooling services that weren’t as often used before. Here we’ll be sharing some alternatives and car-pooling services that you could use for your everyday commute.

Savaree:

Pakistan’s first carpooling mobile application, Savaree, lets you book safe and comfortable rides conveniently.

The user can check the application to see if someone has the same destination and then can contact them to get a ride. The application not only saves one money and time but also lets them meet new people. However, if you’re worried about security don’t worry ‘Savaree’ team seems to have it all figured out. Since all the ‘Savaree’ app users have to share their NIC number in order to get registered for the app.

Ridely Pakistan:

Ridely Pakistan is a long-distance rideshare service in Pakistan. This carpooling app allows its users to select rides based on the route match between two cities. The app focuses on achieving a future of shared mobility.

The Ridely Pakistan app is available across major cities like Lahore, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Karachi, Faisalabad, and more. To find a rider with your route, enter your origin and destination city and search for available rides.

Hitchman:

Hitchman offers an app-based car-pooling platform for corporate employees. The app allows users to meet with riders and drivers in a similar location and go to the same office area. It also offers ride-sharing services on a monthly basis. Riders and car owners only need to add home location, office location, and carpool preferences in the app, and then it lets them browse through profiles to find matches. You can even choose who they prefer to carpool with, for a minimum commitment of 1 trip. You can also get requests from potential riders to join.

Users can search for a ride by providing location, passenger details, and some other additional details. The app only focuses on morning and evening office travel and aims to reduce the number of cars on the road. The mobile app is available for both Android and iOS devices.

She’Kab:

She’Kab is a carpooling application specially designed for working women in the country. It is Pakistan’s first-ever subscription-based monthly carpool service for working women, girls, and children. The app connects registered riders to a pool of trusted drivers who provide shared-monthly transportation services to women & girls.

Once you subscribe and enter your pickup and drop-off locations, the app connects you with the available driver on your route. Your estimated fare for one day and for a month is also provided on the application.

SheKabs’ mission is to provide hassle-free monthly services to women and girls, so they can step out of their houses and realize their true potential.

Commuters Family:

Commuters family is a Karachi-based online carpooling platform for daily commutes. It connects passengers with car owners travelling to the same destination.

The platform’s main focus is to make daily commutes easier for the masses, by connecting neighbours sharing the same route and time to reduce the number of vehicles on road, in turn, making the transport system more efficient in the metropolitan.

WTS Talks to Esaal – Digitizing Healthcare across 7 countries

Tehreem Farooqi — Sun, 05 Jun 2022 09:04:48 GMT

The digitisation of manual processes has been a significant trend among startups in the previous few years. Especially during COVID, many solutions have been developed to connect individual consultants or businesses to customers online to get things done from the comfort of their homes.

Healthcare has seen a similar upsurge in health-tech startups developing platforms to provide online medical consultations as it became infeasible for people to visit hospitals. Esaal, based in Egypt, is also among these startups with over 300 medical professionals in the fields of medicine, psychology, and nutrition.

Esaal recently raised $1.7M in a seed round bringing its total funding to $3M since its inception in 2018. We Talk Startups sat down with Esaal’s CEO, Fadi Doss, to discuss their plans for the funding and his personal experience with building this platform.

We Talk Startups [WTS]: What is your story and what led to you building a platform like Esaal?

Fadi Doss [FD]: My name is Fadi and my background is in Communication Engineering. I’ve been working for more than 20 years on the valuable services provided to different people in different countries. I worked a lot with different providers providing different types of services in the past years, then, for sure, when internet penetration and smartphone penetration increased in the market, the type of services changed a lot. Now the focus mostly is on the infotainment and entertainment side.

We had a belief that we need to offer something really valuable to the users that can change their lives and enable people to have a better lifestyle. So we started building this platform whose basic idea is to have a reliable channel that can directly connect users with real medical experts in different domains where they can get trustable and personalized consultations based on a solid background. So if you have a problem, a question or an issue in your life, that you need to get a consultation for, instead of going to look on the internet or on social media networks where you might get the wrong advice, you can avail this platform to get personalized and trustable advice from a real expert. So that’s the story of the platform, and how we started.

We try to engage a large number of people and provide different ways of communication, like texting, voice calls, audio and video sessions so you can choose whatever is more convenient to you. Some people may prefer to text the experts or say mothers might like to have a one-to-one video session with them – we enable all of that. We are incorporating more and more services day after day and that’s part of our roadmap to make our services available for everyone

WTS: What was the reason behind the name Esaal for your platform?

FD: Esaal means ask in Arabic. We wanted to choose an easy name and one which just made sense. So we named it Esaal as in ask the expert, don’t ask anyone else. Our slogan in Arabic is اسأل خبير تفرق كتير which means when you ask an expert, it makes a lot of difference.

WTS: Congratulations on your recent seed round! What are your plans for the funding you have raised?

FD: Actually, this was the last tranche of the seed round. Esaal actually started in mid-2018 so we had a pre-seed and seed round at that time. Now we have completed the seed round by receiving this last tranche of the amount. Currently, we are even preparing for a Series A round, to be able to focus on four main domains.

One of them is product development, where we want to enable more capabilities, both on the features side and on the technology side. We want to incorporate AI techniques that can facilitate the users when it comes to choosing the right experts and direct them in their choice using technology.

We need to work on the human capital as well, as we’re still very limited when it comes to human resources. So we are planning to hire more people.

We also need to work on the brand. We serve something that is very crucial and important. So we need people to know and trust the brand as well.

And finally, on the business development side, where we are looking to enhance the B2B2C component.

WTS: We have previously written about the right time to raise funds. What would be your advice regarding that?

FD: You surely need investment before you launch so you can manage to start the right way. The launch of any startup is something very important as it is the proof of concept that your idea is viable. Without the pre-seed, it’s a bit difficult to launch even on a small scale. Then you always need to be very cautious as too much delay in any funding round can affect your growth and your speed. That’s why we’re starting preparation for our Series A immediately to be able to keep the momentum that we have and move faster on the different plans we have.

You don’t need to reach a level where you believe that you’re lacking resources and then raise funds. Raising funds is not just a day’s work, it takes time. So you need to have enough time to prepare and be able to continue at the same speed while the process goes on.

WTS: What was the position that you first hired for at Esaal and what would you advise startup founders about building their dream team?

FD: When we started Esaal, we were just three people; myself, and my two co-founders – the COO and the CTO. Then we started hiring more people gradually to focus on different directions. Currently, we are about 25 and I believe with this number of resources, we did quite well from a growth perspective.

The main point is you need to have believers in your team, people who believe that your product is different and valuable. I believe this is the best thing about our current team that all of them are believers, they believe that they add value to people’s life. Your life is not just about making money, it’s more about seeing the value that you add to people’s life – which is exactly the case with Esaal. This is what we see from customer testimonials when they send us a thank you email saying how our service changed their life for the better, which makes us feel so confident about the future and any challenges. If you have real believers in your team, life will be totally different. They will be motivated and have a sense of ownership. You will see that they want to move fast and do something different. Having believers will add a lot of positivity to your work.

WTS: You said that your team size is about 25. What are your plans to grow that number and which positions are you looking to hire for now?

FD: We’re looking to hire more developers. We also need more salespersons for the business development part so they can reach out to more companies. We see that growing our partnership team will be a key player in extending our corporate healthcare solutions coverage through Esaal Employee Wellness Program – EEWP and through other partnerships and programs.

WTS: Although Esaal provides medical consultations in many different areas, your recent partnership with Diven and the Employee Wellness Program that you have launched, makes it seem like you are focusing more on mental health services. Tell me if that’s right and why this focused strategy?

FD: I cannot say that we are focusing more on mental health. We focus on the inter-correlation between the different domains. We talk about mental health separately from the rest because we believe that mental health doesn’t always need medicines. Sometimes it’s more about needing experts that have a background in psychology, parenting, and marriage counselling, so there are a lot of subdomains that do not need a medical background or medication. Our focus is on the inter-correlation between the three domains that we serve – medical, mental health and nutrition because they affect each other and a person’s overall health is a combined effect of these three.

WTS: What was your growth strategy that helped scale Esaal around MENA in a short span?

FD: We have an amazing technical team that is very responsive and knowledgeable, which helps us move fast with different types of integrations on our platform. We offer many different types of services, different ways of communication and different payment methods, and they make it all possible. It is about the market understanding as well. What is the user behaviour and culture? Where will he see the services interesting to him? What will encourage him to subscribe to the service or to use the service? Our previous experience in different domains about the people’s culture and behaviour helped us scale too.

WTS: What is the process for onboarding medical professionals for the services Esaal provides?

FD: It works both ways – we approach them or they approach us. But in both cases, we have a validation checklist that each expert to be onboarded has to go through, by providing the certification, the permit of work, and proof of experience. All of that is a part of the process for anyone to be onboarded to the platform.

WTS: So you only work with individual professionals and not hospitals to onboard their teams?

FD: For now it’s just individuals. We have plans of partnering with hospitals and private clinics to avail their doctors as well. We will become their digital arm to help provide their services online.

WTS: What steps have you taken to ensure quality customer experience for the users?

FD: We have a dedicated customer service team that is working 24/7 to be as close to the customer as possible. We are really close to the users when it comes to any issues in booking or to make them understand the service better or to give recommendations about which type of specialty they need or which experts can help them in their specific issue. We try to always be available and extremely close to the customer.

WTS: There are other platforms providing similar services like Esaal, what is the unique value that you provide that helped you become successful in the market?

FD: I believe our uniqueness comes from the fact that we offer health and wellness under one umbrella. Our competitors are either focused on the medical part or on the mental health part, but no one really focused on enabling the three pillars of health with all of their sub domains and to find out the inter-correlation between them and handling 360 degrees of user concerns by enabling different types of services under one umbrella. This is our uniqueness and we want to expand more and more in it.

WTS: What was the most difficult part about building and growing Esaal?

FD: It’s about having enough resources to achieve what you have in mind. I mean you might want to do 100 steps and the resources that you have are just not enough for them. Usually, the main challenge is that to move faster, you need more people, more resources, and more focus, but I believe that is the challenge almost all startups have to face – not having enough resources as needed for all their plans.

WTS: Knowing what you know now with four years of experience building the startup, is there anything you would have done differently when you were first starting out?

FD: I would have moved faster with the fundraising. We had exponential growth last year and we achieved more than what we planned for which is very good but on the other side, it puts some pressure on you that to keep this momentum, you need much more resources. That’s why you need to move faster with the fundraising. I would have done that and would have started earlier with the seed funding.

WTS: What are some trends in your industry that you have your eyes on and would like to experiment with in the coming future?

FD: Providing multi-dimensional services that can cover the 360 degrees of user experience. For any type of consultation, either on the medical, mental health or nutrition side, we want to provide many different types of services. We are launching a few new features in the near future that would help improve the user experience. We are trying to build some awareness about keeping the user’s health record at one place. If the user is taking any medication or if he or she was suffering from any medical issues, Esaal states that in their history. We’re going to be working on creating awareness about how important it is to keep your medical record at one place.

WTS: I have seen many startup founders who start very young with not a lot of experience but you worked for many years in the product management side before building Esaal, would you say having that experience is important and helped you build your startup?

FD: It’s less about the age and more about the kind of experience you have gained and experience is, for sure, very important. You might think you’re going slower or you are less of a risk-taker that way, but I believe that’s why our startup looks a bit different than other startups when it comes to the growth that we achieved compared to what we have raised in funds. Our capital efficiency compared to any other startup is almost five times more. I feel that might be related to my corporate experience in the past. I can probably claim that I look at things a bit differently based on my experience. It’s about burning less money but achieving more growth in an efficient manner.

Another global recession victim – Swvl puts a pause on inter-city rides

Tehreem Farooqi — Thu, 02 Jun 2022 12:13:03 GMT

The multi-national ride-hailing service, Swvl, has decided to pause inter-city rides due to the global economic recession starting June 3rd, 2022. The company has announced the news through a notification for their mobile app users.

Swvl’s inter-city rides, officially named Swvl Daily, provides users with the facility to travel inside the cities of Karachi, Islamabad, Lahore and Faisalabad. The other two services provided by the company called Swvl Travel meant for city-to-city rides and Swvl Business meant for B2B rides will continue to operate as usual.

This news has made the users of Swvl uncomfortable as they will have to look for alternatives for their daily commute but it’s definitely not unexpected after Swvl announced its cost-cutting strategy just three days ago. We have also seen the news about shutting down services and layoffs from other Pakistani startups like Airlift and Truckitin in the previous days.

The official notification from the ride-hailing service reads:

Is the Pakistani startup industry facing a downturn again as a result of the global economic recession or are we going to see some good news like we did in 2021? What are your thoughts?

Truck it in to layoff some workforce as part of strategy realignment due to recession

Shaheryar Ehsan — Wed, 01 Jun 2022 06:54:49 GMT

Truck It In joins Airlift and Swvl in a series of mass layoffs as the startup plans some strategic realignment in order to tackle the problems of the global recession. The company announced the shift in a blogpost but as of right now, it is unclear how many employees are being laid off as part of this move.

As part of the “business optimization” strategy, the company is laying off some workforce and offering them “generous” severance packages. Truck it in will also facilitate the workers in finding new jobs as they transition from the company.

Unlike Swvl though, Truck It In is pretty tight lipped about the benefits or help they are providing the laid off workforce. Airlift also created a directory to help the company alumni find new jobs and Swvl had a list of benefits laid out to facilitate the employees in finding a new job.

Here’s what the announcement reads:

This past year, Truck It In has improved and optimized logistics for more than 600 businesses and digitized thousands of truckers across Pakistan. The current global economic uncertainty has forced us to recalibrate our strategy.
We remain wholly committed to serving the shippers and truckers of Pakistan in a leaner way, ensuring that we create value for all of our stakeholders and chart our independent path forward. This will be achieved by focusing on sustainable growth, optimized operations footprint, and simplifying our infrastructure.
Our strong market presence is an outcome of the outstanding contributions of our tribe members. We are incredibly proud and grateful for all of their contributions. Some of our colleagues will be moving on to solve other challenges due to this calibration. To help them transition, Truck It In will provide generous severance packages to impacted colleagues and facilitate alternate employment opportunities.
We are bullish on the future of freight in Pakistan. The future is digital, and we will be spearheading it.
Truck It In – Blogpost

What are your thoughts on this realignment? Did you see it coming?

Is Dogecoin Worth it? Will it Become as Pricey as Bitcoin?

Sarwat Rizvi — Tue, 31 May 2022 07:24:55 GMT

Dogecoin is a peer-to-peer, open-source cryptocurrency, much like Bitcoin and Ethereum, but with a theoretically unlimited supply. It’s a living example of how an internet meme can creep into popular culture. “Doge” is a photo of a Shiba inu dog named Kabosu with a rather peculiar expression on its face.

Launched back in 2013, it was originally created somewhat as part of a lighthearted joke for crypto enthusiasts and was named after a once-popular meme. Although the currency was created seemingly as a joke, its blockchain still comes with its fair share of merits, with the underlying technology derived from Litecoin, which is an early Bitcoin spinoff.

Some of the noteworthy features of Dogecoin are its low price and unlimited supply. Soon after its launch, the currency began attracting an enthusiastic online community that started using DOGE for everything, from tipping strangers for good Reddit comments to helping send the Jamaican bobsled team to the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

Dogecoin in the Crypto Market

Created by two software engineers, Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer, the currency has had a volatile past, with incredible highs followed by dramatic lows. Dogecoin’s creators never expected the coin to gain the kind of momentum and mass appeal that it has acquired over the past few years.

The price of DOGE sky-rocketed over 300% not long after its initial launch in 2013, which came as an unexpected yet pleasant surprise to the developers. This impressive trend continued in the following years and then in 2018, the currency hit a high of $0.017, breaching a market cap of $2 billion for the first time ever. However, although these price hikes were compelling, they were still a long way from the likes of Bitcoin and other mainstream cryptos.

Then in early 2021, the Dogecoin crypto price surged more than 8,600% between January and May. Much of this sudden change in trend was due to massive attention from certain social media campaigns, that included mentions from high-profile names such as Elon Musk, Snoop Dogg, and Mark Cuban. DOGE reached an all-time high of $0.7376 on 8th May 2021, which would have given the coin a market cap of over $70 billion, had it not witnessed a dip in the following months.

Since then, Dogecoin’s price has gradually descended over 84% to reach today’s price. This year specifically, Dogecoin actually got off to a great start, rising over 57% between January 10th and January 14th. Again, this upsurge was only momentary, and Dogecoin has since followed a decreasing trend.

Is Dogecoin Worth Your Investment?

So far, the Dogecoin stock price hasn’t seen any significant changes in 2022. With the ongoing situation between Russia and Ukraine depleting the previously growing crypto market, the value of some crypto majors like Bitcoin and Ethereum has halved from the peak, while meme tokens including Shiba Inu and Dogecoins have plunged over 70 percent from their respective peak values.

In order to comment on the coin’s future prospects, it’s vital to develop an understanding of the underlying blockchain technology here, which is slightly different from other major cryptos. Dogecoin’s blockchain is quite similar to Litecoin’s and is based on Scrypt technology. This means that mining is more complex in this case than traditional proof-of-work chains, although Dogecoin can still process upwards of 40 transactions per second.

According to Blockchair.com, over 83 million transactions have occurred on Dogecoin’s network, while over 24,000 took place within the last 24 hours. The average transaction fee on the network is only $0.15, which is considerably less than the hefty fees paid on the Ethereum network during periods of high congestion. Altogether, these statistics indicate that although Dogecoin’s network isn’t the most scalable one out there, it does have a strong foundation to support larger influxes of transactions in the near future.

For now, Dogecoin has transformed itself into a more widely used online tipping mechanism. Notably, an announcement on Dogecoin’s official subreddit last year highlighted that a tipping bot had been created, which allows Twitter users to tip other Twitter users. This gathered a lot of attraction, especially since the fees for transferring DOGE to another person are relatively low.

This path seems to be the most appropriate for Dogecoin to follow in the upcoming years, as it’s unlikely that major corporations will begin utilizing DOGE due to its meme coin status. As we introduce younger generations to the crypto market, Dogecoin could become more widely used due to the coin’s approachable aesthetic, opening up pathways for further advances in the previously-mentioned tipping service.

Overall, if this happens, then we would expect more demand for DOGE from retail investors and internet users.

Swvl to layoff workforce in certain markets amidst global recession

Shaheryar Ehsan — Mon, 30 May 2022 12:15:33 GMT

Swvl CEO Mostafa Kandil announced today that Swvl will be cutting down workforce in certain markets in order to become cashflow profitable in 2023. The news comes a week after Airlift announced a similar strategy to layoff workers and close operations in various cities of Pakistan in order to reduce operating costs.

With soaring prices and the recession at full scale, there is no doubt that these announcements are just the beginning of what’s to come in the future as startups restructure their ambitious plans to a more sustainable roadmap to increase cashflows and become profitable.

Terminated employees are being provided the following as a severance package:

Severance: All impacted employees to receive severance based on gross salary and complete cash payout
Provident Fund, Gratuity & Leave encashment other legal payments
All RSU to be considered vested
Expense claims/OPD claims to be cleared
All Final Settlements to be taxed as per local requirement
Payout Transfer to be complete in the next 21 days
Medical Insurance: to be extended for all entitled employees
Stock Options: all unvested stocks for impacted employees to continue to vest as per schedule
Alumni Directory: an alumni network directory to support our impacted workforce
No interview policy for Rejoiners
Laptops to be retained by employees subject to data security requirements

Read the blogpost here for more details

Which GPUs are Best for Mining Crypto Currencies?

Sarwat Rizvi — Fri, 27 May 2022 16:15:31 GMT

Over the past few years, the crypto industry has witnessed exponential growth with widespread retail adoption. This attracted more people to the digitized currency and made investors extremely happy with the influx of profits with high-interest levels for other cryptocurrencies as well such as Ethereum, Dogecoin, and Shiba Inu.

This newly increased worldwide popularity of cryptocurrencies gave rise to several other critical and investor-friendly innovations facilitating an acceleration in crypto acceptance and adoption on a global basis.

However, it wasn’t all profits and no threats. Due to the records being entirely digital, the risk of copying, counterfeiting, or double-spending the same coin more than once increased. And that’s where the concept of mining stepped in. Mining or “crypto mining” solves this problem by serving as a bridge to validate and confirm new transactions to the blockchain and to intercept double-spending by bad actors.

In addition, to all this, it is also used to introduce new bitcoins into the system. Indeed, it is far more cost-effective to join the network as a miner than to try to undermine it.

Mining involves vast, decentralized networks of computers from around the globe to verify and secure blockchains, the virtual ledgers that document cryptocurrency transactions. In exchange for contributing their processing power, computers on the network are rewarded with new coins. It’s an endless cycle. So, while the miners maintain and secure the blockchain, the blockchain awards the coins, and the coins provide an incentive for the miners to maintain the blockchain.

How is Crypto Mined?

Graphics Processing Units (GPU) are the most common method of mining cryptocurrencies presently when compared to even the most powerful ASICs or the lower-end CPU miners.

However, cryptocurrency mining was originally performed using Central Processing Units (CPUs). But its limited processing speed and high power consumption lead to limited output, hence, declaring the CPU-based mining method inefficiently slow.

That’s when GPU-based mining stepped in, with countless benefits over the use of CPUs. For example, a standard GPU, like a Radeon HD 5970, has a clocked processing speed of executing 3,200 32-bit instructions per cycle. This is 800 times more in comparison to the speed of a CPU that executed only 4 32-bit instructions per clock.

For miners to be awarded new coins, they need to deploy machines that solve complex mathematical equations in the form of cryptographic hashes. A hash is a truncated digital signature of a block of data. Hashes are generated to secure data transferred on a public network.

Crypto Mining Using GPUs

Hence, as discussed above a GPU is a more well-suited option to mine crypto since that multiplies the earnings. For crypto mining using a GPU, you can hook up to 9 GPUs while for CPU; you can use two unless it is virtual CPUs. It maximizes computational power by bringing together a set of GPUs under one mining rig.

This characteristic of a GPU makes them suitable and better for cryptocurrency mining, as the mining process requires higher efficiency in performing repetitive computations. The mining device continuously tries to decode the different hashes repeatedly with only one digit changing in each attempt.

Additionally, GPUs are also equipped with a large number of Arithmetic Logic Units (ALU), which are responsible for performing mathematical computations. Thanks to the ALUs, the GPU is capable of performing and handling more calculations, leading to improved output for the crypto mining process.

GPUs range in the amount of hash rate each can deliver and the price, from the most powerful currently – the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 to the lowest end in the range – the likes of AMD Radeon R9 380, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti, AMD Radeon RX 470, and AMD Radeon RX 570.

Best GPUs For Crypto Mining

Cryptocurrency mining is a vigorous process for even the best graphics card out there. When mining these resources, your PC operates at full load on the GPU over extended periods of time. Going for the absolute most expensive and powerful GPU available may not be a clever decision for all crypto miners, which is why we’ve rounded up some of the best mining GPUs to help reach a suitable conclusion.

When choosing a graphics card, there are various factors to consider to get the best value for money. The most important factor of any GPU for crypto mining is efficiency — you want a high hash rate for as little electricity consumption as possible.

While the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 is a fantastic graphics card, other alternatives are also available for the best mining GPU if one is mindful of energy use and initial cost.

1. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti — Best overall

Hashrate: 60MH/s | VRAM: 8GB GDDR6 | TDP: 200W | Power input: 1x 12-pin PCIe (FE only) or 1x 8-pin PCIe

PROS	CONS
60MH/s hashrate	Awkward 12-pin connector on FE cards
8GB GDDR6 VRAM
200W
4,864 CUDA cores
Affordable RTX 30-series GPU

2. AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT — Runner-up

Hashrate: 54MH/s | VRAM: 8GB GDDR6 | TDP: 225W | Power input: 2x 8-pin PCIe

PROS	CONS
54MH/s hashrate	Some instability issues
8GB GGDR6 VRAM	Lacks latest-gen AMD features
225W
Great value
Efficient performance

3. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 — Best value

Hashrate: 36MH/s | VRAM: 8GB GDDR6 | TDP: 225W | Power input: 2x 8-pin PCIe

PROS	CONS
36MH/s hashrate	Older generation
8GB GDDR6 VRAM
225W
2,304 CUDA cores
Good value

4. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 — Best performance

Hashrate: 121MH/s | VRAM: 24GB GDDR6X | TDP: 350W | Power input: 1x 12-pin PCIe (FE only) or 2x 8-pin PCIe

PROS	CONS
121MH/s hashrate	Expensive
24GB GDDR6X VRAM	Power hungry
350W
10,496 CUDA cores
Great for gaming

5. AMD Radeon RX 580 — Best budget AMD

Hashrate: 28MH/s | VRAM: 8GB GDDR5 | TDP: 185W | Power input: 1x 8-pin PCIe

PROS	CONS
28MH/s hashrate	Lower rate of return
8GB GDDR5 VRAM	Higher power draw
185W
Affordable

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER — Best budget NVIDIA

Hashrate: 26MH/s | VRAM: 6GB GDDR6 | TDP: 125W | Power input: 1x 8-pin PCIe

PROS	CONS
26MH/s hashrate	Lower rate of return
6GB GDDR6 VRAM
125W
1,408 CUDA cores
Low Powet Consumption
Cost-efficient

Conclusion

All in all, because blockchain mining is resource-intensive, it seldom puts strain on one’s GPU or other mining-related hardware. In fact, it is not unheard of for GPUs to blow out, or for mining rigs to burst into flames. However, keeping your rigs running at a moderate pace and a sufficient power supply is generally considered a safe option.

What does Netflix’s recent downfall teach startup founders?

Sarwat Rizvi — Fri, 27 May 2022 15:59:44 GMT

Looks like the year 2022 didn’t quite prove to be the new year, new subscribers for the streaming giant Netflix. For a while, Netflix seemed to be the absolute king of the streaming hill. It was the first name that came to everyone’s mind whenever the word “streaming service” came up. But every rise hath a fall.

Netflix recently released its Q1 earnings report for 2022 that revealed a shocking loss of 200,000 subscribers, a worrying shift for a business that had previously only seen sustained and exponential growth since 2011. However, this wasn’t the only shocking news the report came bearing. Far worse in the report was the company’s estimation of a further 2 million subscribers loss by the second quarter of this year.

Following this news, the company’s stock price dropped by a significant 35%. The platform had added about 26 million customers annually over the last five years. However, it had witnessed an addition of just 18 million last year. Which is a significant decline, and one that undercuts the bull thesis about the company.

As a result, the company indicated cutbacks in content expenditure, canceling the Bright sequel and comic adaptation Bone, and also signaled potential cuts to employee numbers and discretionary spending.

On the contrary, HBO saw the addition of nearly 13 million subscribers last year across both traditional HBO as well as HBO Max, with a reported growth of three million in the last quarter. After the recent addition, both services reported a combined 76.8 million subscriber base worldwide. Although this number is still dwarfed by Netflix’s 221.64 million subscribers, recent stats reports that this isn’t going to be the case for long. While Disney Plus Disney Plus accounts for 129.8 million.

According to AT&T Q1 2022 report:

At the end of the quarter, there were 76.8 million global HBO Max and HBO subscribers. Global HBO Max and HBO subscribers increased 12.8 million YoY and were up 3.0 million sequentially, primarily driven by international as well as domestic retail subscriber gains reflecting the strength of the programming slate. At the end of the quarter, there were 48.6 million domestic HBO Max and HBO subscribers versus 44.2 million in the year-ago quarter, up 4.4 million YoY.

What went wrong with Netflix?

Several reasons have been under debate for the platform’s massive subscriber fall. While Netflix blamed password sharing as a big reason for the recent fall, analysts also cited inflation as one of the major reasons leading to the latest stats. With prices rising everywhere, households are cutting back on what they consider non-essential services. And of course, Netflix users themselves were vocal on social media, stating that the platform’s recent increase in subscription rates is a reason subscribers were abandoning the service.

Increasingly Competitive Market

Previously, Netflix was serving the market as the only streaming service that prompted slow migration of audiences away from traditional television and into the “watch what you want, when you want” model.

However, more recently Netflix has been facing increased competition by a streaming landscape populated now with a growing number of platforms, a fact that the company also acknowledged in its letter to shareholders. The launch of Disney+ in 2019, HBO Max in 2020, and Paramount+ in 2021 has provided the subscribers with a number of options to choose from.

Hence, owing to the growing number of players in the market and with every major studio launching a platform ultimately leads to a cut-down subscriber base for the previous giant, i.e., Netflix. Since, whenever a major studio launches its streaming service it removes its content from Netflix.

For example, the Netflix license for Friends, which once was one of the platform’s top binged series was not renewed by rights holder Warner Brothers Television in 2020. As a result, Friends will now be disappearing from Netflix markets around the globe and instead will be streaming on Warner Brothers’ Discovery platform, HBO Max.

Due to these reasons, it is becoming increasingly difficult for global streaming services like Netflix to compete against not just other newly emerging streaming houses, but also with local and regional services that have deep-rooted relationships with audiences.

Content Problem

If we talk about content, then every streaming platform needs to have two key ingredients in order to succeed.

First and foremost, it needs to have an attractive catalog of movies, series, and other forms of content that will keep people hooked even after they’ve caught up on the latest hit. Meaning that while people might sign up to Netflix for “Russian Doll,” or “The Tinder Swindler,” they’ll stick around to watch “Sleepless in Seattle” and maybe stream a season of “New Girl.”

So, more importantly, a streaming site needs compelling hits that not only attract attention but also keep them coming for more. As a result, this will convince people to subscribe, at least for a month or two, so they can catch up on the latest show that everyone is talking about.

Conflicting Values

To alter the negative subscriber trajectory, Netflix is proposing an ad-supported subscription tier, which directly conflicts with its brand values. Once implemented, this will entirely shift the platform’s attention from customer experience by forcing advertising on patrons.

Criminalizing Customers

Netflix recently announced a crackdown on password sharing between households. This might lead to a further decline in its annual subscriber count, as turning the customers into enemies never settles well for any branding campaign. It not only breaks the customer’s trust but also makes the devoted fans feel alienated.

Following this Netflix recently reported, that they will be issuing fines to certain accounts in Chili, Costa Rica, and Peru for sharing their login credentials.

Global Financial Challenges

Additionally, the platform seems to be acting poorly to the increasing pressure from current global financial challenges. It appears that the platforms newly proposed ‘solutions’ are driven primarily to secure their topline revenue above all.

Owing to a massive decrease in the platform’s daily subscriber count, the company’s revenue grew slowly, at a rate of 9.8 percent YoY as compared to 24 percent growth in the first quarter of 2021. This directly affected the market and in after-hours trading, Netflix’s shares dropped by 26%.

Rather than adding new features or content, the Netflix answer is removing key cornerstones of the service. However, for Netflix, its recent subscriber loss indicates a less promising future.

Key Takeaway For Startup Founders

While Netflix saw exponential growth since its expansion beyond the US in 2010, in the past few years the company has seen some downfalls due to a heavily competitive market. This prompts us to wonder whether the streaming giant’s business model, no matter how attractive it may have seemed wasn’t well prepared to hold its ground in the face of fierce competition.

Additionally, to still stay in the game the company seemed to have shifted its approach from a customer-centric model to a more commercialized model in an attempt to increase its revenue. This not only cost the company its loyal customer base but also didn’t help bridge the revenue gap.

Had Netflix continued to focus on enhancing its user experience and producing such content that increased customer engagement, it might have stood tall in front of the increasing market competition.

Zarya – Business Idea, Value Proposition, and Everything Else About the Company

Sarwat Rizvi — Thu, 26 May 2022 05:42:37 GMT

Lahore-based startup Zarya is a digital wholesale platform for social sellers & retailers, which aims to redefine the narrative for smaller business vendors. While building a comprehensive servicing package on-demand via a seamless platform, Zarya’s objective is to eliminate the friction smaller-scale sellers face in sourcing products, arranging the delivery, and collecting payment. This allows sellers to maximize their earnings by giving them more time to focus on sales.

The concept of social selling was initially pioneered by India-based startup Meesho and has been adapted by multiple startups from emerging markets ever since, including Brimore and Taager from Egypt.

According to the Zarya’s co-founder Faisal Zahid:

Supplying online sellers’ products at wholesale rate makes more sense because it’s not easy for online sellers to go and pick products up from the wholesale market and then sell them online. It can become expensive which can mess up their unit economics.

What is Zarya?

Zarya is a business-to-business social commerce platform based in Lahore. It recognizes itself as a digital wholesaler within the broader eCommerce domain through which sellers, primarily online, and offline, can directly source products from the Zarya application and sell them to people in their network.

A major chunk of the platform’s customer base are housewives, who are looking to earn additional income from the comfort of their homes.

Founded back in early 2021, Zarya allows small sellers to utilize its platform for sourcing a variety of products for sale. It supervises and manages the entire process, from goods sourcing to delivery and payment, and transfers each seller’s profit after a deal has been completed.

Background of the Founders

The founders of the app are two brothers, Faisal and Saad Zahid. Both of whom have had extensive industry experience.

Left to right: Saad Zahid and Faisal Zahid

Faisal Zahid

Faisal is an alumnus of Imperial College London. He completed his bachelor’s as an Information Systems Engineering major and joined Elixir technologies in 2011, as Manager – of technology products. After this, he joined Dubai – based firm, Soltius Middle East as Product Manager – Mobile Applications & Business Intelligence.

Then 2015 onwards, he got affiliated with some big names like Careem, Dubai – based, Derq, Nana, and Co-founded Zarya with his business partner and brother in 2021.

Saad Zahid

Zahid graduated from Imperial College London with a Masters’s in Mechanical Engineering, back in 2009. After completing his maters, he started his career as an Executive Director at Dost Steels Ltd.

Then in 2021, along with his brother, he co-founded and launched the Zarya App.

Funding Raised

Pre-seed Funding: Raised $1.7 million

In 2021, the startup raised $1.7 million in pre-seed funding round from international and local venture capitalists.

The round was led by Saudi Arabia-based Raed Ventures with participation from:

Fatima Gobi Ventures
US-based Class 5 Global
Global Founders Capital

Discussing the round of investments in a statement, co-founder Zarya remarked:

Pakistan has over 100 million YouTube and 45 million Facebook users. Pakistan’s social media users are spending more than 3 hours per day on social media Apps. If you’re spending so much time online, it’s quite natural to start buying and selling while on social media Apps. We aim to give our sellers every opportunity to thrive in this environment.

Future Plans

Presently, the application comprises at least 3,000 items, out of which most items are women’s and children’s clothing. However, in the future, the platform plans to further expand to include items of different categories, e.g., makeup, socks, shoes, abayas, and home textiles.

According to Faisal, their ambitions for Zarya are not restricted to Pakistan only, they will be launching the platform in international markets as well like the Middle East.

WTS Talks to GoVendi – Making Female wellbeing more accessible

Tehreem Farooqi — Sat, 21 May 2022 09:35:13 GMT

Female well-being and the talk of menstruation in Pakistan is not only a taboo topic but when it comes to startups, rarely do you see anyone jumping into this segment to tackle the norms and revolutionize it, as other industry segments have been done in the past.

A duo of entrepreneurs based out of Karachi are looking to make female sanitary napkins more accessible via vending machines and hence the name: GoVendi. WTS talks to them to get more insight into their plans and how does the market look like:

Tehreem Farooqi [TF]: To start off, I would like you guys to tell me a bit about yourselves and your background.

Zohaib Ahmed [ZA]: Sure. Starting with education, I did my BBA in Marketing from IBA and graduated in 2020. After that, I worked with an FMCG company for around two years. I recently shifted to the government sector and am working on this new venture on the side. And when GoVendi goes big, I am hoping to switch full time to it.

Sahib Dino [SD]: I just graduated in 2021 from CBM with a bachelor’s in business and psychology. I’ve been working with this startup known as Noon and I’m looking after their partnerships in Pakistan. Before that, I worked with different global startups and did some internships in the development sector.

TF: What motivated you guys to work on an idea like GoVendi and why this particular niche?

ZA: As I mentioned, I worked at a sanitary napkin manufacturing brand called Butterfly for two years and while working there, I clearly saw the need for these vending machines at offices, hospitals and educational institutes because women really need these products and they should not have to carry them all the time or in case they forget, there must be some alternative for them.

Plus we did a bit of research and found that these machines are available in India, the UK, Europe, the USA and everywhere – but no such manufacturers here in Pakistan. There ARE vending machine operators but not specifically for this purpose. The machines they have are bulky and too costly and not suitable for sanitary pads. And there aren’t any companies customizing their vending machines for this purpose. So we wanted to bridge that gap and develop smaller machines specifically for sanitary napkins.

So, I discussed this idea with Sahib and we have been working on this for some time. Now, we have just launched our very first machine and installed it at CBM Karachi.

TF: Just to understand it better – the machines that you are customizing for your specific use case, what will be different other than the size from regular vending machines?

SD: What makes our machines different is that we are making them specifically for educational institutes or organizations where people use RFID cards at the entrance and they can use the same cards to get our products. So we will work with the specific company or institute to customize it for their environment.

Secondly, since the size is pretty small, they are easily portable, and people can easily install them wherever they want like the bathrooms or corridors.

ZA: Also, I’ll add something here. We are also planning on providing metrics and sales data to our partners and clients. So, all our machines will be controllable from our portal and tagging real-time data.

Our machines only have the cash payment option for now, but we will also be providing the digital payment method soon.

TF: How does the manufacturing of these things work since you guys said that you are making custom machines yourselves? Are there any partnerships associated?

SD: We have hired a local supplier which produces various parts of our machines from the cash acceptor to the motors installed in them. And then they are assembled locally so we are making it all in Pakistan. We have partnered with Always Pakistan and their products are available in our machines right now.

TF: What’s the thought behind the name “GoVendi”?

SD: “Vendi” basically came from vending as these are vending machines that we make. And for “Go”, one meaning is that the products are easily accessible and available on the go. And another thing that came to my mind when I was coming up with the name was that this is something sustainable and ongoing and it’s something that will serve to change the mindset of people regarding this subject.

TF: Tell us about what was the reaction of your family or your peers to the idea of a startup that works with female hygiene products?

SD: Our families were quite supportive and it was something which they really encouraged us to do as this is very important. And it’s all about the mindset of people. I mean, in Pakistan, this has been a taboo for so long. And I mean, it’s still a taboo. People don’t want to talk about this mostly the men in our society. So, we want to eradicate that taboo and we have the tagline “GoVendi – Changing Mindsets”. So that’s what we want to do and our friends have been really supportive of that cause.

ZA: Yes, same for me. My friends and family have been supportive, and we are expecting good support and response in the future as well.

TF: How are you guys planning on creating a demand in the market? And if you go pitch this idea to some company or administration, what’s the response you see?

SD: Honestly, I think there actually is demand for this in the market. In Pakistan, we have diverse kinds of industries. So in some cases, we will indeed see rejection from companies. But there also is a lot of positive response too. As soon as we placed our first machines, students shared about it in their groups and people reached out to us from other universities too asking if we can place these machines there. So I think there will be some people or organizations coming to us directly and some, we might have to pitch and convince ourselves.

TF: Since you guys are in an initial stage, how are you guys planning on marketing it?

SD: We are planning on launching officially on our digital channels now as we have seen a great response from people after installing our first machine. We weren’t expecting it but people have been messaging us privately and inquiring about our business so we are planning on starting campaigns on our social media and different Facebook groups soon.

TF: Can you guys tell us about your team size and how are you guys thinking about growing in Pakistan?

SD: For now, it is just me and Zohaib but obviously, going forward we will need support for the operations side of it like the managing, installing and refilling of machines. And we are also planning on hiring people for partnerships with different companies and universities to place our machines there. And then, of course, we will need people for business development and social media.

TF: As it is something related to women, how do you guys ensure that women are involved in the decision-making process? Like which products should be there, and where the machines should be placed and all that?

SD: That’s actually a great question, and something we are still in the process of figuring out. But right now, we are onboarding female student ambassadors from the universities where we place these machines and they definitely help us decide these things. And in the future, we will be hiring female staff for different positions too and including them in these discussions definitely.

TF: Let’s talk about funding – Is this startup bootstrapped and when are you guys thinking of raising funds?

ZA: Currently it’s all bootstrapped. We both have pitched in for the machines and that’s the plan for now. But we will surely be interested in funding as we get more orders and we get more streamlined. Right now, our cost is also managed from the collaborations we do with companies like Always and they showcase their branding and advertise their products on our machines. And the machines also have their products exclusively.

So, right now, we are only trying to streamline our processes. But as we grow our network, we are planning on establishing a manufacturing plant and expanding in other cities so we will definitely need funding and we will then start pitching to investors.

TF: Talking about expansion, which cities are you guys looking to expand in?

ZA: Well I think Karachi is a pretty big market for starters. We are hoping to cover Karachi first and expand to different universities and offices. And we will be collaborating with the government sector to provide those machines to the rural areas in different government schools and colleges.

SD: Also, when we expand to different cities, our focus would be the major cities like KLA – Karachi, Lahore, and Islamabad. We want to make these products as easily accessible as possible so, we will surely be moving to smaller cities after that.

TF: Can you also talk about your revenue model? Is it just these partnerships or do you also make some profit on the product itself?

ZA: Well, that profit is also there but it’s marginal as we buy our products at retail price and sell it for the same too. So, the majority of revenue comes from these partnerships and advertisements. We generally take a six month or yearly advance from them for the branding and that is enough for us to cover the cost of the machines.

TF: How has NIC Karachi empowered your startup in reaching its goals and what are the services they offer that you think other entrepreneurs should know about?

SD: I think NIC has been really helpful for us. It’s a great platform and a great community with so many mentors who have built something on their own. You can connect with them and learn a lot. In terms of coaching, counselling and mentoring, NIC is amazing.

ZA: And it’s not just an office space that they provide, it’s the training sessions that they conduct and the community which helps with whatever we need. They have been a positive impact so far and are very supportive to date.

What’s all the Hype Behind Web 3?

Sarwat Rizvi — Sun, 15 May 2022 17:15:43 GMT

It feels like 2021 bought with it certain terms that have now been engraved in our minds, these include, Meta, Web 3.0 and an extended craze for NFTs. While we do have some idea of what Meta or NFTs bring, Web 3.0 still remains a hazy area for many.

So, what is Web 3.0?

Web 3.0 is everywhere but no one really knows what is it. It’s more like that slang that everyone does like to use but no one really knows what it means. Did you know that all this hype about NFTs, Blockchain, and Cryptocurrencies, has Web 3.0 at its very core? It’s not just the next version of the internet, Web 3.0 brings a backend revolution. The world wide web was not always, as we know it today. The evolution of the web occurred primarily in three stages: Web 1.0, Web 2.0, and Web 3.0.

The Evolution of the Web

Web 1.0

Web 1.0 was the first-ever iteration of the web. Back then most participants were consumers of content, and the creators were typically developers who build websites that contained information served up mainly in the format of text or images. Web 1.0 lasted approximately from 1991 to 2004. You can think of Web 1.0 as the read-only version of the web.

Web 2.0

While, most of us have primarily experienced the web as it is today, commonly referred to as Web 2.0, one may think of Web 2.0 as the more interactive and social iteration of the web.

In Web 2.0, you don’t have any control over your data or how it’s being stored, for that matter. In fact, companies often track and save user data without the users’ consent. All of this data is then owned and controlled by the companies and used to their advantage. Hence, this makes Web 2.0 more susceptible to data breaches, many of which we’ve encountered ourselves. The exploitation and centralization of user data is core to how the web as we know it today, i.e., Web 2.0, is engineered to function.

While we’ve seen plenty of Web 2.0 rebrands, the current technology and cryptocurrency industries are ready for a more substantial change that allows people to read, write, and even own their very own versions of the internet. Behold Web 3.0!

Web 3.0

Web 3.0 comes as the ultimate solution to put an end to many of such problems by fundamentally rethinking how we architect and interact with applications starting from the ground up.

While there are quite a few differences between Web 2.0 and Web 3.0, decentralization lies at their very core. However, in terms of code, it certainly is quite different. Web 3.0 is a collection of javascript libraries that let you interact with an Ethereum node remotely or locally.

The term Web 3.0 has been garnering much of the online world’s attention lately. It was coined back in 2014 by Gavin Wood and fundamentally refers to the next iteration of the internet that promotes decentralized concepts mainly to reduce dependency on the big tech giants like Meta, Google, Microsoft and Amazon. It is based on the idea that blockchain and digital tokens can foster a decentralized internet.

Here, people don’t use platforms like Facebook, Instagram or Twitter to access the internet instead, individuals themselves own and control pieces of the internet. It sounds a little confusing initially but stick around and you’ll know what I’m talking about. You see Web 3.0 is almost entirely open source, allowing one to make tons of contributions in this space, which does ultimately leads to everyone owning a piece of the internet at the end of the day.

Furthermore, Web 3.0 is composed of elements like Decentralized Finance or DeFi, which is an emerging digital financial infrastructure that theoretically eliminates the need for a central bank and allows peer-to-peer financial services on public blockchains, primarily Ethereum. This means that it has been designed to provide a safer place for people allowing them to commit funds to a specific cause, which also means that this next generation of web is far less susceptible to cyber attacks or data breaches, as we’ve seen happening in the Web 2.0.

Transition to Web 3.0, Possible?

For all its perks of being attack-resistant and more fault-tolerant, decentralized web architectures, however, still are slower and not suited to all user cases, there are possible scalability issues too. Also, the role of central authorities cannot be completely shunned as they currently support critical components of the web like server hosting, DNS services, email, social media etc and even after a full launch of Web 3.0, centralized systems will prevail for specific use cases. This is why the transition from today’s internet to Web 3.0 if it ever happens, will be gradual instead of radical.

For now, Web 3.0 is still merely a buzzword that has yet to meet its implementation. While it may or may not prove to be as benevolent as is hoped, it is as enthusiasts claim, the future–like cryptocurrencies and the metaverse. However, only time will tell if Web 3.0 can live up to the latest hype cycle.

MyTM – Business Idea, Value Proposition and Everything Else About the Company

Sarwat Rizvi — Sun, 15 May 2022 17:06:07 GMT

Flashback to 2008, over half of Pakistan’s population of over 160 million had savings, but only around 8 percent had formal financial institutions at their disposal. Clearly, Pakistan was fertile ground for financial inclusion initiatives, and mobile operators were fully prepared to lead the charge.

After State Bank’s branchless banking regulations, issued in 2008, many startups started emerging in the microfinance sector and soon, the technological landscape of the country shifted from traditional bank branches to alternative agent and mobile-based channels.

Among such startups is MyTM, which on top of many titles, holds the crown of being the first Islamic Fintech. MyTM assists retail businesses in acting as business correspondents, providing commerce, banking, and financial services to the unbanked and underbanked. The underlying idea behind the startup was to have a one-stop solution for purchasing tickets for air travel, bus travel, cinema and more. Not just this, but MyTM is also developing Pakistan’s first payment gateway which will be integrated with all banking systems as well as local payment systems like EasyPaisa and Jazz Cash.

It is one of Pakistan’s first platforms equally providing social networking services, e-commerce services, and a communication module, all under one umbrella.

Background of Founders

Zain Farooq

Zain Farooq: Founder and CEO

Zain is an MBBS major, who graduated from Dalian Medical University (China) back in 2011. Right after his graduation, he started off his career as General Marketing Manager at Felpa International Co. Ltd and started working on his startup, MyTM alongside.

Zain kicked off MyTM with an aim to create the first of its kind social-messaging app that offers it all, from the purchase of Airline Tickets to four-comics competition, account management and Electronic funds transfer.

Furthermore, Zain was also nominated this year to receive an Honorary Award by the President of Pakistan for becoming the First startup Founder from Pakistan to Win at GITEX 2021 since 2015.

Why MyTM?

With over 160 live mobile financial services distributions totalling some 80 million registered customers spread across 72 countries, the recent growth of the global mobile money industry has attracted both interest and investment in the world of microfinance.

Enter MyTM, with a vision to bring the corporate sector to the public, the company aims at identifying the potential of the IT and e-commerce industry of Pakistan and follows the mission of creating 50000+ jobs in Pakistan by the year 2029.

Additionally, the National Incubation Centre and Ignite – National Technology Fund of the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunications, has also helped in nurturing the company and strategizing its business plans to represent Pakistan at an international level.

CEO Ignite, Asim Shahryar Husain, stated:
Pakistan is home to the fifth-largest youngest population in the World while having only one bank branch and one ATM for every 15,000 individuals. Hence, it is a great growth opportunity for a fintech startup like MyTM. That is why Ignite sponsored MyTM along with some other NIC startups to connect them with potential customers and investors at GITEX 2021. It’s great to see the results of our efforts now. Ignite will continue sponsoring NIC startups for international startup events in the future to unleash the entrepreneurial potential of Pakistan.

What is MyTM?

MyTM is the first-ever startup from Pakistan to win the Supernova pitching competition at GITEX Future stars held in Dubai in October 2021, in the ‘Creative Economy’ category and had secured $6.9 million in its seed round.

Essentially, it is a Pakistan-based mobile application network that launched its Beta version back in July 2019. What started off in 2018, as the country’s first Islamic FinTech, with an aim to provide mass transit e-ticketing, branchless banking and other microfinance services to the customers has now revolutionised into Payment pull (e-POS), Visa / Mastercard acceptance and payment gateway service.

This application offers social media integration for users to interact, staying updated with the latest local and global news via one digitally connected platform. Through the MYTM Chat feature, you may interact either in person or in groups.

The proprietary end-to-end encryption mechanism (LIME Tech), makes it a safe, easy & user-friendly chat module, that ensures the reliability of users upon security and privacy. It’s a one of its kind user-friendly application, which includes air ticket booking, tours, bus, cinema, and event ticket booking. MYTM as a company offers a variety of local, international, religious, and spiritual tours through its subsidiary company “MYTM Travels”. In addition, it also offers prepared packages as well as customized tours.

Funds Raised By MyTM

Pre-Seed Funding – Raised ¥30 million

Back in 2019, MyTM announced raisin 30 million Japanese Yen in its pre-seed round from a Tokyo stock listed company, called Rentracks Japan.

Seed Funding – Raised $6.9 million

Then in October 2021, at GITEX Futurestars held in Dubai, the startup secured $6.9 million in its seed round and had won the Supernova Pitching competition, under the ‘Creative Economy’ category.

Investors participated from Saudi Arabia, Canada, Mauritius, the UK, and Pakistan, some of which included:

My Petroleum (My Group)
100 Ventures
Loyal VC
United Seven Hills Venture
PEX International.

This brings the total funding raised by MyTM to date to $7.2 million. MyTM’s banking partner and settlement bank are NRSP Microfinance Bank.

Future Plans

The company is further working to diversify the platform by adding the features of fin-tech solutions and e-wallet services in the near future to enhance the customer experience. MYTM’s vision is to establish a culture of QR-based scanning and purchasing, covering minimal to high-scale transactions.

In near future, MYTM users will be able to make purchases using a simple QR code scanning. QR code will be available on every shop, vendor, and outlet. Furthermore, the company is also working on the concept of paperless currency where every single payment will be made via QR scanning. By 2026, MYTM aims to build a network of 100,000 MYTM DUKAAN.

How to create and sell your own NFT? – A complete guide

Shaheryar Ehsan — Fri, 06 May 2022 14:18:37 GMT

NFT NFT everywhere. NFTs are revolutionizing digital art and collectables, and it’s just the beginning. By this time it’s safe to say, NFTs are here to stay.

After years of cryptocurrency proving to be the next generation of assets, Pakistan recently banned all sorts of cryptos. Though behind on the cryptocurrency curve, Pakistan has taken lead in embracing the even more complex NFTs. So let’s explore how to get into the NFT game today!

What exactly are NFTs?

A few years ago, movies after being released in cinemas could be easily accessed through online sites for free. With the advent of platforms like Netflix, the digital ownership of movies, series and songs is much more defined and easier.

There is no way to explain NFTs completely in a few words. Trying to put it simply in reference to the aforementioned example, NFT is a digital asset that showcases your work in a digital form and lets you claim ownership of it and trade it.

NFT can be anything ranging from digital art, pictures, videos, gifs, collectables such as signed posters, in-game products, memes and even text.

They are basically a blockchain entry that identifies the authenticity of a digital object since it holds hold particular information about the owner.

It lets buyers have a digital collection where each item can be traced to its original issuer. NFTs provide a certificate of ownership of a digital object for the buyer, which also protects its value for future transactions.

However, NFTs can only have one owner at a time. The unique data of NFTs makes it simple to confirm ownership and exchange tokens between owners.

Why should one make an NFT?

It protects digital businesses from fraud.
It allows artists and content creators to retain their full copyright.
Makes digital trading easier and more transparent.
Generates revenue streams for digital pieces.
Makes it easier to differentiate original from replicas.

And more importantly, Why do people buy NFTs?

Get legal ownership of a digital piece you love.
Keep it as an asset, only to sell it at a higher value.
In the near future, your NFT worth would define your value.

How to sell an NFT?

Yes, we get it. NFTs are the next big thing, but how to get started?

STEP 1: Select a blockchain

A few things to keep in mind before listing your first NFT. It is preferred to start off with a picture or video as per many publications. Secondly, most NFTs are sold on Etherium ETH Blockchain. It is better to use Ether when dealing with NFTs.

STEP 2: Choose an NFT marketplace

There are dozens of platforms that let you sell NFTs across a wide variety of blockchains. Choose the platform based on the blockchain you’re using and the requirements of your digital product, your project and you’re personal preference. There exist enough platforms to cater for every unique need. A few widely recognized ones are mentioned:

OpenSea
Rarible
AtomicHub
Solana-based Solsea

STEP 3: Set Up an E-Wallet

Wallets are the applications used to store your cryptocurrencies, as well as any NFTs you buy. When you link your wallet to an NFT marketplace, it lets you make sales and purchases.

Metamask: It is widely supported by Ethereum-based applications.
Coinbase: a preferred choice if involved with all cryptocurrencies.

As you download their app, setting up your wallet is a simple follow-the-instructions process. And trust me on this, you better not lose your password and secret phrase. The recovery is almost impossible and you’d end up losing your precious cryptos.

Once you’re done you would have to connect your wallet to the NFT marketplace you plan to use. It gives a good number of compatible wallets options. Be careful of unexpected pop-ups asking to enter wallet information, scams are everywhere.

STEP 4: First-time Payments (or a way to avoid them)

Pay Gas Fee

To sell your first NFT, you’ll need to enable the platform to sell items from your account. This requires a blockchain transaction, so you’ll have to pay a gas fee. This is a first time only fee, as you make the transaction from you’re wallet, you’re good to go.

Lazy Minting System

What if you pay the gas fee, and no one buys your item. Does all money go to waste? Avoiding this situation, some NFT platforms like OpenSea and Rarible propose lazy minting.

Lazy minting lets you create an NFT and put it up for sale without writing it to the blockchain, thus no fee is required. When someone actually buys it, the fees for writing your NFT to the blockchain will be bundled with the fees to transfer it to the buyer.

STEP 5: Listing NFT on the marketplace

Though there are quite a few marketplaces, we’d go through the listing method for two of the most popular ones.

How to list an NFT on OpenSea?

On OpenSea homepage, hover over the profile icon on the top right to select My Profile.
Click Sign in and follow the instructions on the screen to set up your account.
Ir redirects to the account page, hover over Create in the top right and select My Collections. (you can list a collection of NFTs or one NFT)
Under Create new collection, select Create and enter the details for your collection.
Click on Add New Item and upload metadata. (Metadata includes image, video and audio file)
Name your NFT.
Press Create!

And by following these simple steps your first NFT is listed.

How to list an NFT on Rarible?

Rarible asks you to define if you want a single edition NFT (owned by one person) or a multiple-edition NFT (can be purchased and owned by multiple people).
Upload item by using File Button. (add preview image if asked, for videos and other items)
Select selling method. As you press Put on Marketplace, you’d be presented with 3 options,fixed-price, open for bids or timed auction. Select your preferred one.
After paying the gas fee or opting for lazy minting, Give your NFT a name.
You can add properties to your NFT using advanced settings.
After proofreading, select Create Item.

Your NFT is listed! Note that an NFT can’t be changed once up on sale, so do your double-checks beforehand.

STEP 6: Market your NFT

Once your NFT is up, waiting for someone to miraculously come across it, like it and buy it is stupid. Like all other forms of art or any product for that matter, you’d have to market your NFT.

One way is to build a community of people who share the same interest as you. This makes it easier to find the target audience and market through word of mouth. The other way however is to spend money on marketing to make noise in order to bring in people.

NFTs and Pakistan

The most expensive NFT traded in Pakistan up till now is the infamous ‘Friendship Ended With Mudasir’ meme by a Pakistani creator that was sold for 20 Ethereum tokens — equivalent to $51,776.

An NFT focused platform Alter, operating in Pakistan has been receiving an overwhelming response not only from Pakistan but all over the world. Alter aims to enhance the value of creators in Pakistan, bridge the gap caused by lack of public relations and provide a platform to showcase their art.

However, Alter is not the only NFT focused platform in Pakistan. Oval NFT is another startup that helps businesses to strategise and implement the launch of NFTs across the spectrum from brands, artists and content creators to institutions, real estate and the public sector.

Since it is the initial stage for NFTs, there’s a lot of uncertainty and speculations. Investing in it right now might make you a millionaire or all your investments goes to waste. The NFT you bought might be worthless tomorrow or could even be priceless as if owning one of Picasso’s originals.

So, the risk is there and the concerns are real. A smart strategy would be to keep investing small amounts into NFTs. Test them and evaluate their performance while being on the safe side.

Tazah – Business Idea, Value Proposition, and Everything else about the company

Sarwat Rizvi — Sat, 30 Apr 2022 19:50:55 GMT

The arrival of the pandemic bought with it the trend of ordering fresh fruits and vegetables online. When the people adapted to healthy eating, in an attempt to boost their immunity, fresh produce was the first thing they garnered. While some of them started at home or in a kitchen garden, others made use of online marketplaces to order fruits and vegetables.

Despite such services existing in the past, it wasn’t until after the pandemic took hold, that the importance of such marketplaces was revealed to the farmers, retailers, and the people alike. Naturally, many startups took the liberty of adopting this business model to make the life of the masses easier.

Among such startups is Tazah, which is a B2B fresh produce marketplace that connects farmers to businesses. They aim to solve the extremely complex agriculture value chain end-to-end through tech, resulting in dividends for both farmers and businesses.

Background of Founders

Left to right: Mohsin Zaka and Abrar Bajwa

Mohsin Zaka

Mohsin is a UET Lahore alumnus, with a major in Computer Engineering. He initiated his professional journey as Assistant Software Quality Assurance at CureMD. After completing two years at CureMD, he graduated with a Masters’s in Business Administration (MBA) from LUMS.

Then after spending years at some reputable firms like Telenor, Careem, and Nestle, in 2021 Moshin alongside his partner launched Tazah.

Abrar Bajwa

Abrar graduated from National Textile University as a Textile Engineer in 2007. After completing his graduation, he started his professional career at Dewan Mushtaq Group as Assistant Manager of Quality Assurance. He joined Nestle as an Area Manager in 2012, and after six months he joined ICI Pakistan as Market Research Manager.

Abrar too like his partner has worked at some of the industry pioneers including, E&Y, Loreal, Careem, and Swvl. Then in September 2021, he along with his Mohsin founded Tazah.

What is Tazah?

Tazah is a Lahore-based B2B agriculture startup that aims at improving the lives of farmers, businesses, and consumers by building a tech-enabled OS for the agriculture and food supply chain.

Essentially, the platform serves as a marketplace that empowers businesses, mainly micro retailers or street vendors to procure fresh produce. The agritech startup sources the produce directly from farmers, sorts & grades it at its own warehouses, and then ships it to the street vendors.

Why Tazah?

According to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), the agriculture sector is the largest in the country, contributing around 24 percent to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) and accounting for half of the employed labor force.

In a primarily offline farmer to retailer Agri supply chain, fresh produce such as fruits and vegetables from farms are sold by farmers to middlemen, who then sell it to wholesalers. Retailers then sell it to end consumers, deciding their margins based on the location they are selling at.

The business model caters to the problem of the massive price hike the produce goes through by the time it reaches the end customer because of multiple actors taking cuts in the form of margins at each stage these products are traded. Additionally, the retailer and eventually the customer pays a higher price for a product that has not only lost on quality but was also priced quite low at the beginning of the supply chain.

Tazah aims to eradicate such problems by directly connecting farmers to fruit and vegetable retailers, eliminating the traditional middlemen and wholesalers. Ultimately, the prices at which retailers procure this fresh produce from farmers are better and more affordable.

The company also runs a parallel storage and delivery service through which it is able to deliver better quality products directly to the retailers instead of them having to go out and procure fruits and vegetables themselves at the break of dawn each day.

The startup is already serving over 300 businesses and individual retailers of different sizes in Lahore and claims to have grown to an annualized gross merchandise value (GMV) of $7 million, with thousands of customers.

Tazah further asserts to have realized a high rate of month-on-month customer retention, with a large number of its customer base using the app daily and exhibiting a subscription-like ordering frequency, which is very rarely seen in other industries.

Funding Raised

Pre-Seed Funding – Raised $6.5 million

In October 2021, the startup raised $2 million in a pre-seed funding round co-led by Global Founders Capital and Zayn Capital. Other investors that participated in the round included.

Ratio Ventures
Walled City Co.
i2i Ventures
Suya Ventures
Globibest
Afropreneur‌ ‌Syndicate
+92‌ ‌Ventures
Sunu‌ ‌Capital
Musha‌ ‌Investments‌
Mezan Foods

While senior executives of Careem and Swvl also participated in the deal.

Then in December 2021, the startup raised another 4.5 million in an extended pre-seed round.

The extension was co-led by Fatima Gobi Ventures (FGV) and Vibe Capital, with participation from:

Shorooq Partners
Nuwa Capital
Ru-net
Alter Global
Julian.Capital
Venture for Pakistan
Early Grey Capital
K3 Fund.

The round also included participation from Silicon Valley-based angel investors including Sahil Bloom, Siqi Chen, Matt Brezina, to list a few. While existing investors including Global Founders Capital, Zayn Capital, i2i Ventures with some other notable angels also followed on in the round.

Future Plans

The startup plans to use the raised funding to expand its coverage to other cities of the country as well as diversify its offerings and deploy financial products for farmers and retailers.

Increasing Farmer’s Profits

Farmers typically don’t know a lot about marketplaces and supply/demand beyond their communities. Time and again, they also end up in debt to middlemen because they lack access to working capital.

Although Tazah is currently focused on its supply chain network, the platform plans to eventually introduce financing options for farmers and retailers after going through several procurement cycles to understand the capital needs of farmers and how they are able to repay it.

However, some of the impediments they face include a lack of formal credit histories or access to financial institutions in rural areas. This prompts the farmers to seldom borrow working capital from intermediaries in the supply chain, or loan sharks who charge interest rates of more than 60%, creating endless cycles of indebtedness.

Reducing Food Waste

Over-harvesting is one of the major factors contributing to food waste, and one of Tazah’s objectives is to develop a data and analytics platform that will help farmers plan ahead regarding crop harvesting to make sure there is no oversupply in the markets they serve.

Ankur Nagpal, Founder of Vibe Capital said:

The company is growing really fast and on track to hit eight figures in annualized GMV in the next couple of months and that still represents a very small percentage of the overall market. What we are most excited about is the ability to build additional products (particularly financial products) for this market. For instance, Tazah is in a great position to start extending lines of credit to their business buyers that they pay off after reselling the inventory

Qashio raises $2.5 million led by MSA Novo to launch enterprise expense management solution for MENA Businesses

Press Release — Thu, 28 Apr 2022 13:16:19 GMT

UAE-headquartered fintech business, Qashio has entered the MENA market on a strong note by raising USD 2.5 million in its pre-seed funding. Qashio’s enterprise-grade expense management platform enables business owners and finance leaders full visibility and control of all expenses.

Their dashboard integrates real-time tracking for every business expense and allows and enterprises and SMEs to make informed cash flow decisions. The pre-seed funding round is led by global VC firm, MSA Novo (over $1.5bn AUM), and supported by Rally Cap Ventures, Palm Drive Capital, Plug and Play Ventures, as well as regional strategic angels, entrepreneurs, and family offices. Executives from Grubtech, Danske Bank, Two Sigma, Xiaomi, and top global fintech companies participated in the round as well.

“Investing globally across b2b fintech platforms, we have monitored expense management players evolving across all major regions. Qashio is poised to be MENA’s breakout winner due to its founding team’s proven track record in building superior products and ability to execute in selling to enterprises. We are excited to partner with Qashio to impart best practices derived across other emerging tech markets.” said Seamon Chan, Palm Drive Capital

Founded in 2021 by seasoned serial entrepreneurs Jonathan Lau and Armin Moradi, Qashio is a Fintech solution offering businesses a comprehensive enterprise expense management solution. Armin and Jonathan previously worked together while building Carriage, where they personally experienced the pain-point of expense tracking and management.

Qashio’s virtual cards combined with its software allows businesses to manage their spend in a more automated and transparent way, saving hundreds of man hours and reducing petty cash leakage in the process. Finance and HR departments benefit from better expense reporting, better visibility, control of cash flows and an empowered workforce.

Qashio has over 50+ customers, including Nana, Grubtech, Carasti & Swiss International Hotels. They have customers across UAE and KSA, and an expanding waitlist.

“Qashio’s software empowers us to have full control of our expenses and reduce our petty cash leakages. Integrating directly to our ERP system saves my finance team hundreds of hours as well!” – CEO of Saudi Arabia’s Al Shiha Holding & Swiss International Hotels

With Qashio, Business Owners, CFOs, HR Leaders and finance teams can set spend limits on virtual & physical cards issued in seconds, limit and control spend categories and vendors. This eliminates the use of cash, avoids late expense claims, reduces the amount of work put into reimbursements and ultimately replaces manual invoicing and vendor /supplier payment.

Jonathan Lau and Armin Moradi, co-founders of Qashio commented, “Businesses in the MENA region have been operating with limited ability to issue cards and manage employee expenses. At Qashio, we are committed to help companies move away from all those manual finance processes and get more visibility and control by providing a secure, safe solution that is ready for enterprise grade deployment as well as SMEs.”

“We are committed to have a clear, easy and fast onboarding processes for brands with no long-term commitments or heavy monthly service fees” – Armin Moradi, CEO Qashio

The launch of Qashio is in line with UAE’s vision for the next 50 years to accelerate world-class digitization and adoption of ICT across aspects of the business.

The FinTech sector in the Middle East is growing rapidly with a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 30%. By 2023, it’s predicted that 800+ FinTech companies from sub-segments including payments, open banking, RegTech and compliance, smart lending, InsurTech, blockchain, and cybersecurity solutions for the financial industry (such as anti-money-laundering, anti-fraud, identity theft, identity management, and others) will raise over $2 billion in venture capital funding.

The funding will be used to expand the operations team and customer support, evolve the current features and integrations with additional fintech partners and rewards programs.

For more details on Qashio or for further advice on best practice spend management solutions visit www.qashio.com

Dubai’s Cultiv8 and Oman Holding International invest $5 million in Udrive

Press Release — Thu, 28 Apr 2022 13:10:14 GMT

Dubai, UAE- Udrive, the UAE’s homegrown brand providing a pay-per-minute car rental service for UAE residents and tourists recently completed another strong funding round with strategic investments of US$5 million from Cultiv8 and Oman Holding International.

Known as the first technology platform in the GCC to offer car rentals by the minute, Udrive recorded strong growth in 2021, clocking two million trips to date, making it one of the largest rental booking platforms by transactions per car in the region.

In line with the Dubai leadership’s digital vision, new funding was secured from Cultiv8, the government’s SME and startup investment arm.

“Mobility tech is one of the key investment sectors our technology fund focuses on, and UDrive perfectly fits the fund’s guidelines and the fund manager’s ambitions. With the newly formed board and management team we are excited for Udrive’s continued triple digit growth across the MENAT region during 2022.” says Arif Alawi, CEO of Cultiv8.

Joining Cultiv8 in the funding round was Muscat-based Oman Holdings International, which owns Budget Oman and sees the future of mobility. OHI’s investment and knowledge of the space will support Udrive’s commitment to doubling its annual revenue target and vehicle fleet.

“We can expect to see radical shifts in how cars will be used both globally and regionally,” commented Oman Holdings International’s Director & CEO Eihab Saleh. “With a vision to drive this change, Udrive presented their well-articulated plan to achieve successful entry across new market making our decision easy to invest in Udrive. We are confident that their product roadmap is expected to significantly change the way cars are ‘consumed’ and utilized in the MENAT region.”

The investment will support Udrive for the upcoming expansion in the region and enhancements of it’s technology. Additional emphasis will be given to streamlining the customer experience, an example of which has been the automatic parking payment system, wherein the car determines where it is parked and automatically pays the relevant meter charges.

“We are digitizing mobility making it easily accessible to everyone. The recent funding secured will help us invest in new technologies as well as grow our offerings into the region this year. We want to provide this service to everyone who can drive, and the reality is customer demand is shifting fast from buying & owning to on-demand and subscription.” said Udrive CEO and co-founder Nicholas Watson.

We are proud to have well respected and diverse regional business leaders bringing unique experiences and growth potential to the business. Raising money was never about just the funds, but our ability to operate at scale and bring true change to old incumbent business models.”

We started this concept in the UAE and are now continuing our expansion across the region.”

Car sharing platforms have seen exponential growth worldwide as well as in the Middle East. By 2026, the number of users in the car sharing segment is expected to reach 60.7m and according to a report by Valuates the global car sharing market will reach 103 billion USD by 2025, with a CAGR of 17.2% during the forecast period. Additionally, KPMG reports almost 50% of car owners today will no longer want to own a vehicle by 2025 and a separate report by ResearchAndMarkets claim 4 out of every 10 car journeys will be via car share.

Udrive addresses the short term on-demand rentals by adding additional services including free fuel, parking, and comprehensive insurance for all its customers. Its cars can be driven per minute or per day, depending on the needs of the customer. Cars can also be picked up from any location available and can be returned in the same city at any parking location. The mobile app booking process is simple, fast and efficient and functions as an all-purpose digital hub for private transport, payments, customer service and logistics, reducing dramatically the time it takes compared to traditional rental companies. Moreover, customers only pay for what they need and save money with no hidden charges.

Bazaar – Business Idea, Value Proposition & Everything Else About the Company

Sarwat Rizvi — Wed, 27 Apr 2022 08:39:00 GMT

Technology startups in Pakistan have pulled in quite a number of foreign investors within the country in the last couple of years. Last year, an e-commerce platform, Airlift had secured $85 million in the largest Series B funding in Pakistan. While the overall startups attracted $350 million in funding last year.

With the advent of the pandemic the startup landscape, of the country entirely changed direction, giving rise to a good number of consumer-focused or B2B startups. Among such startups, is Bazaar, an online marketplace that connects retailers directly with wholesalers and manufacturers.

Bazaar is essentially a B2B e-commerce marketplace that has impressively tapped the digital potential of the country’s retail sector. The company offers procurement solutions to small and medium-size retailers. According to details shared by the startup, it has already penetrated into 21 cities, with plans of expanding further.

According to Badar Khushnood, Chairman Pakistan Software houses Association for IT: “Startups like Bazaar Technologies will eventually benefit fintech as they will get data of small and medium-size stores.”

Background of Founders

Left to right: Saad Jangda and Hamza Jawaid

Saad Jangda: Co-founder

After moving to back to Pakistan, Saad had two beliefs that drove his vision: Firstly, he wanted to work on something incredible for his hometown of Karachi as well as for the Pakistani market. Secondly, he saw heaps of economic opportunity down the line in the booming startup ecosystem. With co-founder Hamza Jawaid, Saad set out to start Bazaar Technologies, an e-commerce B2B venture that supported offline grocery retailers.

It was this vision, that led to Bazaar closing Pakistan’s largest pre-seed round to date, despite having just arrived at the scene.

Hamza Jawaid – Co-founder

Hamza is a London School of Economics graduate. He completed his BSc in 2015 and started his professional career as a Business Analyst at Mckinsey & Company.

He worked with the company till 2020, his last position being Manager – New Ventures. Later in 2020, he joined his soon to be Co-Founder Saad and the two together launched Bazaar.

What’s the value proposition of Bazaar?

Founded back in June 2020 with the aim of catering to small and medium-sized enterprises in Pakistan to procure inventory, manage their bookkeeping and access financial services to simplify and help them grow.

Bazaar was launched by Saad Jangda, formerly a product manager for ride-hailing and food delivery company Careem and Hamza Jawaid, who was a management consultant at McKinsey & Company in Dubai.

The startup targets over 5 million small and medium-sized retailers operating across the country and plans to expand its network to cover over 100 urban and rural centres. It plans to build the largest network that could move any category of goods from point A to B wherever and whenever required.

It’s a mobile-only B2B e-commerce marketplace that enables retailers in Karachi and Lahore to procure inventory for their stores.

What is Bazaar?

Bazaar is a Karachi-based business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce platform that was launched to empower small and medium-sized retailers who strengthen the backbone of Pakistan’s retail economy.

Bazaar’s mobile platform gives these small business owners access to a large variety of goods including multiple local and international brands as well as unbranded products, which can be ordered at any day of the week with free next day delivery to storefronts, all on a single platform.

Earlier, the startup had also launched a digital ledger app, called Easy Khata to help retailers all over Pakistan manage their bookkeeping and faster collection. According to an official statement, both the apps have served over 750,000 merchants to date.

Easy Khata has garnered over 2.4 million registered businesses across 500 cities in Pakistan.

Funds Raised by Bazaar

Series A Funding – $30 Million

In August 2021, the startup had raised $30 million in Series A financing. The round was co-led by Silicon Valley-based Defy Partner and Singapore-based Wavemaker Partners.

Other investors who took part in the round include:

US-based Acrew Capital
Japan’s Saison Capital
UAE’s Zayn Capital
B&Y Venture Partners
Induc Valley Capital

Series B Funding – $70 Million

The fintech startup raised $70 million in its Series B funding round in March, which was one of the largest in the country. The latest round was led by San Francisco-based investment firm, Dragoneer Investment Group, and New York-based Tiger Global.

Other investors, which played an active role in the latest round, include Indus Valley Capital, Defy Partners, Acrew Capital, Wavemaker Partners, B&Y Venture Partners, and Zayn Capital.

The recent round brings the startup’s all-time funding to above $100 million. In a recent interview, one of the founders, Hamza Jawaid said the fundraising sends a huge message, “It proves that you can build large and scalable businesses in Pakistan, and that should be an inspiration to other founders and entrepreneurs”.

Future Plans

Having secured Series B funding, Bazaar now plans to expand into more cities across Pakistan, broaden its product stack and scale its financial services offerings.

The startup is seeking to establish an “operating system for traditional retail” in the country’s $170 billion commercial space, where five million small, medium-sized, and large businesses already operate across various segments.

The Pakistani startup has also been testing its lending offering, a buy now pay later service for its retailers, in a private beta version. In an official statement, Bazaar shared that the early results have been phenomenal, explaining that the wallet share of the retailers who have used the service has doubled and the repayment rates are close to 100 percent.

The startup plans to deploy the fresh capital to expand to more cities across Pakistan and launch new marketplace categories. It is also working to scale its lending offerings and explore new product lines.

Top 10 Affordable Cryptocurrencies you need to buy right now!

Shaheera Faheem — Tue, 26 Apr 2022 21:46:23 GMT

The low investment rates in Pakistan and most developing countries is a combined result of the economic conditions of the masses and the unavailability of small investment opportunities. The traditional investment options are too expensive while stocks are too complicated for a common man. Amid these circumstances, crypto shortly became famous for introducing small investment gateways.

Crypto’s easy-to-start mechanism, strengthening global community, involvement of market leaders, the backing of governments, and its decentralised nature made it immensely popular. Housewives or students looking for side incomes to professional investors, all are eager to cash into the crypto world. And now when cryptocurrency is being accepted as payment options in many sectors, the trust around crypto has also increased.

However, bitcoin, the first cryptocurrency that started off being worth a fraction of a dollar, has reached $42,144 as of today and an all-time high of $65,000 in February last year. Ethereum, though focuses on building decentralised applications on its blockchain, has also been increasing rapidly in value, hitting an all-time high of $4,200 in 2021.

A part of bitcoin or Ethereum can be bought but if you wish to trade cryptocurrencies, the key is to buy low and sell high. To generate above-average returns in the crypto world, one needs to look for inexpensive cryptocurrencies to buy.

Luckily, there are a few cryptocurrencies that are cheap right now but show promising prospects in the near future. Let’s unpack the best inexpensive cryptocurrencies of 2022.

USD Coin
XRP
Cardano
Tether
Dogecoin
Chainlink
Dentraland
Vechain
Lucky Block
Polygon

USD Coin | USDC

Current Price: US$1
USD Coin is a digital stablecoin that is pegged to the United States dollar. It’s referred to as a stablecoin as you can always redeem 1 USD Coin for US$1.00, giving it a stable price. The risk-reward ratio on USD Coin makes it one of the most attractive cryptocurrencies. This affordable cryptocurrency is a low-risk high-returns option.

Ripple | XRP

Current Price: US$0.6558
XRP is the native cryptocurrency for products developed by Ripple Labs. It’s only the start for XRP and thus the price is affordable and there is room for it to reach higher and touch the US$1 mark soon.

Cardano | ADA

Current Price: US$0.8468
Cardano is a public blockchain platform. It is open-source and decentralised, with consensus achieved using proof of stake. This method hastens transaction times and reduces energy usage and environmental impact, which is an attribute all renowned cryptocurrencies are working towards to minimise their carbon footprint. Cardano also enables smart contracts and decentralised applications, powered by ADA, its native coin.

Tether | USDT

Current Price: US$1.01
Tether is a stablecoin, that pegs its market value to an external reference like UK pounds, US dollars or any other fiat currency. It is comparatively consistent among other cryptocurrencies, investors not in favour of extremely volatile currencies choose Tether. This creates liquidity for exchange platforms, creates no-cost exit strategies for investors, and adds flexibility and stability to investors’ portfolios.

Dogecoin | DOGE

Current Price: US$0.1436
Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency created as a “joke”, making fun of the wild speculation in cryptocurrencies at the time. However, it brought profit to many and is now known as the first “meme coin”. Dogecoin uses a proof-of-work consensus mechanism, which requires miners to solve complex maths problems with expensive, high-powered computers to earn the right to validate transactions. This cryptocurrency is cheaper and faster to process transactions compared to others.

Chainlink | LINK

Current Price: US$12.62
Chainlink is an Ethereum token that powers the Chainlink decentralized oracle network. These networks provide tamper-proof inputs, outputs, and computations to support advanced smart contracts on any blockchain, thus enabling secure connection to external data sources, APIs and payment systems.

Decentraland | MANA

Current Price: US$1.86
Decentraland is a 3D virtual world browser-based platform. Users may buy virtual plots of land in the platform as NFTs via the MANA cryptocurrency, which uses the Ethereum blockchain. MANA is believed to be the best cryptocurrency to invest in in 2022 for exposure to the metaverse.

Vechain | VET

Current Price: US$0.05312
VeChain is one of the topmost affordable cryptocurrencies that has consistently shown great growth potential. It uses distributed governance and IoT technology to create an ecosystem that can solve major data challenges for many global industries, including energy, food, and sustainability while addressing the SDG goals.

Lucky Block | LBLOCK

Current Price: US$0.001733
Lucky Block is a new cryptocurrency that envisions a worldwide lottery with players using blockchain protocols, operating on the Binance Smart Chain. Luck Block focuses on creating a transparent and fair gaming ecosystem through cryptocurrency. It empowers every player to have better win odds while developing an investment strategy for token holders to incentivize contributing actively to the community.

Polygon | MATIC

Current Price: US$1.27
Polygon is a decentralised Ethereum scaling platform that enables developers to build scalable user-friendly decentralised apps with low transaction fees without ever sacrificing security. Polygon combines the best of Ethereum and sovereign blockchains into a full-fledged multi-chain system.

Elon Musk acquires Twitter – What are Twitteratis saying?

Shaheryar Ehsan — Mon, 25 Apr 2022 21:44:25 GMT

Twitter’s board has agreed to a once in a lifetime deal to sell Twitter for $44 billion to Billionaire and Tech Tycoon Elon Musk. The move come in midst of Elon’s bid to rebuild the social network and give it a new vision and reflect what Twitter actually should be.

Meanwhile Elon also endeavored to keep as many shareholders onboard as possible by law and he also remarked that if he acquired Twitter, he will try his best to fight off spam bots or die trying. As of right now, it is not clear who the CEO of the company would be.

A bit of background, Twitter was founded by Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams and was first headed by Jack for 2 years before the reigns were taken up by Evan Williams. The current CEO of Twitter is Parag Agarwal who was given the role in November last year.

This is a big move in the tech space and certainly with its fair share of reactions. Here is how the Twitteratis are reacting to the news:

This Twitter/@elonmusk deal for $44B came together faster than many pre-seed startups trying to raise their first $500K.
— Eric Bahn 💛 (@ericbahn) April 25, 2022

People have started applying for “Chief Meme Officer”:

Since @elonmusk is buying @Twitter, when are they hiring Chief meme officer.
— Saba kalsoom (@iamSabaKalsoom) April 25, 2022

Meanwhile Trump is not returning to Twitter even after the acquisition:

EXCLUSIVE: #Trump will not return to #Twitter even if #ElonMusk purchases platform, will begin using his own #TRUTHSocial https://t.co/ulWTHRjILV
— Brooke Singman (@BrookeSingman) April 25, 2022

Talk about making deals:

This tweet of @elonmusk about five years old is going viral. #TwitterTakeover #twittersold #ElonMuskBuyTwitter #Musk pic.twitter.com/Rkawt2IPMJ
— Kirtivardhan Mishra (@i_am_kvm) April 25, 2022

Is he actually Thanos?

#ElonMuskBuyTwitter #TwitterTakeover

A week ago,

Twitter Board : We have adopted Poison Pill Plan to stop #ElonMusk to have control on us.

Today,

Twitter nearing a deal to sell itself to Elon Musk for $54.20 per share in cash.

Elon Musk : pic.twitter.com/E1INVCfk9x
— CryptoSpy🔶 (@Crypt0spy) April 25, 2022

Is Amazon next…?

Love. #ElonMuskBuyTwitter and he did. He added to cart. pic.twitter.com/xb5THtZxeC
— 📍TEXAS Tess Eliot 🇺🇸 (@TruthsOverLiars) April 25, 2022

What are your best reactions to this news? Let us know in the comments below!

Krave Mart – Business Idea, Value Proposition & Everything else about the company

Sarwat Rizvi — Fri, 22 Apr 2022 11:39:08 GMT

In today’s fast-tracked era, where technologies are taking over the world, it didn’t come as a surprise when Q-Commerce (quick commerce) rose to stardom, especially after the advent of the global pandemic, making everything possible with just the tap of a finger. Just like e-commerce, Q-Commerce is now making its way into the lives of the masses and revolutionizing the concept of online shopping. At present, around 82 percent of Pakistani urban consumers make online purchases.

The pandemic further helped increase this percentage by pushing online grocery shopping into the mainstream, as our favourite stores and restaurants were shut. According to Nielsen Pakistan, Pakistan is the 46th largest market for online shopping, with revenues that went up to $4 billion in 2020.

Among some of the newly emerging Q-commerce startups is the Karachi-based Karve Mart. Krave Mart is an online store, selling a wide range of assortments ranging from food staples, fruits and vegetables, tea and beverages as well as personal care catering to thousands of customers.

Background of Founders

Kassim Shroff

Kassim graduated as an Arts major from the University of Toronto Scarborough, back in 2011. After coming back to Pakistan and working with various organizations, including some big names like Daraz, Kassim with the help of his other partners kickstarted Krave Mart in 2021, when Q-commerce had emerged as the need of the hour after the pandemic had isolated people to their houses.

Hammad Bawany

Hammad is an IBA alumnus and completed his BBA back in 2012. He started his professional career as a graduate trainee from Daraz and after three years left the company as a Sr. Manager Product, Warehouse & Production. He then worked at a number of organisations including Foodpanda. And in 2021, founded Krave Mart along with his partners.

Haziq Ahmed

Haziq graduated from the Textile Institue of Pakistan as a business major, after which he completed his Master’s in Science from the University of Manchester back in 2013. He then started working as the Brand Manager for Kapray in 2014 and after two years, i.e. in 2016 joined Alkaram as Head of Retail Operations.

In 2019, Haziq joined Foodpanda as head of Logistics and Delivery and joined Dukan.pk in 2021. In the same year, he along with his other Co-Founders started Krave Mart.

Ahsan Kidwai

Ahsan completed his bachelor’s from the University of Manchester in Economics and Business and later did his Masters’s in Innovation and Entrepreneurship from the University of Warwick.

He kickstarted his professional career as a Trade Marketing Executive at GlaxoSmithKline and after two years moved to Unilver as Assistant Channel Marketing Manager – Trade, he also worked at a number of other well-known organizations including Daraz, Swvl and DairlyLand. Then in 2021, Ahsan along with the other founding members launched Krave Mart.

What is Krave Mart?

Krave Mart is a Karachi-based Q-commerce startup, that provides a one-stop online delivery store for groceries, everyday essentials and as the company promises, much more!

At the moment, the company’s product catalogue includes groceries, personal care products, health essentials, beauty products and other everyday essentials, promised to be delivered in 10 minutes.

Founded by Kassim Shroff, Hammad Bawany, Haziq Ahmed, and Ahsan Kidwai, Krave commercially launched back in December 2021 and is currently active in Karachi through a network of dark stores.

The goal behind building Krave Mart

Quick commerce is on the rise ever since the pandemic started with Europe’s Gorilas and Flink, US-based JOKR, and Turkey’s Q-commerce startup Getir raising big rounds in very short durations and vaulting into the unicorn club.

However, in Pakistan, quick commerce picked up pace as soon as the pandemic started with startups like Airlift raising a record funding in 2021, the year which has seen Pakistan’s startups rake in a record high of $313 million.

So, how does Krave Mart plan to compete in such a space? Kasim Shroff, the company’s co-founder and CEO claims that given that their team, includes people from some diverse companies like Foodpanda, Cheetay, Careem and Swvl, who know the space and the logistics operations, this gives them an edge over others.

It is the team that is going to help them establish the dark store’s infrastructure with speed and ensure more delivery orders. The startup claims that they have been growing phenomenally ever since its launch.

The startup’s promise to deliver its orders in 10 minutes, faster than all of its competitors, ensures its commitment to developing a loyal customer base.

According to one of the Co-founders, Kassim Shroff:

“Our aim is to give people back some of their valuable time that they would otherwise spend by going to neighbourhood grocery stores. We will do that by ensuring a 10-minute delivery of quality products.”

Funds Raised by Krave Mart

Pre-Seed Funding – Raised $6 million

The startup raised $6 million in December 2021, less than four months after its establishment. The investment was led by:

China’s MSA Capital
Russia’s ru-Net
German Global Founders Capital and Islamabad-based Zayn Capital co-led the deal.
Other participating investors included Saison Capital, +92Ventures, 2AM, Mehta Ventures, Jeddar Capital, Lakson Investment along with multiple strategic angel investors.

Future Plans

The startup plans to set up more dark stores within a period of the next few months, with an aim to scale their presence in multiple geographies locally, followed by setting up operations in South Asian countries like Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh as the startup chases the unicorn status.

Krave Mart’s COO Haziq Ahmed, in a statement, said:

“The 10-minute delivery model is going to be the game-changer for this industry and will set a bar for all the players to come in the q-commerce landscape.”

Smartsheet – What do you need to know?

Sarwat Rizvi — Mon, 18 Apr 2022 21:56:36 GMT

The Seattle-based startup, Smartsheet, had set records on multiple financial and operational levels when it had raised an all-time high revenue of $144.6 million, beating expectations by a huge margin. The company’s third-quarter earnings report recorded a 46% revenue growth in FY 2021. As of February 2022, the company reported a market cap of $7.95 Billion, making it compete with giants like Asana, Monday.com, Wrike and Microsoft. As of now, Smartsheet is ranked as the world’s 1874th most valuable company in terms of its market cap.

Founded back in 2005, Smartsheet is a SaaS platform for managing and automating collaborative work, that lets people set and manage tasks and work across teams.

At present, more than 9.5 million people and 100,000 companies around the globe now use the platform. Some of the company’s mainstream customers include Cisco, Meta, Adobe and Amazon Web Services. This newly raised revenue, allows the company to build upon an already solid financial position with low cash burn, with the new funding directed to accelerate investments in product, sales, marketing, and infrastructure to support the platform’s increasing clientele.

Additionally, the company’s full-year projections for FY 2022 is expected to lie between $544 to $545 million. Smartsheet’s business model was what drove the company to success in terms of its revenue growth. As with many cloud-based services, the platform is freemium. Everyone can access documents for free, and you only pay if you want access to edit or update a Smartsheet document. This low barrier to entry, essentially lures in many users as freebies initially, some of whom eventually convert to paying customers.

The Rise of Collaborative Work Management

Over the recent years, there has been an imminent shift from using software hosted by a company itself or installed directly on your device, to products that are being sold, distributed and accessed in the cloud and Smartsheet was one of the early movers in that space.

What started back in 2005 as an alternative to the platforms like MS Excel and other spreadsheet packages on the market, has now become a big shark that focuses on offering a way for multiple people to collaborate in those documents to use them more dynamically. Especially the advent of the pandemic, made us realise the importance of collaborative work and the software that promote this approach.

Essentially used as a project management software, the platform allows much more than what it is credited for. The platform calls itself an enterprise platform that can help drive work and innovation in a company. The past several months have marked a steady flow of new entrants and high-profile acquisitions in the collaboration space to meet the shifting market needs of enterprises, which are looking for increased agility and efficiency.

One of the biggest hurdles to employee efficiency we presently face is the growing number of applications required to get work done. This includes a complex web of collaboration, productivity and business applications, which often don’t connect to each other.

As the market evolves, a need for an entirely new category of collaboration solutions will emerge that organizes work and not just tasks but provides structure and accountability across the vast array of things people have to work on. Collaborative Work Management applications enable organizations to reduce the noise so people can focus on the important work that needs to get done.

Pakistani startup Zaraye raises $2.1M from Tiger Global and Zayn Capital

Tehreem Farooqi — Thu, 14 Apr 2022 17:58:17 GMT

Zaraye, a platform that connects raw material manufacturers directly with suppliers, announced today it has raised $2.1 Million in pre-seed funding round led by Tiger Global and Zayn Capital. Other investors included +92 Ventures, Alan Rutledge, Jack Rizvi and current and former employees of Careem.

This marks Tiger Global’s first pre-seed investment in a Pakistani startup.

Zaraye was founded in late 2021 by Taha Iqbal Teli, Hashair Junair Ahmedani and Ahshan Ali Khan, who were together since a very young age. It currently serves the textile and construction industries, with more than 300 partners and suppliers in about 20 cities.

Simplifying Wedding Plans through technology – WTS Talks to Shadiyana

Shaheera Faheem — Mon, 11 Apr 2022 19:13:33 GMT

The grandeur of weddings is one thing that brings all cultures and races together. Everywhere in the world, people dream of a perfect wedding and spend their entire life savings on it. The obsession with Shaadis is truly on another level when it comes to us desis. We have a million pre and post-wedding functions that have now become a necessity. A Shaadi without a qawwali night, haw haye!

With the rise of social media, all your functions must be Instagram perfect. Your makeup needs to be perfect, your attire must be jaw-dropping, a grand venue is a must and to capture it all, you need the best photographer in town. To get all your favourites for your wedding, you must start planning 6 months beforehand if not more.

Amidst all these fragmented wedding facility providers, comes a startup bringing all Shaadi essentials to one platform. Shadiyana, a wedding aggregator and soon to be wedding marketplace offering all wedding services in a one-stop-shop.

Neelam Shoaib, the co-founder and COO of Shadiyana, recently sat down with We Talk Startups and talked about the idea behind her startup, its origin, how it came to be, and where they want to take it further?

She told us that the idea of Shadiyana stems from her personal troubled experience while planning siblings’ weddings. She said that most of the issues they faced were because of the unavailability of information regarding these vendors. Contacting them, going to their offices, bargaining and closing a deal was time-consuming and hectic for them. She stated that on average it takes 3 months to plan a wedding and Shadiyana works on these pain points to reduce that time to 3 minutes.

What is Shadiyana?

Shadiyana is a business-to-business-to-customer (B2B2C) platform that currently offers makeup artists, wedding venues and photographers. The website lists a great number of the best wedding facility providers holding all their information, the charges, pictures and videos of their setups or signature looks, and most importantly reviews from past customers. You can book these vendors within minutes through the website. The startup offers exclusive discounts for the listed vendors when booked through their platform.

Shadiyana lists more than 500 registered wedding vendors on its website. The company currently has a traction of 1300 users per day from all around the globe. The session time of 3 minutes on the website validates the customer’s interest in the platform. Since its launch, the startup has hosted around 60,000 users.

Shadiyana has seen a significant audience from Pakistani communities based abroad. The startup presents a great opportunity for overseas Pakistanis to plan their weddings in Pakistan without actually being in Pakistan.

Why is Shadiyana needed in the current wedding ecosystem?

When asked what is the market gap Shadiyana aims to exploit, Neelam mentioned the following features that make Shadiyana just what the wedding ecosystem lacks.

1. Reliable Reviews

Whenever we book an expensive wedding service, we go about asking all distant acquaintances who’ve had an experience with the vendor. In today’s age, one of the most common ways to get reviews is online through social media. However, it is hard to find someone who has an experience with the required vendor and even harder to get a timely response on social media.

Shadiyana adds genuine reviews from customers to their page, so you can get an idea of what they provide, and is in line with your interests and requirements without actually having to interact with anyone. The startup plans on adding a unique review system that would increase the credibility of the reviews.

2. Feasible Timing and Instant accessibility

Unlike a few years back when parents did all the wedding planning for you, now people tend to be actively involved in their own wedding preparations. However, it is hard to find a time to visit vendors and call them up with the hectic work schedules. Most keep all these chores for the weekends but that’s not always feasible either.

With Shadiyana, you can get all the information about a vendor and book them at any time of the night whenever you get free from work. This eliminates the hassle of finding the right time to call or visit. Most vendors are booked for weeks, so reserving a meeting with them takes ages. However, you can instantly do that through Shadiyana.

What is the revenue model of Shadiyana?

Weddings are already quite expensive, a wedding marketplace would further increase your expenses. However, Shadiyana for now doesn’t charge the customers a penny. Neelam told WTS that they use a subscription-based revenue model for the vendor’s side only. The platform charges a listing fee for all the vendors that wish to be listed on the website. It offers 2 subscription models available for them – basic and premium – which both have their own unique features.

Features	Basic 50% off on signup today	Standard Coming soon	Premium Coming soon
Customised profile	Yes	Yes	Yes
Boost profile	No	Yes, limited reach	Yes, extended reach
Customer service response time	Within 2 business days	Within 1 business day	Instantly
Automated booking	No	Yes	Yes
Make your own limited deals	No	Yes, up to 5 per month	Yes, up to 10 per month

Details of Shadiyana subscription models as per the official website

Similar businesses locally or internationally

When asked if there are similar business models offering the same features and facilities as Shadiyana operating in Pakistan or abroad, Neelam clarified that the reason they chose to work on an idea like Shadiyana is that no such service was being provided in Pakistan. Though companies like The Knot and WedMeGood were successfully operating in the US and India, the wedding ecosystem in Pakistan remained fragmented.

NIC and Shadiyana – only an office space?

Shadiyana is a NIC-backed startup. The startup was a part of NIC’s cohort 11 in December of 2021. Neelam told WTS, that it was the good work environment they saw in NIC that made them choose NIC among many great incubators and co-working spaces available. The startup didn’t want to spend on physical space at an early stage thus NIC was a great option for them.

She further added that NIC did not only provide them with space but great mentorship. They were offered instant help with HR and marketing whenever needed. According to her, being based in a renowned place like NIC ensures the legitimacy of the brand in the market.

The founders of Shadiyana

Shadiyana is a product of two young entrepreneurs who left their high paying corporate careers to start something of their own. When asked the reason to launch a startup, which is an unstable way of income initially, at such a young age, Neelam shared that the corporate culture didn’t excite any of them. They wanted to experience new things, have authority over the company’s decisions and be their own bosses.

Izzah Zaman – Co-founder & CEO at Shadiyana

Izzah Zaman is a software engineer from SEECS, NUST. She worked at Teradata as a Professional Services Consultant for over a year and later went on to join Jazz as a Systems Engineer. In 2019, she started her master’s in Public Policy and Management Concentration Data Analytics from Carnegie Mellon University, USA. It was during her second year of master’s that they came up with the idea of Shadiyana which she launched upon her return to Pakistan in early October 2021.

Neelam Shoaib – Co-founder & COO at Shadiyana

Neelam Shoaib, also a software Engineer from SEECS, NUST, joined Zong as Senior Officer, Product Development right after her bachelor’s. After working 2 years with Zong, she went on to do her Masters’s in Systems Engineering from NUST. During her master’s, the team had already started working on Shadiyana which was launched soon after her graduation.

The team behind Shadiyana

Shadiyana has an interesting team, with a few full-time sales members. The team majorly consists of student interns. Neelam told WTS that they have a wonderful experience with students since they bring fresh ideas and new perspectives every day. It brings innovation to the product and makes it relatable for all generations.

What are the expansion plans of Shadiyana in the future?

The startup, currently offering services in Islamabad and Rawalpindi, would soon be expanding to Lahore and Karachi after solving certain logistics and technical issues it faces now.

Apart from geographical expansion, the company would also be diversifying its services in the near future. Shadiyana within a span of a few months would start offering Catering, decor and mehndi artists to further escalate their portfolio.

How does Shadiyana add value to the wedding ecosystem?

The company plays its part to address the taboos and problematic rituals when it comes to weddings. Shadiyana runs a blog on the website to educate their clients about issues like colourism, dowry, rights of women in marriage and also encourages budget-friendly weddings.

Along with tackling serious issues, the blog features articles like questions to be asked before the wedding and many other fun reads. The Instagram page Shadiyana also features posts educating the clients about their rights in marriage along with addressing social issues in a step to break the stereotypes around weddings.

Is Shadiyana planning to raise funding?

Shadiyana has been bootstrapped by the founding team along with their friends and family until now. However, after 6 months of successful operations and stable revenue generation, the team is looking for investors. Neelam told WTS that they wish to onboard such an investor that could offer them business insights and mentorship along with the capital. The team is very certain in their choice of investor and would be taking their time to land an investment from a VC in line with their vision.

Pakistan’s Political Turmoil and the Startup Landscape – What’s next?

Shaheryar Ehsan — Sat, 09 Apr 2022 22:37:56 GMT

The last week has been filled with uncertainty regarding the leadership of Pakistan but things have finally wrapped up as the sitting PM has been sent packing by the opposition. Our job here at WTS is not to comment on the political landscape but here a question arises on our minds as to what is the future for startups in Pakistan?

With the dollar rate touching PKR 186 and the company’s reserves depleting, the question on investor’s minds is when will see the stability and then comeback. Similarly, a lot of startup founders and investors would also be concerned as to what the new government has in store for them. Various initiatives taken by the PTI government will also come scrutiny and whether they will continue or not, is a question that will be asked in the days to follow.

The big question is, how will the political leadership change impact startup funding and the startup landscape?

The start of this year has been phenomenal for Pakistani Startups in terms of investments, with the likes of Bazaar, Metric and many many others raising a plethora of funds from a number of international VCs.

On the sidelines, the government also tried to chime in with various initiatives such as the Kamyab Jawan Program, Youth Entrepreneurship Scheme and the Special Technology Zones (STZs). One of the most notable contributions of the outgoing government is Raast which aims to promote financial inclusion in the country.

To put it precisely, the environment was just getting conducive and ready to host million (if not billion) dollar startups in our region and we were steadily progressing towards a tech-enabled society. The question now is, will there be any roadblocks in that path? Or will we keep on steadily growing like we were in the previous few years?

So I leave this question to you the readers, how do you think the political instability is impacting startups in Pakistan? What is the future from today onwards? Let us know your predictions in the comments below!

Image Credit: DAWN

30 Key Terms of Crypto, Web3 and NFTs – Your cheat sheet to understanding today’s tech world

Shaheera Faheem — Thu, 07 Apr 2022 15:49:45 GMT

All the hot topics of today didn’t even exist a year ago. This evolving technology and the unique new terms it brings often has us dumbstruck in professional conversations. To save you from any such embarrassment, we bring a cheat sheet to get you familiar with tech’s hottest buzzwords.

The Crypto World

If you haven’t been living under a rock, you hear crypto, NFT, web3 everywhere. Before we get into details of terms these advanced technologies use, let us first discuss what these technologies are.

WEB3:

Web3 is an idea for a new iteration of the World Wide Web-based on blockchain technology, which incorporates concepts including decentralization and token-based economics.

A Web3 internet would also be permissionless and inclusive where no one needs to take permission or generate access credentials to use the internet. Today’s internet is stored on servers, however, web3 would be stored on a network.

CRYPTO:

Crypto represents cryptocurrency, a digital currency that is secured by cryptography and is, typically, used as a medium of exchange within a peer-to-peer digital economic system.

BLOCKCHAIN:

A blockchain is a digitally distributed ledger that facilitates the process of recording transactions and information across a network. You can think of it as a decentralized or distributed database.

NFT:

Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) are unique, digital items with blockchain-managed ownership. Examples of NFTs include digital art, collectables, virtual reality items, crypto domain names, ownership records for physical assets, and more.

Tech Twitter, now what’s that?

Social media is much more than merely entertainment platforms, it enables individuals from all around the world to have a digital place where they can voice their opinions and share thoughts.

This has brought about professional communities that exist on social media only. Twitter has hosted tech communities be it crypto, NFT, Web3, Bitcoin or others.

Crypto Twitter

Crypto Twitter is a niche community consisting of developers, investors, companies, influencers, and even modern-day philosophers who enjoy discussing cryptocurrencies.

NFT Twitter

Though Facebook and Instagram also seem to embrace NFTs, the NFT twitter – the community of NFT sellers, buyers and investors on Twitter is yet the strongest. Twitter recently introduced NFTs as profile pictures and so many profile pictures changed from the common circles to NFT hexagons.

Web3 Twitter

Web3 is a world of its own, and people have been interacting on this latest technology with experts on Twitter thus collectively forming an open-ended community called web3 Twitter.

Terms not exclusive to crypto

Before we start, here are some of the short forms that are not exclusively crypto lingo but used everywhere.

GM – good morning

GN – good night

FREN – friend

IRL – in real life

GMI – gonna make it

NGMI – not going to make it

SER – sir, a polite way of disagreeing with someone

WEN – when

The Basics

Now that you know which communities and tech sectors we’re addressing. Let’s start off with the basics.

ADDRESS:

An address is a digital address to your bitcoin wallet, made up of letters and numbers, that you use for sending and receiving Bitcoin transactions. In the bitcoin world, an address is also referred to as a digital fingerprint for the recipient’s public key.

WALLET:

In crypto, a wallet is an application or hardware device that allows individuals to store and retrieve digital Items, like cryptocurrency and NFTs.

HOT WALLETS:

Hot wallets are online and accessible via a seed phrase or username and ID.

COLD WALLETS:

a hardware device that can securely store cryptocurrency. Secured because the user’s private keys are stored in a protected area of the microcontroller and cannot be extracted as plain text.

The Processes

Crypto brings a parallel universe of technology, terms, methodologies that are completely alien to us. These are a few of the methods explained simply to get the idea of how things work.

ALPHA:

Alpha is a slang term for intel, useful information concerning a subject of interest. Those who possess alpha have information that the rest of the market hasn’t found out about yet.

APEING IN:

Apeing in means buying into an NFT project or social token project often with little or no research. The goal is to buy in shortly after launch to reap possible substantial gains with no due diligence on the buyer’s part.

GAS:

Gas or gas fees are the transaction fees that users pay to miners on a blockchain protocol to have their transactions included in the block. This pricing mechanism calculates the costs (fees) for performing a transaction or executing a smart contract operation.

GENESIS BLOCK:

The genesis block is the first-ever block recorded on its respective blockchain network, also occasionally referred to as Block 0 or Block 1.

When a block is broadcasted to the blockchain, it references the previous block. However, in the case of the genesis block, there is no previous block to reference, thus genesis blocks are generally hardcoded into the software.

FIAT:

A currency that has been established as a valid form of money, typically supported by a government regulation that declares it to be legal tender. Fiat money is a currency that does not have any intrinsic value as it is not backed by a physical commodity and is usually made of a worthless or low-value material (such as a small piece of paper). Even so, fiat money is widely accepted as a means of payment.

MINT:

The act of initially issuing a piece of art on the blockchain, either by the artist or the collector.

This process turns a digital file into a crypto collectable or digital asset on a blockchain. The digital item or file is stored forever in this decentralized database or distributed ledger, and it is impossible to edit, modify, or delete. During the minting process, the creator of the NFT can schedule royalties from every subsequent sale.

SHILL:

When a person is advertising a cryptocurrency or NFT project they own or have invested in. This endorsement on public forums or communities, however, has some negative connotations. Shilling is often linked with hidden motives such as being paid by an undisclosed third party.

The Acronyms

This fast-moving world doesn’t have time to type complete words and waste time when you could’ve communicated with a few letters. This brings a whole genre of acronym terms that have now become a norm of how we type or even speak.

DAPP – Decentralized App

Dapp is a blockchain-integrated website that requires you to connect and approve all transactions with your wallet signature.

DAO – Decentralized Autonomous Organization

DAO is a self-governing digital institution existing on a blockchain, formed to pursue a common goal. a DAO is governed entirely by its individual members who collectively make critical decisions about the future of the project, such as technical upgrades and treasury allocations.

DEGEN – Degenerate

DEGEN usually refers to people who make risky and bad bets. In the crypto space, it can refer to people who invest in digital assets like NFTs without doing due diligence.

BTFD – Buy The F****** Dip

BTFD is an aggressive strategy of dip-buying encouraged by traders in hot markets, such as with Bitcoin.

DEFI – Decentralized Finance

Defi refers to the ecosystem of financial applications that are being developed on top of blockchain systems.

DYOR – Do Your Own Research

DYOR is a common phrase used by cryptocurrency enthusiasts. However, the acronym is not a piece of advice exclusive to the cryptocurrency ecosystem. It is commonly used throughout the internet due to how fast and easily misinformation can spread.

FOMO – Fear Of Missing Out

The concept refers to the feeling of anxiety or the idea that other people are sharing in a positive or unique experience while you are missing out.

MAXI – Maximalist

It is used for someone who believes that one particular crypto is the only viable one by far and predominantly invests in it.

P2E – Play to Earn

P2E is a business model behind crypto games and describes game mechanics that enable players to earn token rewards.

PFP – Picture For Proof / Profile Picture

Some of the most successful NFTs collections out there consist of profile pics that the owners often use in social media to showcase their affiliation.

POAP – Proof Of Appearance Protocol

a system used to distribute crypto-badges to event attendees, course graduates, or something similar. A person’s POAP collection acts as a digital proof of representation without providing explicit personal data.

WAGMI – We’re All Going to Make It

WAGMI means that the group or the community will be successful, often expressed in reaction to good news or after actions generally believed to lead to successful outcomes.

Typos – Now, that’s a new one

The crypto terminology uses typos (misspelled words) to represent processes and technologies. Whether these originated from someone actually making a typo or were purposely misspelled to avoid confusion, whatsoever the typo is now the right way to term it.

BUIDL – build

BUIDL is a warping of the word “build”, a call to build and contribute proactively to the blockchain and cryptocurrency ecosystem, instead of passively holding.

HODL – Hold / Hold On To Dear Life

Hodl is a misspelled version of the word hold. It means to hold in the context of buying and holding Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. The term is commonly used by cryptocurrency investors that refuse to sell their cryptocurrency regardless of the price increasing or decreasing.

Knowing how the crypto world works is no more knowledge of interest, it has become a necessity, general knowledge that all must know. Cryptocurrency is not just a digital asset but also a multi-level marketing scheme for a new generation.

These terms that seem to be of a newly-discovered alien world aren’t that difficult once you get to know what they mean.

Here’s a fun quiz for you all, go through this cryptic conversation of crypto enthusiasts and see how much of it you understand after going through this article. And let us know how many you got right in the comments below.

-GM ser. Clean pfp!

-Hey fren! Thanks. Just aped hard into this SOL project I heard about in some TS, then grinded to get on the WL. The drop was last night. WAGMI

-Dope! Still bullish? Wen moon?

-Lol, ngl, not sure. Floor price dropped overnight, but there’s cool utility, like airdrops and a DAO. I’ve got diamond hands. Still liquid lol. Delisted from OpenSea and gonna HODL

-Sure it’s not a rug?

-Don’t think so. Doxxed team and seems legit. Used a burner to mint tho — gotta secure the bag lol. Folx on Discord spreading FUD lately. What’s new with you this szn?

-I’ve got my eyes on this blue chip ETH collection. Probably nothing

-You a whale now or what LOL

Dialogue by powderapp

Trust Machines – Business Idea, Value Proposition and Everything else about the company

Shaheera Faheem — Wed, 06 Apr 2022 11:05:17 GMT

Bitcoin has had a bad reputation for the past few years as the crypto world is broadening. The decentralised digital cryptocurrency, powered by a vast computer network, is ill-famed for its degenerate uses and the drastic fluctuations in its value.

The rapid growth of Ethereum is because this blockchain platform supports smart contracts that support non-fungible tokens (NFTs), SEO hubs and a long list of decentralized apps. Furthermore, it is expected to gain more momentum in 2022 with the upcoming updates.

Despite all these advantages that Ethereum claims to have over Bitcoin, it is not expected to bump bitcoin off the top spot anytime soon. Bitcoin still stands as the number 1 cryptocurrency protocol in the industry in terms of market cap and name recognition.

Background of the founders

Left to right: Dr Muneeb Ali, Dr JP Singh

Dr Muneeb Ali – A bitcoiner since the beginning

Muneeb Ali, the founder of 3 successful crypto-based startups, has been part of the bitcoin community since 2013. He considers bitcoin the best decentralized currency as it has the best store value in the long run and is arguably the most secure blockchain.

Dr Muneeb Ali did his graduation in Computer Science from Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) back in 2003. He worked as a researcher in many prestigious international universities before starting his Masters’s in 2011. Dr Ali did his master’s and later PhD in Computer Science from Princeton University.

During his time at Princeton, he co-founded an early Bitcoin application called Onename that enabled decentralized names and profile pages. The learnings from this experience led to the formation of Stacks which is an open-source network of decentralized apps and smart contracts built on Bitcoin. It was followed by an integrated platform called Hiro Systems, which builds developer tools for Stacks.

Dr JP Singh – The experienced professsor

Jaswinder Pal Singh completed his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford University in 1993 and joined Princeton’s Computer Science department as Assistant Professor in 1995. He has since been teaching at Princeton and was promoted to a full professor in 2005. Professor Singh has previously worked on FirstRain Inc. as a co-founder and CTO and with that experience, has directed the Princeton CTO Program since 2010 training young minds to handle technology and business together.

With his immersive expertise in crypto and particularly bitcoin, Muneeb Ali along with J.P Singh is building Trust Machines, the largest ecosystem of Bitcoin applications. Trust Machines encompasses all his previous work as it presents bitcoin as the final settlement layer.

Business Idea – Is Bitcoin just a Passive asset?

Just like the internet transformed communication and the web transformed access, bitcoin transforms trust – as it offers trust without centralization in an open and permissionless setting.

Though Bitcoin is a trillion-dollar community and there is no denying it is the most secure crypto investment yet people have concerns about it being merely an asset.

Founders of Trust Machines believe that bitcoin must not be limited to a passive store of value since its blockchain has the potential to support Defi, NFT trading, and the decentralized management of online communities through DAOs that competing blockchains are already hosting.

The smart contracts and programmable layers require the transformational properties of trust without centralization including openness, freedom from censorship, and scarcity, which are premised on decentralization, security and durability. No other blockchain comes close to Bitcoin in terms of these features thus bitcoin blockchain can be the best platform for smart contracts and applications.

This vision to construct programmable layers on to bitcoin blockchain was the foundation for both Stacks and Trust Machines.

Previous projects that led to the formation of Trust Machines

Stacks – Unleash Bitcoin’s full potential

Stacks solved the two major drawbacks of bitcoin by bringing smart contracts and faster confirmations to bitcoin. This way the user can take advantage of the security and network benefits of the largest most secure blockchain, and on top of that earn bitcoin by simply stacking their stacks.

Bitcoin folks can have two reactions to BTC vs. ETH gas fees comparison:

a) Keep denying that ETH is gaining more users and developers, OR

b) Grow the Bitcoin apps economy.

I’m in camp (b) with @Stacks. pic.twitter.com/YDXrSNTQHQ
— muneeb.btc (@muneeb) February 1, 2022

Tweet by Muneeb Ali on Feb 1, 2022

Stacks has its own token $STX, which currently has a market cap of ~$1.4 billion at a price of $1.41.

Hiro Systems – The internet isn’t going to decentralize itself

Hiro is a core entity within the Stacks Ecosystem, a collection of independent entities, developers and community members working to create a user-owned internet on Bitcoin. Hiro empowers developers with the tools they need to innovate and build on Bitcoin.

Dr Muneeb Ali was the co-founder and CEO of Hiro Systems but earlier this year transitioned to executive chairman of the board.

Trust Machines

The success of Stacks revealed the potential of smart contracts on bitcoin holds, this could transform bitcoin into a trillion-dollar productive asset and grow the Bitcoin economy exponentially.

Trust Machines takes the vision of Stacks forward by changing the narrative of Bitcoin to be an active asset by creating programmatic demand for it and growing a dominant ecosystem of cutting-edge apps and technologies on its blockchain across various industries.

Ethereum has 500 billion networks and apps while bitcoin provides 1000 billion networks yet only a few apps are built on it. This explains the massive market opportunity Trust machines is opening by facilitating app-building on the bitcoin blockchain.

Fundraising by Trust Machines

Seed Funding Round – Raising $150 M

On February 4th, 2022. Muneeb Ali announced raising $150 million in seed funding for his new company in collaboration with J.P Singh. The news was received with enthusiasm by the bitcoin community all around the world.

This news was followed by a tweet that disclosed the new CEO of Hiro Systems, Muneeb Ali steps down from the position.

Major news: we’ve raised $150M for a new entity to build the largest ecosystem of Bitcoin applications.

Bitcoin can be a productive asset and final settlement layer for web3 apps.

Say hello to Trust Machines: https://t.co/pRRxN90R1B
— muneeb.btc (@muneeb) February 3, 2022

Notable Industry Investors back Trust Machines

The funding came from some of crypto’s most active investors. The round was led by:

Breyer Capital
Hivemind Capital Partners

Other investors in the round included:

Digital Currency Group
Union Square Ventures
GoldenTree Asset Management

“We believe that Bitcoin can be more than a store of value; it can also be the settlement layer and platform for Web 3. Muneeb and JP have accomplished a great deal already by making Bitcoin programmable with use cases like lending applications and DAOs. We’re excited to support Trust Machines and their mission to help Bitcoin reach its potential.”
~ Jim Breyer, the founder and CEO of Breyer Capital.

Muneeb Ali in a tweet stated that he considers acquiring a huge investment is more of a responsibility than a celebration. The team has focused back on building and announced 15 openings in trust machines in positions of bitcoin core developer and others.

What’s next for Trust Machines?

With the latest capital acquisition, Trust Machines plans to engage Bitcoin engineers to develop solutions enabling investors to participate in the nascent yet promising decentralized financial industry.

Trust Machines will expand on the programming layer generated by Stacks by making it faster and easier to develop on the bitcoin blockchain and build applications that make Bitcoin productive like trustless Bitcoin lending.

“With the early foundation built, it’s time to concentrate on unlocking the next level of applications and platform technology on Bitcoin, enhancing the platforms for speed, scale, and functionality, and making Bitcoin apps a reality for hundreds of millions of users. This is why we launched Trust Machines and, with the backing of our terrific investors, we’re excited to take on this challenge.”
~ Dr Muneeb Ali, CEO Trust Machines

What are your views on the bitcoin blockchain serving as a settlement layer for digital transactions? Are you team bitcoin or team Ether? Let us know your view in the comments.

Here are 10 startup investors you can contact right now!

Shaheera Faheem — Tue, 05 Apr 2022 10:54:20 GMT

On this platform, we have been sharing guides to get you started in the startup ecosystem, How the government can help you in the process? When to raise capital? and if you don’t have the resources, what business options do you have requiring zero initial investments.

However, we realize it is hard for newcomers to go through intensive research phases to locate an investor suitable for their needs, let alone the deadly fundraising process. To simplify your journeys, we present a list of investors looking for startups and are open to pitches.

The Venture Capitalists mentioned invest in early-stage startups and can be contacted through email, Twitter DMs or through their websites. Go through the list, find one that suits your preferences and start preparing the pitch!

Red Bike Capital | Consumer Technology Investor

Investment type: Early Stage Funding
Invests in: US-based early-stage Fintech, Ecommerce infrastructure and Marketplaces, and Consumer tech
Additional information:
- It is a Latinx-led early stage fund based in New York
- Has 30 years of operating and investment experience including founding and scaling a Y Combinator-backed ecommerce startup, and sourcing deals via relationships with top founders and leading accelerators.

Contact Details

Website: redbikecapital.com
Email: rachel@redbikecapital.com
LinkedIn: Red Bike Capital
Twitter: @rtenbrink1

Collab Capital | Supporting black-owned bussinesses

Investment type: Conducts early stage funding with initial investments of $500K – $750K and follow up investments up to $2M.
Invests in: Early-stage tech companies with at least one Black founder.
Additional information:
- Collab Capital’s mission is to decrease the racial wealth gap by helping Black founded businesses overcome the funding challenges.
- Does not invest in biotechnology, cannabis and tobacco, cryptocurrency and tokens, food and beverage, gambling, liquor and spirits, professional services agencies, brick-and-mortar businesses (physical retail) and real estate.

Contact Details

Website: http://Collab.Capital
Email: press@collab.capital
LinkedIn: Collab Capital
Twitter: @jewelmelani

SRB Ventures | Investing in Innovations

Investment type: Pre-seed up to Series C, investing from $25 K to $1 M.
Invests in: Startups focused on fintech, enterprise, web3, and consumer tech.
Additional information:
- $10 million fund backed by an array of legendary institutions, operators, and investors.
- Invested in Mercury, Alpaca, Metafy, Lunchbox
- Invested in Tazah, that raised Pakistan’s largest Pre-Seed round worth $6.5 million.

Contact Details

Website: https://srb-ventures.com/
Email: sahil@srb.ventures
LinkedIn: SRB Ventures
Twitter: @SRBVentures , @SahilBloom

Hyper | A+ accelerator

Investment type: Each company gets $300k funding along with access to mentor network and participation in founder program.
Invests in small number of early-stage startups from any industry.
Additional information:
- Backed by Sequoia + A16Z
- Advisors include Naval Ravikant, Ashley Higgins, Ryan Hoover. Their sister co is Product Hunt so you get special access for launch.

Contact Details

Website: https://hyper.com/
Email: team@hyper.com
LinkedIn: Hyper Accelerator

Embedded Capital | Early Stage Fintech Investor

Investment type: Early stage investments
Invests in: fintechs across Europe, North America, India and Israel.
Additional information: The team has an entrepreneurial background as serial founders and managing team of the leading European FinTech ecosystem.

Contact Details

Website: https://embedded.capital/
Email: hi@embdded.capital
LinkedIn: Embedded Capital
Twitter: @julia_hubo

Octopus Ventures | For Ideas that will change the world

Investment type: deploys more than £200 million ever year, from Seed to Series B.
Invests in: Fintech, Health-tech, Deep tech, Consumer tech and b2b platforms.
Additional information: Has backed over 140 teams, some of whom have gone on to join forces with the world’s largest businesses including Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Twitter.

Contact Details

Website: https://octopusventures.com/
Email: press@octopusgroup.com
LinkedIn: Octopus Ventures
Twitter: @mariarotilu

The Chernin Group (TCG) | Invests in companies that define culture

Invests in: Web3 at earliest stages (SOL, Cosmos, Ceramic, etc.) and vertical topic areas (climate, digital fashion, AR, media, etc.).
Additional information: TCG is a multi-stage investment firm dedicated to building consumer businesses.

Contact Details

Website: h ttps://tcg.co/
Email: info@tcg.co
LinkedIn: TCG
Twitter: @gaby_goldberg

Outliers Ventures | Being an ‘outlier’ is a process, not an outcome

Investment type: Pre-seed and seed in MENA
Invests in: founders leveraging deep tech to drive the future of finance, retail and work.
Additional information: Invested in Pakistan’s noon academy, a leading edtech company; Tabby, MENA’s leading BNPL solution; Lean, a universal API provider among many other fintechs across US and MENA region.

Contact Details

Website: https://www.outliers.vc/
Email: hello@outliers.vc
LinkedIn: Outliers Venture Capital
Twitter: @OutliersVC

New Alpha Asset Management | Venture Capital Fintech

Investment Type: Investments between €1.5 and €4 million at the inflection stage (Late Seed and Series A)
Invests in: Startups involved in the digital transformation of the banking, insurance and asset management industries in Europe, mainly in France.
Additional information:
- Active minority shareholder position alongside management.
- Largest fintech portfolios in France.
- Independent, proprietary and differentiating ESG assessment performed prior to and after investment.

Contact Details

Website: https://www.newalpha.com/en/
Email: clam@newalpha.com
LinkedIn: New Alpha Asset Management
Twitter: @NewAlphaAM, @ClarisseLam

Avail this opportunity and reach out to the Venture Capitalists mentioned. Share your experiences with us and let us update the list accordingly.

Airlift – Business Idea, Value Proposition & Everything Else About the Company

Sarwat Rizvi — Sun, 03 Apr 2022 17:52:36 GMT

Flashback to 2018, we heard a Lahore-based startup raise a seed round of $2.2 million in the largest-ever funding round encountered by any Pakistani startup at that time.

Then again in 2021, we heard another rocketing success story from the same Lahore-based startup, that had now secured the largest venture fund in the startup history of the country of $85 million with international participation from 20VC and Buckley Ventures bringing the e-commerce builder to a $275 million valuation. And not just this, the round was also the largest Series B raised by a startup in the Middle East, North Africa & Pakistan, which included some high-profile investors.

This startup, that has brought about a revolution in the startup ecosystem of Pakistan is Airlift Technologies.

What is AIRLIFT?

AIRLIFT started back in 2018 as a decentralized mass transit platform, connecting both bus operators and passengers, later revolutionizing the mass transit business, making it a lot easier and more convenient on the operator end as well as the customer end.

Airlift Technologies

The company aims to build a world of self-empowerment using technology-backed logistic solutions that enable secure, reliable and affordable access to necessities. In a world full of ride-hailing services, Airlift has scaled Pakistan’s largest decentralized transportation network to change the way people move, shifting away from private vehicles towards shared mobility and affordable mass transport. While for transporters, the company offers a way to increase asset utilization by running their buses during idle time. For consumers, Airlift reduces both commute time and cost.

Airlift labels itself as an alternative to Uber, Careem and public transportation, allowing users to book air-conditioned rides on premium quality buses and vans that have fixed routes, stops and times, in the cities of Lahore and Karachi.

Airlift Express

Back in 2020, Airlift further diversified into last-mile delivery through AIRLIFT Express, delivering essentials across households in 30-45 minutes across Lahore, Karachi, Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Airlift Express spans food supplies, household supplies, pharmacy, stationery, pet food, fresh fruits and vegetables, small electronics and more. The venture has seen massive success, becoming as big as its original business stream of bus transport.

The establishment of AIRLIFT Express follows a trend common to the global transit industry, especially after the advent of the pandemic. As companies like Uber and Careem diversified into courier and delivery services to utilize their resources to the maximum, Airlift also jumped onto the bandwagon and did something similar and utilized technology to improve the lives of people on both ends for the better, from merchant to customer.

Background of the Founders

Left to right: Usman Gul, Meher Farrukh, Zohaib Ali, Awaab Khakwany, Muhammad Owais, Ahmed Ayub

Usman Gul: Co-founder and CEO

Usman graduated from Denison University with a Bachelor’s in Arts back in 2013 and started off his career as a Business Analyst at MasterCard. After two years, he left MasterCard and joined Marqeta, Inc as Manager – Business Development & Partnerships.

From there he later shifted to DoorDash and then in 2019 enrolled in an MBA programme at INSEAD. However, as his LinkedIn profile mentions, e dropped out of business school to launch Airlift Technologies.

Meher Farrukh: Co-founder

Meher is a Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) alumnus, who graduated as an Accounting & Finance major back in 2014.

She then joined Coca Cola as a Finance Analyst and after working there for three years, left the job and launched Airlift Technologies with her other co-founders.

Zohaib Ali: Co-founder

Zohaib graduated from LUMS as a science major, back in 2014. He began his professional career at the Germany-based firm, Everest Capital. After a year, he joined Pepperstone as a Foreign Exchange Trader and in 2019, he co-founded Airlift technologies with the rest of his peers.

However, he didn’t quite stop there, in May 2020, a year after launching Airlift, he co-founded Dastagyr and left Airlift.

Awaab Khakwany: Co-founder

Awaab is also a LUMS alumnus, who started his professional career at Nestle. And after working at a number of other organizations, in 2019 he co-founded and launched Airlift. Awaab, however, left Airlift in 2020 to pursue other interests.

Muhammad Owais: Co-Founder

Owais, like the rest of his peers, also graduated from LUMS as a science major. After graduation, he joined Teamants, a digital creative agency. He then joined Rocket Internet SE as a Business Analyst. From there, his career took off and he worked with a number of well-known organizations including, Hilaal Foods, Careem, Domino’s Pizza Pakistan, and then in 2019 Airlift.

Owais co-founded Airlift technologies with the rest of his peers in 2019 but later left the company and co-founded Dastagyr, to which he diverted all his efforts.

Ahmed Ayub: Co-founder

Ahmed graduated from FAST-NUCES as a CS major, after which he completed his MBD from the University of Bradford. He started off his professional career as a Systems Analyst at ABN AMRO Global IT Systems, and after four and a half years, left the place and joined LMKR as a Senior Software Manager.

Then in 2006, he joined Systems Limited as a Consultant Software Engineer and finally in 2019, along with other founder members launched Airlift technologies.

Funding Raised

Series A financing – Raised $14.2 million

In August 2019, Airlift got its first public validation that had investors’ attention when the startup announced a seed round of $2.2 million Pakistan’s largest seed round at the time being, with participation from international investors, one of which was Aatif Awan. Giving an incentive to the public perception that mass transit was a serious business.

The round was announced at the beginning of November 2019. By October, as per numbers available with Profit, Airlift had crossed the threshold of 10,000 bus bookings per day, generating an annualised revenue of $1.42 million.

Series B Financing – Raised $85 million

Then on July 1st, 2020, Airlift officially announced moving into the grocery delivery business with another investment of $10 million in an extended Series-A round. Under the new model, Airlift would be setting up its operations to make swift deliveries through a network of warehouses to deliver groceries in a short span of 45-minutes under the quick-commerce model.

Just over a year later in August 2021, the company announced raising a record high revenue of $85 million in Series-B funding, and a valuation of a little over a quarter of a billion dollars ($275 million).

Their commitment and simple yet brilliant business model and adaptability have attracted not just national but international attention and acclaim. They have raked in $24.2 Million in investments across multiple rounds. Backed by US-based Quiet Capital, ACE Ventures, TrueSight ventures, Fatima Gobi Ventures, Indus Valley Capital and many other investors.

Future Plans for Airlift

The company aims to use the funding to expand its network and the scope of its operations. Currently concentrated in and around major cities like Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad, they have already bought a new wave of tech-based logistics solutions across the country.

For now, the company is predominantly focusing on their home turf of Pakistan and are taking advantage of the current need for e-shopping, last-mile delivery services, and the pandemic hindering travel. However, they do claim to have other plans in the pipeline and are working to start full operations on all their business fronts as soon as possible.

Despite its whopping success, the startup now faces competition from Cairo-headquartered Swvl that has expanded to Lahore, Karachi and now Islamabad as well. Airlift is clearly the market leader for now, at least, with over tens of routes and hundreds of buses in Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad.

While the Egyptian startup is clearly backed by some of the leading global and regional investors and has all the resources to spice things up, Airlift doesn’t seem worried at all about the newly faced competition. They’re, in fact, already thinking about their international expansion.

Here are the 6 best Co-working Spaces of Karachi

Shaheera Faheem — Wed, 30 Mar 2022 13:41:13 GMT

Karachi is the hub for all sorts of sectors and their operations. Almost all of our industries, be it media, exports or even technology are headquartered there. Most tech giants start off from Karachi or move to operate there once they receive the slightest of success. Companies originating from any corner of Pakistan tend to have a representation in Karachi.

This calls for a lot of offices but given the sky touching real estate prices in Karachi, it seems impossible to rent an office.

Shared workspaces are a need of the modern time, but the need is inevitable in Karachi. Taking membership in a co-working space and functioning flexibly at low cost is the solution that this problem needed.

However, shared workspaces have now become a competitive market with a great number of stakeholders. If you are to focus on your business, you must need a stable hassle-free place.

We present our top 6 co-working places of Karachi to save you from trial and error-ing your way towards the perfect spot.

Seeds
The Hive
The BullPen
DotZero
The Workplace
SandBox

SEEDS

The founding team of Seeds is of the strong opinion that a vibrant, motivational and empowering environment sparks new ideas, broadens mindsets and strengthens the passion to execute these ideas. Seeds co-working space has been developed with this aim.

The chic design, efficient staff, positive ambience, strong community and customer value are the qualities that make Seeds, the client’s favourite co-working space. It offers a wide range of office setups extending from shared and dedicated desks to private offices, virtual offices and conference rooms.

General Information

Location: Zamzama Commercial Area Defence V Karachi
Contact information:
- (021)35373337
- info@visitseeds.com
Preferred for: Startups and Corporate Companies
Additional features: Relaxing Lounge
Timings: Always open

Payment Plans

Day Pass	Dedicated seat	Monthly Pass
PKR 750/month	PKR 18,000/month	PKR 12,000/month

The Hive

The Hive provides flexible, scalable and agile coworking and serviced office options for teams of all sizes. The Hive believes in inclusivity thus offers packages suiting the needs of small entrepreneurs, startups to even mature startups and tech giants.

The features that make the Hive distinct from others are its flexible lease terms, agility to scale, and transparency in budgeting. It facilitates its members with an uninterrupted power supply, robust and secure network infrastructure in addition to on-demand meeting rooms and shared amenities.

General Information

Location: 1st Floor, M A Tabba Foundation Building, Block 9, Gizri Road, Clifton
Contact information:
- +92 21 37131410
- info@thehive.pk
Preferred for: Remote workers, Mature Startups and Tech Giants
Additional features: Monthly Book Club
Timing: 9am – 6pm

Payment Plans

Contact for Information

The BullPen

Setting up a startup is no easy task, The BullPen helps entrepreneurs to stand their ground in the competitive market by providing a stable and easing environment that ensures growth.

The BullPen claims to work differently by offering personalized offers and servicing, it lets you make your package yourself according to your unique needs. These diverse plans range from the cheapest of desks to the most luxurious of offices. Additionally, it lets the members design their workspaces according to their personal tastes rather than sticking to a basic corporate look.

General Information

Locations:
- 1st Commercial Street, Khalid Commercial, Phase 7 Extension, D.H.A
- 1st Ittehad Lane 3, Ittehad Commercial,, Phase 6, DHA
Contact information: +92 336 1112855
Preferred for: Startups and Corporate Companies
Additional features:
- Open Workspace on the Rooftop
- Community Manager
Timing: 9am – 7pm

Payment Plans

Private Capsule	Team Room	Private Office	Single Desk
PKR 18000/month	PKR 45000/month	PKR 36000/month	PKR 15000/month

DotZero

DotZero is among the pioneers of co-working space in Pakistan that launched its operations way back in 2013. The goal was to create and catalyze an ecosystem for technology startups, which has definitely been achieved to great extents.

DotZero along with offering the physical space and equipment entrepreneurs require to work on their ideas provides an enriching platform that encourages collaboration. Smart networking and the professional community further create employment and investment opportunities.

DotZero partners with all big entities of Pakistan including Plan9, Invest2Innovate, Startup Grind, Pakistan Innovation Fund, P@sha, Open Karachi,

General Information

Location: 14th Floor, Dilkusha Forum, Main Tariq Road, Karachi.
Contact information:
- +92 336 1112855
- info@thedotzero.com
Preferred for: Students, SME Charters and Large Corporations
Additional features: 270-degree view of Karachi
Timing: Mon-Fri 24 hrs

Payment Plans

Co-working Space (half day)	Day pass	Co-working Space (week)	Hot Desk	Zone Desk
PKR 500/half day	PKR 1000/day	PKR 5000/week	PKR 12000/month	PKR 15000/month

Workplace

The office space, WiFi, Broadband, phone, meeting room, conference room, and the gathering area are a few major facilities Workplace provides as an alternative that is moderate and light on the pocket.

The Workplace empowers you to enhance your systems administration skills by enabling access to communication with other organizations situated nearby. This community of like-minded people working together under one roof lets individuals and businesses grow their vision and execution with guidance from heap organizations.

It also provides big open spaces dedicated to workshops and training programs that cater to companies wanting to hold their training sessions and seminars, a sports room with gaming consoles, ping pong table and more, prayer area, along with a fibre-optic internet connection are the bonus points that let the Workplace stand out among competitors.

General Information

Location: Office No 1502, 15th Floor, Caesar’s Tower Shahrah-e-Faisal, Karachi.
Contact information:
- 0317-2999440
- 021-32800214
- info@workplace.pk
Preferred for: Startups, Freelancers, Women Entrepreneurs and Business owners
Additional features:
- Gaming Area and Prayer Area
- Located at the busiest hub
Timing: 24/7 access

Payment Plans

Hot Desk	Reserved Co-Working	My Room
PKR 9999/Seat/month	PKR 13999/month	PKR 32000/month

Sand Box

Starting from a humble beginning of a table, 3 chairs and a rented apartment, Sand Box now has over 200 community members and 12,000 sq feet of office space. Sand Box partners with Upwork, Hubspot, Startups by Google, IBM, AWS activate and Microsoft for Startups to carry out its operations in Pakistan.

Sand Box targets the problems of unproductivity, inefficiency, and lack of discipline when working from the comfort of your house. It offers well-maintained office space which is cost-friendly thus facilitating the remote workers, self-employed and entrepreneurs.

Sand Box offers a diverse range of membership plans including daily drop-ins and on-demand meeting rooms in addition to the basic monthly, virtual, part-time, and full-time office space.

General Information

Location: A26, PECHS Block-6, Shahra-e-Faisal, Karachi
Contact information:
- 0321-8651457
- 0304-0445341
- sandboxkhi@gmail.com
Preferred for: Startups, Freelancers, Women Entrepreneurs and Business owners
Additional features: Free Trial
Timing: 24/7 access

Payment Plans

Dedicated Desk	Private Studio	Meeting Room
PKR 7999/month	PKR 30000/month	PKR 999/hour

Now that finding the perfect space is sorted, you can focus on levelling up your brand and your career.

Have a look at these articles featuring the best co-working spaces in Lahore, Islamabad and Peshawar as well. Let us know your experience with co-working spaces in Karachi and which would you suggest to be added to this list.

Here is everything you need to know about COLABS and its latest funding

Shaheera Faheem — Mon, 28 Mar 2022 17:30:53 GMT

Innovations are often brought about by introducing a new use of resources you already hold. Uber and Careem introduced shared use of cars earlier limited to the owner. Shared usage of real estate gave rise to Airbnb lodging for vacation rentals and tourism activities.

The founders of COLABS explore real estate as a co-working space. The leading co-work space of Pakistan, raising huge funding of $3 million last week, validates the need for such a space for the modern work ecosystem.

Among many co-working spaces operating in Lahore, what is it that enables COLABS to raise humungous funding round despite strong competitors? COLABS does not limit to providing a co-working space, the startup announced a SaaS product to enable businesses to meet back-office needs. Let’s discover what COLABS is and how it plans to transform the co-working ecosystem with a new product.

What is COLABS?

COLABS visions to redefine the future of work in Pakistan. It is Pakistan’s fastest growing flexible workspace, thoughtfully designed to enable people and businesses to grow. The key goal is to inspire collaboration, productivity and innovation through a community and network.

“The idea for Colabs is to create spaces across the country, where we can service freelancers, startups, SMEs and large enterprises. It is a community for anyone who wants to start up their career or a company or wants to enter the country. Colabs will support them in their journey. We want to become that gateway into Pakistan,”
~ Omar Shah, co-founder and CEO of COLABS

Background of the team

Omar Shah, Fatima Mazhar and Ali Shah – COLABS Team

COLABS is the brainchild of the twin brothers Omar Shah and Ali Shah who bring their individual expertise in investment banking and construction respectively to develop an innovative solution with a co-working space.

Omar Shah – Co-founder and CEO

After completing his bachelor’s in economics from the University of London, Omar started his career in equities at Berenberg bank. Soon he moved to the position of associate director at Abraaj Group, a Private Equity and Venture Capital firm.

He has been an angel investor in early-stage high-growth Pakistani companies. Omar Shah is an investor and a board member in Patari, Pakistan’s leading music streaming app. He is also a board member of his family business of real estate development with interests in textile, agriculture, housing and sand mining.

Despite 12 years of living abroad and a highly accomplished career as an investor, Patriotism brought him back to Pakistan. As Shah shared in an interview with Drivedea, his decision to move back to Pakistan was followed by a work burnout. It made him realize that if he were to work this hard he would prefer to channel his efforts to something that would benefit the country.

Ali Shah – Co-founder and Director

Ali is a University College London graduate who later joined the long-established family-run real estate and development firm. SABCON is focused on high-end real estate development diversified with interests in real estate, project management services, technology, agriculture and sand mining. Ali currently operates as the CEO of SABCON.

The company has integrated verticals in financing, design, planning and build-out leading real estate projects in Pakistan. The COLABS spaces are also developed by SABCON.

Fatima Mazhar – Chief Operating Officer

Fatima has extensive corporate experience with many renowned companies. She worked with Careem for around 5 years, being an integral part of the launch of Careem in different countries and cities as the Head of Expansion. She then did her MBA from MIT and came back to join KeepTruckin as General Manager.

She then launched a startup by the name dukaan.pk with Monis Rahman. However, within 4 months she left it to join COLABS in June 2021 as the COO. Currently, she also serves as the Advisory board member of Jiye Technologies which recently launched an agri-tech BNPL feature.

Why COLABS?

Though the origins of co-working spaces date back to 1995, it is only now that they’re getting popular in Pakistan. Some co-working spaces were operating in Pakistan for long but none worthy of any news. Last year, the co-working ecosystem gained momentum and this year daftarkhwan and COLABS raised funding.

What changed in these years that sparked the interest and inclination of people towards co-working spaces? The pandemic hastened the development in many sectors including co-work spaces.

As the pandemic hit, the offices that could move remote did and the results were great for them. Those that could not, had to bear the flared up real estate and office running expenses. In these circumstances, co-work spaces brought a solution for both categories.

To raise productivity

Work-from-home did turn out cost-efficient for companies but now as the pandemic ends and people are going out socializing, the productivity level once experienced through work from home won’t last long. The distractions are open and managing without a set working space and hours would become difficult to manage for most.

Remote work infrastructure

The trend of freelancing and remote work for international companies is increasing in Pakistan primarily among the middle class. However, given the economic condition of Pakistan’s mass population, our homes are not suitable for work. Multiple people living together, no separate rooms, unstable internet, make it difficult to do full-time jobs from home. In such circumstances, a co-working space with flexible subscriptions and hours addresses the needs of this group.

Solution for Relocations

When a company hires talent from across the country, it needs to get it relocated and cover the expense of its residence and travel. If such companies collaborate with co-working spaces operating in cities where they wish to hire a team and let the co-working space host some of their members it would save expenses. This would also be good for individuals that wish to work without of station companies but can’t move.

Facilitates Expansion

As startups like Bazaar, Careem, Airlift, Bykea expand to smaller cities with an aim to cover Pakistan completely, it is impossible for them to build offices in each and every city. A co-working space could help them operate in every city without renting offices everywhere, thus facilitating expansion.

What does COLABS offer?

A great startup is initially just an idea, how you execute that idea decides what it becomes. Bad execution could send even the greatest of business ideas to fail. COLABS facilitates all the needs of a startup from idea to execution. COLABS primarily offers three things:

Physical Space
Services
Community and Network
Co-Beyond – SaaS product to solve business problems

Physical Space

The most basic facility that COLABS offers is a cost-efficient physical space to save members from real-estate rents.

Services

As COLABS aims to be a gateway into Pakistan, it offers office services of a quality that an international company would require if they wish to operate in Pakistan. A well-managed office space that offers power, backup power in case of electricity blackout, kitchen services, relaxing lounges and activities, event space, workshops, socializing opportunities to name a few.

Community and Network

The most important feature that sets COLABS apart from all its competitors in the closely-knit community. The reason COLABS is a co-working space and not separately managed office setups that companies could rent is to encourage communication among the leadership of diverse startups and companies.

The fact that Fatima Mazhar came to COLABS seeking office space, and the communication led her to take up the position of COO at COLABS validates the opportunities communication brings. Fatima shared in a podcast at thought behind things, that they host office space for most of the emerging fintech in Pakistan. Having them collaborate could bring transformational innovations to the fintech ecosystem.

Co-Beyond – SaaS product to solve business problems

COLABS now provides a one-stop business solution to its community of COLABS members. Co-Beyond is a one-stop source of HR, Marketing Legal and Financial solutions that serve as an extension of COLABS’ core business services.

This service would include company registration, talent sourcing and management, payroll processing, and legal and tax compliance. The service is currently in beta phase and the company expands the team to launch the SaaS workspace business service.

“We realized that people setting up operations in Pakistan need other services; they need help to set up companies, process payrolls and to ensure tax compliance. That is why we introduced our business solutions. Our plan is to get to 600 paying customers in the next 12 months, and from there we will roll this product out to the market.”
~ Omar Shah, co-founder and CEO of COLABS

Funding raised by COLABS

COLABS raised $3 million in a Seed round

COLABS announced raising $3 million in Seed funding led by Indus Valley Capital, Zayn Capital and Fatima Gobi Ventures. Other investors involved in the financing round include Shorooq Partners, Kinnow Capital, Muir Capital, Sai Ventures, and some key angels, including Turner Novak, William Hockey, and Teddy Himler.

This investment marked the first time these three renowned Pakistan-based Venture Capitalists have collaborated. COLABS’ new funding brings the total amount raised by the startup to $4 million, including capital from an unannounced pre-seed round back in 2019.

The amount is raised for the business product launched by COLABS that would enable businesses to meet back-office needs. This product would be available to all COLAB members to assist them in their business proceedings. The company also plans to later extend the product services to third parties outside their community.

“With the capital we have raised from leading investors today, we’re now looking to turn our offerings into software-based solutions and productise services that could also be extended to people and institutions outside of our network, in addition to bringing on world-class talent to our existing team of rockstars. With this investment, COLABS aims to knit together a community of 100,000 entrepreneurs and freelancers in Pakistan, starting with 10,000 members within the next two years.”
~ Press release by COLABS post fundraise announcement

Future for COLABS

COLABS would channel the prospects of the recent investment to expand in the major cities of Islamabad and Karachi along with increasing their branches in Lahore. The broader vision of the team is to expand its footprint in every city in Pakistan thus facilitating the expansion of startups all across Pakistan.

As more and more people enter the startup ecosystem and more sectors other than fintech and retail are explored, the need for co-working spaces would further increase. The business model of COLABS would sustain and generate revenue in the coming years as now it not only solves workspace issues but business problems as well.

Here are the best 6 Co-working Spaces in Islamabad

Shaheera Faheem — Fri, 25 Mar 2022 11:11:00 GMT

Pakistan’s Startup ecosystem raised a grand total of $350 million in 2021 while freelancers alone raised a total of $216.78 million in the fiscal year 2021-22. This rising shift to tech has also increased the number of remote workers and self-employed individuals.

Most freelancers and remote workers work from their homes which gets distracting and it’s hard to maintain discipline. Most of the pre-work of a startup happens in the founder’s houses or meeting up in public spaces. These early-stage professionals can’t afford an office setup anytime soon thus the inefficiency, lack of productivity and obstacles remain.

This situation calls for shared working spaces that can be booked for a day, week or month. To cater for the increased demand for well-managed and sustainable workspaces, the concept of coworking space was introduced in Pakistan. These are offices having desk setups, individual or team offices, meeting rooms, halls and all other office infrastructure along with the technical equipment that can be booked by individuals, companies or entrepreneurs to have a smooth hassle-free work experience.

However, these coworking spaces not only provide the basic infrastructure but form communities that mentor each other, socialise and collaborate on projects. We have gathered a few of such shared workplaces operating in Islamabad.

Here are the 6 best coworking spaces in Islamabad:

Popcorn Studio
Cowork 24
Ivy coworking
Twinhub
WeCreate
Kickstart

Popcorn Studio

With the aim to provide an equipped office space that would be light on the pocket, Popcorn Studio started its operations in 2016 and now stands as the largest co-working space network. It has offices in different locations of Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi and Faisalabad.

It offers a multi-storey building with each storey designated to a specific category. The first floor has offices, meeting rooms and halls for freelancers, remote workers and early-stage startups. The basement however is for corporate offices. In addition, it conducts workshops, events and mentoring sessions to keep the members connected.

Along with their branches, popcorn studios have collaborated with many cafes that allocate half of their seating space to popcorn studios membership holders and also gives discounts on the menu. Popcorn studios work through QR code entrance both in the offices and collaborating cafes.

General Information

Location: Kural Chowk, Rawalpindi
Contact information:
- (051) 8737115
- 03177672676
- info@popcornstudio.co
Preferred for: Small Teams, Entrepreneurs and Startups
Additional features: Free usage of workshop hall and training centre
Timings: 24 hrs/ 7 days a week

Payment Plans

Kettle Corn	Kernel Corn	Gourmet Corn
PKR 5000/month 80 hrs/ month	PKR 8,500/month 180 hrs/ month	PKR 10,500/month 300 hrs/ month

Cowork24

Cowork24 aims to create an environment that increases productivity, innovation, and collaboration. It provides facilities such as brainstorming conference rooms, work desks, recreation spaces, hall bookings for events or meetings. This reduced real estate costs along with access to innovators and experts give the newbies a good headstart into the industry.

They provide a fully-furnished and equipped workspace. So, all you’ve got to do is turn up, plug it in and get started with your work. The feature that sets cowork24 apart from other co-working spaces is its economical prices that are easily affordable for low-income individuals that seek office space.

General Information

Location: Kural Chowk, Rawalpindi
Contact information:
- (051) 8737115
- 03177672676
- info@popcornstudio.co
Preferred for: Small Teams, Entrepreneurs and Startups
Additional features: Free usage of workshop hall and training centre
Timings: 24 hrs/ 7 days a week

Payment Plans

Daily	Weekly	Monthly
PKR 500/day	PKR 2,500/week	PKR 7,500/month
Quarterly	Monthly (Team of 3 or more)	Private Offices (4-6 persons)
PKR 5,800/month	PKR 5,000/month/person	PKR 36,000/month

Ivy Co-working

IVY Co-working offers meeting facilities and workspaces that are fully equipped and feature the latest technologies and business services. It has its branch in professional business centres at the most convenient location in Islamabad. You can reserve desk spaces, private offices or board rooms as per your requirements instead of conducting meetings in restaurants or pricey hotels.

General Information

Location: 156 Service Road North, Office B4, Islamabad
Contact information:
- 051-4438461
- info@ivycoworking.com
Preferred for: Small Teams, Entrepreneurs and Startups
Additional features: Top Event Invites
Timings: 24 hrs/ 7 days a week

Payment Plans

Daily	Virtual	Monthly
PKR 1,500/day	PKR 7,500/week	PKR 15,000/month

TWINHUB

As the name suggests, TwinHub is the hub for freelancers, entrepreneurs, self-employed individuals and remote workers in the twin cities. It is the creation of a group of engineers who had a hard time finding an affordable workplace in Islamabad. The place features comfortable furniture, the latest office equipment and lightning fast internet with the backup of two connections.

TwinHub offers a wide range of membership options consisting of Daily, Weekly, Monthly or Shared membership plans as per every individual or company’s preferences. The prices are manageable for members in the early stages of their careers. In addition to that, TwinHub incentivizes women’s inclusion by offering them special discounts and ensuring their safety concerns.

General Information

Location: Twinhub, 4th Floor, Interlace Plaza, I-8 Markaz, Islamabad, Pakistan
Contact information:
- (051) 8446494
- 0334 8946482
- info@twinhub.pk
Preferred for: Engineers, Programmers, Freelancers, Entrepreneurs, and Startups
Additional features: 25% off for women
Timings: Flexible timings

Payment Plans

Daily	Weekly
PKR 1000/day	PKR 4,500/week
Part-Time (6pm-10pm)	Monthly (shared space)
PKR 5,500/month	PKR 14,000/month

WECREATE

Women’s Entrepreneurial Centre of Resources, Education, Access, and Training for Economic Empowerment (WECREATE) is an international community commissioned by the U.S. Department of State.

WECREATE is Pakistan’s first women-only co-working space. It gives women access to a coaching network that guides them about various business building models that help grow new start-ups along with providing them with a physical space that nourishes and supports a local, national and international ecosystem.

Along with facilitating members with tech and infrastructure requirements it also provides them free access to halls and meeting rooms. WeCreate is counted among the leading women-centric coworking spaces in Islamabad, which serves as an ideal platform for women-owned/led start-ups.

The members of WECREATE are knitted together in a healthy community that in addition to supporting each other professionally, organise activities such as Music Nights, movie night, qawali event and workshops to enjoy and elevate themselves as a whole community.

General Information

Location: F11 – Markaz, Islamabad
Contact information:
- (051) 2224245
- (051) 8373115
Preferred for: Small Teams, Entrepreneurs and Startups
Additional features: Community activities
Timings: 24 hrs/ 7 days a week

Payment Plans

Daily	Weekly	Monthly
PKR 1500/day	PKR 6000/week	PKR 15,000/month

KickStart

Kickstart introduces cost-effective workspace solutions for all sectors be it a growing startup, established business or a freelance agency. It has a prime location and exposes members to a world of innovation, networking, and collaboration.

Besides the essential office infrastructure and equipment, it offers value-added services like Bookkeeping, Digital Marketing and Legal Services to facilitate the members every step of the way. The flexibility of the office plans enables the members to upgrade as their teams grow.

General Information

Location: Korang Road, I-10, Islamabad
Contact information:
- 0333-0596162
- solutions@kickstart.pk
Preferred for: Small Teams, Entrepreneurs, and Startups
Additional features:
- Digital marketing
- Legal Services
- Bookkeeping
Timings: 24/7 access

Payment Plans

Flex Desk	Hot Desk
PKR 5000/month	PKR 9000-13000/month (24/7 access)
Dedicated Desk	Serviced Office
PKR 16,000-25,000/month	PKR 16,000-20,000/month

These are not the only coworking spaces available in Islamabad, there are plenty more like Regus, The Wing, The Desk, Planet IO, LaunchPad7, The Hive, Coworkin Inn and Hangout to name a few.

One might question if so many coworking spaces for the small area of Rawalpindi-Islamabad are even required? Turns out the booming trend of freelancing and entrepreneurship has got everyone on board. These coworking spaces are all running at full capacity as the demand is surprisingly high.

Most of the mentioned co-work offices have branches in other cities which makes it easier for individuals whose job requires frequent travelling within the country. With the membership of a co-work capacity, you can take up a desk in any of their branches and can easily conduct meetings with clients of every city.

Have a look at these articles featuring the best co-working spaces in Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar as well.

Pakistan’s Jugnu raises $22.5 M Series A led by B2B e-commerce leader Sary

Shaheera Faheem — Thu, 24 Mar 2022 08:11:35 GMT

Jugnu, a Lahore-based B2B marketplace startup offering seamless procurement for Kiryana stores, raised $22.5 million in Series A funding led by Sary, a B2B marketplace that focuses on the MENAP region, with participation from Sarmayacar, and Systems Limited.

“The strategic investment and alliance with Sary paves way for consolidation in the B2B space in MENAP, providing both companies with the ability to leverage diverse expertise and talent transfers across the region,”
~ Jugnu

Prior to this funding, Jugnu and its parent company Saleflo have raised $3.2 million from Systems Limited, a Lahore-based leading global technology, and business process outsourcing services provider. This latest funding takes the total funding raised to $25.7 million.

Jugnu was founded in 2019 by Sharoon Saleem, Yasir Memon, Syed Khurram Haider, and Ahsan Muhammad Khan with the goal of helping small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) owners realize their full earning potential by making business easy for them.

Over one million kiryana stores in Pakistan lack access to convenient inventory procurement and over two-thirds of retail stores don’t get serviced directly by any organized distribution channel. The startup aims to resolve these challenges by connecting retail stores and SMEs directly to manufacturers through its app.

“Our new alliance with Sary will be a great boost for Jugnu. We’ve established a foothold in our existing operating cities with a rapidly growing customer base, and Sary will help us accelerate the development of our platform to connect producers and businesses, thereby ensuring SMEs in Pakistan have access to the best, most competitively priced goods at a single tap.”
~ Sharoon Saleem, Co-Founder and CEO ofJugnu

Jugnu serves thousands of grocery store owners through its mobile app and fulfilment centres, offering next-day delivery for all their purchases. Jugnu claims that its product is being used by 30,000 Kiryana stores across Lahore, Rawalpindi, and Islamabad.

Jugnu plans to use the funding to expand its team, develop its technological platform, increase its product offerings, and expand its geographic reach.

“Jugnu has focused on developing strong capabilities and moats in key markets during the last 18 months, leveraging our product-market fit to grow rapidly during this period. This round of investment will enable us to expand our team, ramp up our technological platform, expand product offerings and extend our geographical footprint.”
~ Sharoon Saleem, Co-founder and CEO of Jugnu

Venture Capitalists & Term Sheets – Everything You Need to Know!

Sarwat Rizvi — Thu, 24 Mar 2022 05:16:00 GMT

It is a common practice for investors to only become a part of a company if they believe, that it will earn them a solid return on their investment in the years to come. What’s even more persuading is when that company has everything in order, with the terms of a potential agreement laid out in a way that’s transparent and doesn’t leave much room for misinterpretation or confusion.

And this is where term sheets come into play.

What is a Term Sheet?

A term sheet can be defined as a non-binding contract that sets out the basic conditions for making an investment. It serves as a template or the first step that leads to a more detailed legally binding document.

Once the concerned parties have reached a mutual consensus, a contract is laid out confirming the details of the term sheet. In essence, a term sheet should cover the most important aspects of an agreement without going into any minor details or contingencies covered by a legal binding contract.

How do Term Sheets work?

To be more precise, it essentially sets out the groundwork for ensuring that the parties involved in a business transaction agree on the most important aspects of the deal, thus precluding the possibility of misunderstanding and diminishing the likelihood of unnecessary litigation. It also ensures that there is no premature incurrence of expensive legal charges involved in drawing up a binding agreement or contract.

All term sheets should incorporate certain basic elements, such as information on the identity of the parties involved, valuation, and preferred payments. It also includes information on all the properties involved, the initial purchase price, including contingencies that may impact that price, a response time period, and any other information that is considered relevant at the time.

Term sheets are most often associated with startups. Entrepreneurs find this document as crucial for attracting investors, such as venture capitalists (VC) with capital to fund enterprises. Additionally, the company valuation, investment amount, percentage stake, voting rights, liquidation preference, anti-dilutive provisions, and investor commitment are some items that should be chalked out in the term sheet. Companies can also use a term sheet for mergers or attempted acquisitions.

Term Sheets for Entrepreneurs

If you are a founder, entrepreneur or even a potential investor, you might have encountered a term sheet at some point. So, what are term sheets actually for and what issues do you need to consider?

A term sheet, also known as a letter of intent or a memorandum of understanding (MOU) generally sets out the key commercial and legal terms in respect of a proposed transaction. It may also contain information about something that is excluded from the contract or anything that either one or both parties may regard as requirements.

What to include in Term Sheets?

Before entering into a term sheet, you should decide whether the document will be legally binding, partially binding or not binding at all. As a founder, you should be particularly wary of binding obligations that detriment your ability to work with other investors for too long a period and be even warier of an investor who wishes to impose a penalty on you if for some reason the terms of the letter are breached. Since the position may not always be clear, legal advice and clear legal drafting will eliminate all or most uncertainties.

While the term sheet doesn’t have to go into every little detail or contingency of a deal, it should include all the major points so investors can read through it and know exactly what they are getting into. Since venture capitalists have many deals in front of them, as a business owner, it’ll only add to your advantage if you make the process easier for your investor by laying out a clear and concise document.

Not to forget, there is also a balance between too much and too little detail. While too much detail can cause delay and increase your costs as you may end up negotiating the deal twice. Too little might imply that none of the key commercial issues has been addressed, with you finding out later that there was never a deal, to begin with. A good term sheet should save you time and money, but a poor one will have the opposite effect!

All in all, although a term sheet is not a binding contract, it’s still important to know how they work and why they are beneficial for your business. Remember that without one, or even with one that’s limiting and confusing, you’ll spend more time, effort, and money in coming to an agreement with your investors.

How does Metric assist with your day to day accounting?

Shaheera Faheem — Wed, 23 Mar 2022 17:42:42 GMT

We often see a startup emerging with a boom, a great idea, an exceptionally passionate team, receive a good amount of investments but within a few months or a year, it fades away. What is the common factor in all these startups that fail to sustain themselves?

Why startups fail?

When Meenah Tariq, a seasoned entrepreneur, co-founder, trainer and consultant for many startups, an accelerator at Invest2innovate and a Venture Capital Investor says why a startup fails, you listen carefully.

According to her these startups show promising prospects but can’t sustain themselves because they fail to handle the finances well. Small businesses often mix their personal and business finances causing uncertainty in the growth chart, vague profit determination and an ambiguous customer acquisition cost.

Handling finances isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Expecting a nascent business to hire an experienced accountant is unfair given their bounded resources. What is the solution then?

In this age of Artificial Intelligence, the solution has to be a digital app that handles all your money matters providing precise revenue, profits and costs and keeping a record of all your financial reports and documents.

What is Metric?

Metric is a team of veteran entrepreneurs, industry experts, and venture capital investors that have intensive experience with startups. The founders consulted many small businesses and startups regarding issues they face in financial management to come up with the model of metric.

“We believe it is impossible for a business to survive and grow without the right financial tracking and insights.”
~ Metric founding team

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.

Good bookkeeping practices provide transparency of transactions which is a great way to minimize the smallest of corruptions. It also portrays a clear and sorted image of the company for venture capital firms and investors.

Is Metric just a digital ledger?

No, there’s definitely more. The prime feature of the app is that it recognizes and states all the critical metrics that your business needs to be tracking.

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

CAC measures how much an organization spends to acquire new customers. Metric app in accordance with your data suggests ways to optimize CAC.

Average Order Value (AOV)

It notifies you of your AOV which tracks the average amount spent each time a customer places an order on a website or mobile app. Based on the long-term value of individual customers, you can update your pricing strategy and marketing.

Lifetime value (LTV)

LTV is an estimate of the average revenue that a customer will generate throughout their lifespan as a customer. Knowing these statistics will help the founders formulate a plan that would sustain the company while attracting a new audience.

Seasonal Insights

One feature that amazes me is the insights it provides on Seasonality. What season witnessed better sales or more new customers, which happen to be the dry seasons, gives all the information. Using this data smartly would put the team on right track in what promotions should be offered in which season.

Performance of Similar Businesses

Now for the most interesting part, by an anonymized system, metric tells you about similar businesses and their performance relative to yours. This insight could make you do wonders if used proficiently.

Financial Plans of Metric

Metric is currently offering free and paid versions of the app. The free app provides records, insights and suggestions. But, the advanced version offers affiliated backend real accounting platforms. Here we list the financial plans the Metric app offers:

MICRO | $0
- Real time financial dashboard
- Automatic metric tracking
- Custom profit-loss, revenue, and expense reports
- Cloud-based transaction record
- Business and competition insights
STARTUP | $86/ month
- All of MICRO features
- Cloud-based bills/invoices uploads
- Personal accountant support
- Payables and Receivables functionality
- Monthly profit-loss, balance sheet and cash flow reporting
GROWING | $175/ month
- All of STARTUP features
- Complete, cloud-based, audit-ready accounts maintenance
- Payroll processing
- Annual IFRS and IAS compliant financial statements

Access to the app was earlier given to some startups only for testing and feedback purposes. Now, however, the app is available for beta testing. The metric app is taking sign up requests from businesses ranging from a single person to up to a team of 40 persons. There are absolutely no specifications around which type of businesses can use it. As an incentive, it gives a bonus credit of $250 for trials of the advanced version of the metric app.

Fundraising by Metric

Pre-Seed fundraise of $900K led by i2i Ventures

On March 18th, 2022, Metric announced raising a total of $900K in an oversubscribed pre-seed funding round led by i2i ventures. The round saw participation from many local and international Venture Capitalists including Ratio Ventures, Deosai Ventures, Kinnow Capital, Outliers Venture Capital and Augmentor Capital. Along with the VCs, angel investors such as 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 also participated.

Considering the highly skilled team and their extensive experience with startups in Pakistan, Metric has a high chance of success. The oversubscribed funding round further validates the app’s demand and trust of investors in the product and the team. The new concept would enable businesses from all socioeconomic classes to keep their money managed and sorted and thus increase their prospects of success.

Mode Mobility – Sustainable EVs “Designed in Pakistan”

Shaheera Faheem — Wed, 23 Mar 2022 15:19:29 GMT

Made in Pakistan, made by Pakistan, made for Pakistan. This is what we’re all about, reporting our very own success stories. Mode Mobility is Pakistan’s first electric vehicle automotive startup. Automotive is a vast and developed industry but Mode Mobility challenges a lot of traditional constraints.

Automotives were already being assembled in Pakistan and some parts were also being manufactured here to be exported later on, given our cheap labour it was always a feasible option. But, hardly ever do we hear the term “designed in Pakistan”. Mode Mobility challenges this by providing a sustainable bike that is designed in Pakistan using locally manufactured parts.

Another common perception is, if you’re doing engineering, particularly Mechanical Engineering, there’s no scope in Pakistan. Go abroad, learn, earn and make yourself rich and accomplished. The team of Mode Mobility breaks these limitations by staying in Pakistan and making employment opportunities for mechanical engineers.

Most engineering students do innovative projects during their degree, but as soon as they graduate, they go for a corporate job and stick to it. It is rarely we see engineers working in relevant fields in Pakistan. The founders of Mode Mobility took their passion for robotics, vehicle design and car manufacturing to the next level by creating an engineering and design startup focused on the development of sustainable mobility solutions.

NUST Formula Student Team

Mode Mobility is the brainchild of Shah Talha Sohail and Syed Najiullah Hussaini who were later joined in by the third co-founder Shayan Mahmud.

Talha and Nijiullah worked together to transform their university race team into what is now known as the NUST Formula Student Team. This duo played a crucial part in setting the strategic and technical direction of the team.

This team developed the locally manufactured EZY Racing powered Formula Car that participated in the formula student motorsport competition held at Silverstone, UK.

The team has ever since had many great engineering students and won many international competitions making headlines around the globe. This early experience in innovative vehicle manufacturing laid the foundation of Mode Mobility.

Shah Talha Sohail – Co-Founder and CEO

Shah is a Mechanical Engineer from NUST. During his time there, he transforms the university race team into what is now known as the NUST Formula Student Team along with his team-mate and now co-founder Najiullah.

After graduation, Shah joined Ezy Corp, an organisation that creates a platform to conduct business across countries and industries. After working a year at Propakistani as the head of operations, he shifted to Eikon7, a multinational advertising agency as Director Operations.

In 2017, he co-founded Trademor, Alibaba’s Channel Partners in Pakistan and continues to work as the Chief Operating Officer. The idea of Mode Mobility was formed in 2019 and officially launched in 2021.

Syed Najiullah Hussaini – Co-Founder & CPO

Najiullah is a NUST alumnus who was actively involved in NUST Formula Student Team that developed Formula Cars for International competitions. Right after his graduation, he went on to do his Masters in Automotive Engineering from RMIT Univesity Australia.

Coming back to Pakistan, he worked with educational institutions in the teaching and research domain. He left his job at SZABIST to work full time on Mode Mobility and now works as the Chief Product Officer.

Shayan Mahmud – Co-Founder

After completing his education from abroad, Shayan came back to Pakistan and started working with Interactive Group of Companies as the director of Marketing. In 2017, he founded trademor with Shah and headed it as the CEO. He was simultaneously heading ProPakistani, Pakistan’s largest online independent publisher, as the Chief Brand Officer.

He had been working with Eikon7, a full-service advertising agency since his graduation and now serves as the Managing Partner. In 2021, he joined Mode Mobility as a co-founder.

What is Mode Mobility?

Mode Mobility is broadly focused on developing sustainable mobility solutions for consumers of Pakistan and similar countries. The founders saw a gap in the traditional automotive industry and the innovations being implemented in other regions.

The concept of Mode Mobility not only provides for the local demand for electric vehicles but contributes to the global drive towards net-zero emissions with this venture.

“We will introduce products that are efficient, durable, cost-effective, and made for and by Pakistanis.”
~ Shahyan Mahmud, co-founder Mode Mobility.

First product launched: The C-Series

Mode Mobility aims to cater for the needs of the local consumers by kick-starting a wide adoption of electrified transport in Pakistan. The series of Electric Scooters named C-series was announced at the end of January 2022. The pre-orders are expected to start mid-2022 with proper operations by the end of this year.

The company revealed its design and specs on social media. The products are designed to be functional, easy-to-use, aesthetically impactful, and especially focused on the needs of women riders.

Design and Specs:

Speed up to 75 km/h
Lithium-Ion Battery in footboard
Up to 2kW swappable battery
1kW and 2kW motors are available
Can run up to 65km per charge
Step-through design
All LED lighting
Custom front panel
Front and Rear brakes on the handlebar like a bicycle

How is Mode Mobility different?

Sustainable

With the shortage of natural resources, rising prices of fuel, the way forward is none other than electric-powered vehicles. Not only is it need of the hour but this shift is environmentally necessary. Mode Mobility is the sustainable solution in-line with the developed world’s initiative to cut down fuel usage and resultingly pollution.

Inclusive

The best feature of Mode Mobility’s c-series is however the step-through design also referred to as the “ladies” frame. It is a design with a low or absent top tube or cross-bar.

This feature further elaborates the designer’s approach to serving the local market. The women in Pakistan usually wear flowy, loose and long attires that often get stuck in the tyres causing awful accidents. Among many other reasons that keep the majority of women away from the roads specifically bikes, this is also a prime reason. The step-through design makes it easy to ride even if you’re wearing a skirt.

Easy Maintenance

A great design and great manufacturing is nothing if the customer has to wait for ages to get parts sourced from other countries whenever an issue comes up. Mode Mobility uses locally manufactured and easily available parts so to make their product easy and cheap to repair and maintain.

Economical

Sustainability and Inclusivity are great selling points if you’re operating in the west. However, in our less-income country, if the product is expensive, not many people would care how it benefits the environment or social structure.

The price is not yet disclosed however it has been repeatedly claimed that Mode Mobility is a cost-effective solution to mobility inefficiencies of the country.

The Startup’s A-Team

In a virtual interview with the payoneer team, Shah Talha shared that in his opinion team is the basic foundation of any startup and he believes nothing can be achieved without the right team. His idea of the right team is a group of talented individuals of high character that can work effectively in a team.

He further added that he wishes to build an environment where the employees could grow beyond the company’s existence. Mode Mobility is a team of dynamic and highly talented designers and engineers who have the relevant experience and expertise required for the startup to escalate.

Future Plans for Mode Mobility

Mode Mobility is currently conducting on-road tests and customer focus groups in order to optimize the design and experience of the C-Series.

The electric scooters are, however, just the start for Mode Mobility. In the future, Mode Mobility’s product range is also expected to include electric buses, trucks, and passenger cars.

Bikes have become the national vehicle of Pakistan. The ever-rising number of bikes on the roads and now the inclination of women towards scooters and bikes make it just the perfect timing for an electric bike to succeed in Pakistan’s mobility industry.

Share your thoughts on the design, specs and idea of C-series scooters. Do you think it would be an instant hit and would you use one? We would love to hear your views.

When should you raise funding for your startup?

Shaheera Faheem — Wed, 23 Mar 2022 14:53:48 GMT

Half of the businesses fail within their first 5 years despite making headlines in the beginning. If like us, you think that’s because of an unsustainable or uncalculated long term business plan, we’re all wrong.

According to a report by the US Bank, 82% of businesses fail because of poor cash flow management and 72% fail because they didn’t start with enough money. Acquiring money and managing money are the key factors of a successful business.

Raising money, however, is no easy task. It’s tiring, may take up to 6 months, you lose equity, have to take third-party capitalists in on the decision making and many more undesirable circumstances.

Raising Money Costs a Lot

Opportunity cost is the loss of value or benefit that would be incurred by engaging in that activity, relative to engaging in an alternative activity offering a higher return in value or benefit. Simply put, the money you would have made if chosen one thing over the other.

Raising money is a high opportunity cost as the founders completely indulge most of their time, effort and creative energy to find potential capital sources. This keeps them from product development, expansion, updating through beta testing and all such startup boosting activities they would’ve focussed on if given the time and energy.

Do you really need to raise money right now?

A statement repeatedly quoted by Venture Capitalists is that most startups seeking funds don’t actually need funding at that stage. Sounds weird, more cash never hurt anyone. Well, for startups it can.

Approaching investors before you’re truly ready has disruptive effects on your startup. Two major problems that startups, who seek angel investors too early, face are:

Premature burnout
Insurmountable reputational damage

The question arises when to raise money and when to wait? Stay with us to dig deep into the money matters of startups.

Timing is critical

The trajectory of every startup and every sector is different, some may need funding early on others would benefit from funding more at a later stage. The right time to fundraise is one of the most difficult questions for entrepreneurs.

Equity capital is where you raise money in return for shares of your business. If you raise equity capital too early, you’d have to hand over an equity amount you’re supposed to neither want to. On contrary, If you raise capital too late, especially in a competitive and crowded market, you’d lose your first-mover advantage, letting your competitors scale.

The best option in most cases is bootstrapping or raising funds from friends and family. There still are some issues. Many founders don’t have that options. Besides bootstrapping can only take you so high, if you’re a high upfront product you would need funds that too in large amounts early on to launch even.

Signs your startup doesn’t need funding

To make things simpler for you, let’s go through an elimination process. If you’re a founder and see these issues in yourself or your business, it’s a sign to not seek fundraising. Believe us, it’s not the right time and rushing would only bring trouble.

1. Development is not complete

Fundraising will have you recede from focusing on business development for roughly 3 to 9 months. It is a full-time operation so you’d have to strategically plan to raise money at a time your business is in a stable position.

2. Lack consistency and persistence

The rigorous and time-consuming process often becomes overwhelming, thus if you don’t feel ready for the commitment and perseverance required to prepare your pitches and present them over and over again then might as well prepare yourself before seeking funding options.

3. Unsure about your consumer market

Investors will invest in a business having verifiable growth potential. Research is essential here, you must have a vast consumer market willing to spend. Conduct trials and tests and prove through statistics.

4. Focus is growth

This growth stage requires undivided focus and dedication. If you’re growing and have the required resources, it’s better to put off fundraising for now.

5. Negative impact of high valuations

High valuations make it very difficult to actually run a business. High valuation increases expectations that low revenue can’t fulfil thus ending up being damaging for the startup.

Signs your startup is ready for funding

However, if you see the forthcoming signs buckle up for painful pleasure.

1. Proven customer interest

When you’ve seen clear interest in your product or service through testing phases, there’s no harm in reaching out for investments while making the final touches on the prototype.

2. Can sustain for 6 months at most

At a stage where you’re estimated going to run out of cash within 6 months, it is preferred to start seeking funding. Pitching and raising would take a long, start fundraising to avoid falling behind due to budget shortage.

3. Seek Guidance and Support

If your startup is stable and you need mentorship and guidance to expand and grow, who would be a better option than venture capitalists with their expertise in startup financing? Most Investors support their portfolio companies beyond finances.

4. Sales growth

If your startup has made a name, is generating revenue and now you seek funds to grow, this is the Investor’s favourite kind of investment.

5. You lack additional staff to reach next milestones

When you’re sure a team expansion and uplift would help expand regionally or internationally, it’s a good place to seek funds.

6. You have a clear roadmap for the future

A solid well-documented roadmap of future development plans and allocation of investment funds assures a smooth fundraising process.

7. Your business is generating repeat and referral purchases

Word of mouth is the best form of market validation. Repeat and referral purchases confirm the product demand and value. This reputation gives you an upper hand when seeking investments.

Things to do before Fundraising

Once you’re ready in all these aspects get ready for stress, burnout, lots of sleepless nights and overthinking your idea because fundraising is brutal yet unavoidable.

Here is a list of things you should do before going to an Investor.

1. A well-founded well-documented business plan.

2. Prepare a pitch that has a compelling storyline and is easy to replicate so it could be transferred to other investors. Your ultimate success depends on your ability to effectively convey who you are, what you’re doing, where your company stands, where it’s projected to go and why it matters in 30 minutes or less.

3. Convince the capitalists that the problem you’re targeting affects a large consumer market.

4. Traction is proof that somebody wants your product. Prove to your investors that the consumer is willing to pay.

5. Communication with fellow founders to learn from their experiences, get the industry know-how and learn to define milestones.

6. A promising revenue model. The most important and apparent growth metric is revenue, and well, The numbers don’t lie.

7. Seek legal advice and prepare logistically to present your idea from a legal standpoint, cross-reference your product or service with competitors, or apply for patents.

8. Demonstrate all your claims through data, keep your data sorted, and use it to prove your company’s growth and profit potential.

9. To present yourself as self-aware, you must clearly know and show your spending costs, estimated runway, and funding needs.

10. Choose investors wisely, don’t let a large capital incentive lose you too much of your equity or take investors on board that have no experience of your industry.

11. Go for investors in-line with your vision, where you hold power over decisions and can benefit from their diverse experience.

Post Fund Acquisition

The hard part is finally over, you’ve acquired the funds. Let me be lacklustre reminding you it’s not all celebrations but more responsibility.

What you do now, decides where your startup will go. A great many startups raising money, burning cash, not meeting market expectations and failing further validate the importance of this step.

A solid post-funding execution plan with set allocations to deserving departments, having your team on the same page regarding the milestones and the timelines, tracking your spending and progress carefully and primarily avoiding overspending on marketing are a few areas to focus on after acquiring funds.

Pakistan’s Startup Ecosystem

The daily news of startups raising funds has us thinking every startup formed raises funding, which is a ridiculously wrong supposition. Only a minute amount of startups raise venture funding.

As discussed in the article, raising funds at the wrong timing or the wrong way brings no success. An equity round on unfavourable terms or a debt larger than your revenue generation is both dangerous case scenarios.

Detailed planning, meticulous research, a strong commitment to quality products, and careful consideration and understanding of your market are all essential pieces of the fundraising pie.

However, the good news here is that Pakistan is a developing startup ecosystem. This makes the way for newcomers easier, investments are ample and so are the opportunities. It is the perfect time to pitch an innovative idea backed by a competitive passionate team. With the world eying Pakistan’s startup economy, there won’t be a better time to start fundraising.

Jordan’s InvoiceQ raises $190K Seed by the Ahli FINTECH Seed Accelerator program

Shaheera Faheem — Wed, 23 Mar 2022 14:52:19 GMT

Jordan-based FinTech and digital invoicing service provider InvoiceQ raises $190K in its first funding round after taking part in the first wave of the Ahli FINTECH Seed Accelerator program.

AHLI FINTECH is an independent financial innovation venture and solution building, fintech investor, incubator and accelerator, and financial technologies software, hardware, and professional service provider. The vision of AHLI FINTECH is to promote the fintech ecosystem and establish Jordan as a regional hub for fintech innovation.

“To see our idea come to life, we had to find the right strategic investor. We needed an investor who would be a true partner, believe in us and our idea, open doors for us to access customers, and provide us with business and technical mentorship we need as first-time founders – not an easy task. Ahli Fintech helped us accelerate our customer development and product-market fit validation to enable us to release a loveable product to the market in a very short period of time.”
~ Muhannad Tobal, Co-Founder and CEO of invoiceQ

InvoiceQ was co-founded by Fadi Aljabali, Amer Ayyad, and Muhannad Tobal to simplify, centralize, and enhance the entire invoice lifecycle. The team specializes in invoicing industry and has the vision to make invoiceQ the go-to digital invoicing platform for the region.

InvoiceQ offers a fully electronic invoicing platform for businesses of any size collaboratively, and simple payment options to secure your collections. It increases business effectiveness and offers enough resiliency against unforeseen circumstances.

“We believe in the tremendous benefits invoiceQ delivers to its users and the stakeholders in the ecosystem around it. Specifically, for the banking sector as a stakeholder, it enhances the abilities of Jordan Ahli Bank to extend credit facilities to finance buyers and sellers on the platform. That, in addition to the amazing technical expertise of the founding team, made the decision to invest in invoiceQ, and accelerate its growth, one that is aligned with our investment thesis.”
~ Ghassan Muasher, CEO of Ahli Fintech

Early 2021, InvoiceQ launched their minimum viable product (MVP) with a variety of businesses in Jordan, ranging from large corporates to startups and small businesses, including both, sellers and buyers. By the end of 2021, the company was officially listed by the Zakat Customs and Tax Authority (ZATCA) in Saudi Arabia as a qualified e-invoicing service provider and have scaled across KSA ever since. Today, InvoiceQ enables over 40 businesses ranging from different sizes and domains, issues more than 10k invoices with a total value of USD $170 million.

“We’re very blessed to have achieved the month-over-month growth we have since launching invoiceQ in the Jordanian and Saudi markets, and are bullish on the future growth prospects of our solution in the region.”
~ Muhannad Tobal, Co-Founder and CEO of invoiceQ

UAE’s car subscription service Carasti raises $2M Bridge financing to launch in Saudi Arabia

Shaheera Faheem — Wed, 23 Mar 2022 13:24:24 GMT

UAE-based mobility platform Carasti, has announced its expansion to Saudi Arabia following a $2 million bridge round from Net Ventures and Rua Growth Fund. This financing round serves as a milestone before launching in KSA and in preps to raise their Series A round.

Carasti is an on-demand monthly car subscription app that offers affordable and flexible all-inclusive automotive services. The subscription model allows customers to swap, upgrade, or downgrade their vehicles easily and without a long-term commitment. The marketplace business model provides a simple and efficient platform through which fleet partners can manage and monetise their fleet.

“I’ve been visiting and doing business in Saudi Arabia for many years, and I can safely say that no country in the world is transforming as quickly or building for the future in the way that Saudi Arabia is. Carasti’s mission in Saudi Arabia is not only to democratize access to cars but also to support the transition from the internal combustion engine to alternative fuels and electric vehicles over the coming years – we are very much aligned with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia’s pledge to cut the nation’s carbon emissions to net-zero by 2060 and hence Carasti will be offering a fleet of electric vehicles that our customers can subscribe to.”
~ Claudio Esposito-Aiardo, CEO of Carasti

Today, Carasti launched operations in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia allowing customers to subscribe to new and used cars for between 1 and 24 months for an all-inclusive subscription fee. The startup is preparing a Ramadan launch campaign in the Kingdom with 50% off on a first-month subscription, which can be availed using the code “WOW50” when signing up to the Carasti app or website as a new subscriber.

Carasti handles vehicle registration, maintenance and servicing costs, roadside assistance, insurance, and delivery. It facilitates customers with no down payments, no loans and no depreciation that typically come with buying a car.

“After a successful 2.5 years of rapid growth in the UAE, we are now making it possible for Saudi drivers to get a car without any of the hassles of ownership; our full-subscription model looks set to become the go-to brand for the Kingdom’s automotive needs starting today and into the future.”
~ Claudio Esposito-Aiardo, CEO of Carasti

UAE’s AI-powered FinTech FlapKap launches with a $1.2M fundraise

Shaheera Faheem — Wed, 23 Mar 2022 12:20:53 GMT

UAE-based AI-powered tech startup FlapKap announced its launch and completion of a $1.2M fundraise led by A15, one of the most prominent backers of early-stage start-ups in the region.

“A15 is proud to lead the fundraise for FlapKap and to back its CEO, Ahmed Coucha, for –our second venture together. FlapKap is not only a visionary company with an excellent business model, but it is creating real tangible value for the region by helping SMEs grow. It also has a first-mover advantage in a significant market, all of which creates a very bright future.”
~ Karim Beshara, General Partner at A15

FlapKap is a UAE-based fintech company revolutionizing how e-commerce and SaaS businesses in the region grow. It is currently operating in the UAE and Egypt, and will soon launch in Saudi Arabia post this financing round. The company also expects wider MEA expansion and rapid merchant acquisition.

FlapKap majorly offers two key services, firstly it offers online businesses AI-based insight to help them optimize their advertising spend and maximize profits. Secondly, it offers these businesses revenue-based flexible payment terms, on that advertising spend, to ensure sustainable growth without cash constraints.

“We are delighted to announce our launch and fundraise, and have the backing of such an esteemed investor as A15 – one of the leading venture capital firms in the MENA region. It is a testament to our business model and validates our strategy. We have taken a proven international business model and adapted it for the Middle East. Our solution empowers SMEs and startups to grow sustainably, without losing equity, and to help manage their cashflows. With a first-mover advantage and a huge market opportunity, we are excited to extend the growth opportunities we have unlocked for our early clients to the whole region.”
~ Ahmad Coucha, co-founder and CEO of FlapKap

The startup will channel the newly acquired funds to support its expansion into new geographies and further back its flexible subscription models. After, the launch in KSA, FlapKap plans on discovering other countries in the MENA region.

Here are the 3 Best Co-working Spaces of Peshawar

Shaheera Faheem — Tue, 22 Mar 2022 13:53:00 GMT

All major cities of Pakistan are flooding with co-work spaces and yet they are no threat to each other given the excessive demand. However, there are very few co-working spaces operating in Peshawar.

Is it the unavailability of enough coworking space providers or the demand is simply not there?

The launch of Base Camp, Zero9one and Cluster which was shortly terminated suggests there is no demand. However, the case could be the distrust and scepticism among the population of the region.

Peshawar is considerably conservative compared to other major cities, thus to operate a successful coworking space here would require a high-security validation and an equal gender representation especially to take the female population on board.

Here we present 3 trusted co-work spaces that are reliable and show promising prospects.

Base Camp
Zamunga Daftar
Or Sunain

Base Camp

Base camp is an exclusive invite-only coworking facility and community space designed for Pakistani startups. It offers a large open plan workspace with hot desks, dedicated desks, and private offices that encourage collaboration and engagement.

Base camp is well-equipped with backup power, high-speed internet, comfortable seating, and efficient staff ensuring a hassle-free workday. It provides access to the large conference room that can be booked to host events, seminars, gaming competitions and movie nights.

Basecamp has hosted and managed operations for many local startups including Blimp, BERA, Hiwaas, TripMate, Octopus, Averos, Unidesk, Hujra School, Fileboard and the Peshawar extension of Careem.

However, BaseCamp has currently suspended its operations and no plans of reopening have been shared up till now.

General Information

Location: Nasir Bagh Road, Peshawar
Contact information:
- 091- 5611942
- http://www.peshawar2.org/basecamp/
Preferred for: Startups and Freelancers
Additional features: Free tea/coffee
Timings: 9am – 6pm

Payment Plans

Contact for information

Zamung Daftar

Zamung Daftar is a flexible and vibrant coworking space that offers serviced office options for startups, freelancers and all sorts of businesses. It aims to provide members with a network and resources that would empower them to execute their ideas with utmost productivity and efficiency. Zamung Daftar encourages diversity in their office spaces to develop a generation of change-makers.

General Information

Location: Deans Trade Center, Peshawar Cantonment
Contact information:
- +92 310 9000190
- info@zamungdaftar.pk
Preferred for: Startups and Freelancers
Additional features: 20% discount for members in all the Services of Giantechs Solutions
Timings: Mon-Fri 9am-10pm, Sat and Sun closed

Payment Plans

Dedicated Desks	Hot Desk (24 hrs)	Virtual Office
PKR 12,000/month	PKR 7500/month	PKR 4000/month
Private Office (3 people)	Private Office (7 people)	Private Office (10 people)
PKR 25,000/month	PKR 59,000/month	PKR 89,000/month

Or Sunain

Or Sunain is a coworking space located at a prime location in Peshawar. The company offers open space, dedicated desks and private offices. Or Sunain hosts a small space that is equipped with a backup power supply, internet and a kitchen facility. You can book a space at Or Sunain through coworker.

General Information

Location: Bahar Gul Plaza, Near Achini, Peshawar Ring Rd, Peshawar
Contact information:
- +92 336 1112855
Preferred for: Startups, Freelancers and Corporate Companies
Additional features: Community Lunches
Timings: 9am – 7pm

Payment Plans

Dedicated Desk
PKR 7000/month

If you are a resident of Peshawar and have experience with a shared workspace, we would highly appreciate a review in the comments below. Every city deserves equal representation and we wish to extend our list to cover as many shared workspaces of Peshawar as possible.

Have a look at these articles featuring the best co-working spaces in Karachi, Islamabad and Lahore as well.

Kenya-based agritech Apollo Agriculture raises $40M Series B

Shaheera Faheem — Tue, 22 Mar 2022 11:11:43 GMT

Kenya-based agritech Apollo Agriculture, which helps farmers access high-quality farm inputs, financing and markets raised $40 million in Series B funding in the equity round led by Softbank Vision Fund 2.

The Series B funding round was led by Softbank Vision Fund 2 with participation from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Yara Growth Ventures, Endeavor Catalyst, CDC, and existing investors including Anthemis Exponential Ventures, Flourish Ventures, Leaps by Bayer, SBI, Breyer Capital and TO Ventures Food.

“Apollo’s platform offers a one-stop-shop solution to help small-scale farmers in emerging regions to improve crop and livestock outputs. Embedding valuable financial services like credit, insurance and advice into the supply chain is critical in supporting a more efficient and sustainable global food chain.”
~ Alexia Yannopoulos, Director at Softbank Investment

Earlier, Apollo Agriculture raised $6 million Series A funding in 2020, ever since it has grown 10 times and accelerated by-product financing. The agritech has also received over $16 million in debt funding over the years for onward lending.

Apollo Agriculture was founded in 2016 by Benjamin Njenga, Earl St Sauver, and Eli Pollak to help farmers in emerging markets maximize their profits. It started off by working with maize farmers but helping them diversify to other high-yielding crops has been its area of focus.

The company uses agronomic machine learning, remote sensing, and mobile phones to deliver a customized package of credit, high-quality farm inputs, and advice that can double farm yields, starting in Kenya. Apollo assesses farmer credit risk and customizes each package to a farmer’s specific location using satellite data, soil data, farmer behaviour data, and crop yield models.

“We believe that the pathway from subsistence farming to farming as a business means partnering with that farmer and using our machine learning models to identify the farmers with the best prospects of graduating to higher-profitability crops.”
~ Eli Pollak, co-founder and CEO Apollo Agriculture

By the end of 2021, Apollo had worked with 100,000 farmers and further plans to double the reach by the end of this year. It has a network of over a thousand retailers and 5,000 agents spread across the country.

It plans to use the new funding to refine its technology and deliver more products and services to farmers. The agritech is scouting for growth opportunities in East and West Africa.

“We are continuing to invest in growing fast, serving more farmers, helping them grow their acreage and really hitting the acceleration on the business. And so that’ll be both continued expansion across Kenya but also expansion into new markets.”
~ Eli Pollak, co-founder and CEO Apollo Agriculture

Kenya’s wholesale eCommerce platform, Powered by People secures $5M Seed

Shaheera Faheem — Tue, 22 Mar 2022 10:37:04 GMT

Powered by People, a wholesale e-commerce platform based in Kenya, with hubs in the Americas, Asia and Europe, has raised $5 million in seed funding led by Susa Ventures and Golden Ventures to increase its transaction volume by growing the number of small brands using its B2B online marketplace to reach international buyers.

The equity funding was led by Susa Ventures and Golden Ventures, with participation from a number of investors, including Flexport Ventures, J Ventures and the founders of DraftKings, Fabric. The startup previously received a seed funding of $1.5 million in 2021, this financing round takes the total investment raised to $6.5 million.

“We are going to continue building up our technology…we have new vendor tools we are launching this quarter that will help streamline and automate things to help these businesses take on bigger orders and grow. We are also investing in building our senior leadership.”
~ Ella Peinovich, CEO and co-founder Powered by People

Ella Peinovich, Hedvig Alexander and Alison Phillips founded Powered by People in 2019 to enable emerging brands to access global markets. The mission was to create a marketplace for artisan traders, that would give them access to financing and business tools like the customer relationship management platform, which helps them manage and scale their businesses.

The fact that I can align my purpose with a business opportunity, and the fact that the artists we work with and the small independent retailers can realize their retail vision by sourcing products and narratives that is inspiring to customers, is extremely rewarding,”
~ Ella Peinovich, CEO and co-founder Powered by People

Powered by People is a mobile-first, distributed manufacturing system offering online tools, financing solutions, and a B2B marketplace to the small and mid-sized enterprises in the creative manufacturing and handmade sector.

The business recorded an annualized run rate of $15 million in total gross merchandise value by mid-March, and they expect to grow this to $25 million before the year ends. The startup has already given out $5.8 million in credit to traders and plans to issue an additional $10 million within this year.

Powered by People is also creating regional hubs to ensure quicker order deliveries, tapping the opportunities in drop-ship e-commerce. The investment would help the startup to further increase its transaction volume by growing the number of small brands using its B2B online marketplace to reach international buyers.

Dubai’s visual content SaaS platform, Flashy raises $400K Pre-Seed

Shaheera Faheem — Tue, 22 Mar 2022 10:02:12 GMT

Flashy, a Dubai-based visual content SaaS platform, the first sophisticated AI-powered content solution tailor-made for brands across MENA, raised $400k in pre-seed funding round from a group of regional and international investors alongside Ukrainian VC fund TA Ventures.

Flashy was founded in 2021 by Aidan Christofferson and Jacopo Trinca, which enables businesses to create visual content for their brand through its AI-powered platform. It has recently developed a 1-click, book-and-shoot solution, allowing businesses to work with verified photographers, videographers and content creators across the MENA region.

“Alongside the benefits of speed and supply, Flashy Creatives across MENA are partnering with Flashy to work on content for major international brands through our low-touch, streamlined platform. The traditional model utilised to source creatives, from traditional agencies to standalone freelancers, is extremely high-touch and difficult to scale for mid-sized and larger enterprises.”
~ Jacopo Trinca, Co-Founder at Flashly

The platform enables scalable visual content solutions allowing fast-moving brands to focus on their core business and product offering. Within 7 months of inception, Flashy provides scalable visual content solutions for large UAE and KSA clients including Hilton Group, Accor, IHG, Nomad Homes and Kitopi. Flashy has also helped brands including Papa Johns and Hardee’s to showcase their products for the UAE and EGY markets.

“Moving quickly in a market with few existing visual content solutions, Flashy already has the capacity to generate thousands of images every day, across MENA. Our platform is supported by a team of vetted, verified photographers and videographers in every GCC country. Within 7 months of starting, we are delighted to have the support of our pre-seed backers and investors to enable us to meet the obvious need of brands across the region and to work as a trusted source of visual content solutions, at scale for household name brands – we are looking forward to continuing to scale our provision with the current seed funding raise this year”
~ Aidan Christofferson, Co-Founder Flashy

The proceeds of this investment will help flashy expand the current team structure as it launches a new seed round and grows the platform services across the region.

Passive earning for a comfortable life – Let’s discover Forex Trading

Shaheera Faheem — Mon, 21 Mar 2022 15:03:00 GMT

The rich getting richer, and the poor getting poorer. We keep hearing it, but why is it so? My understanding of it is that less than 1% of our population invests. Except for this business class, the average Pakistani household lives from hand to mouth. Given their circumstances, they can only fulfil the basic necessities and if they ever get to save, the traditional investment options are way beyond their range.

It is only now that low scale investment options are getting popular in Pakistan. After the crypto trend that was met with enthusiasm and criticism both, and the long-running stock market investment, another option is an investment in the foreign exchange market, usually termed as Forex trading or FX Trading.

What is Forex Trading?

As the name suggests, Forex Trading is the exchange of local currencies. You simply buy low and sell high.

Let’s go through this concept with an example. The most popular currency exchange in the forex world is Euro against US Dollar. As of today, 1 Euro equals 1.13 USD. Suppose you have 1000 USD in your trading account. You heard the news that Euro is expected to rise against USD today, you buy 885 euros from your 1000 USD. If the prediction turns out to be right, and Euro rises to 1.14 USD, you trade back your 885 euros for 1008 USD. Thus making a profit of 8 USD.

Leveraging to increase profits

So much struggle for $8, really? Nothing to worry about, there are ways to exponentially increase profits with the same capital. In order to maximize your profit potential, you’d have to leverage. Leveraging is when you invest someone else’s money, could be relatives or even companies that offer you money to invest and return the amount with or without interest as per the provider’s requirements. Companies offer up to 1000 times more loans than your original capital.

Borrowed capital increases your profit, but How?

Going back to the previous example, Suppose along with your personal $1000, you’re provided with a $500,000 loan. Now you get 443362 euros for your $501,000 total. If Euro rises to 1.14 USD from 1.13 USD, you get $505433 in reverse trading. After returning the investor’s amount you’re still left with a profit of $4433 on your $1000 capital, which is huge.

But not to forget, Leveraging brings a high risk of losses as it brings opportunity for high profits. If Euro falls instead, you lose profits, your deposit and even the investor’s loan. In case of investor’s loss, the trade remains open until the capital is recovered.

Before we get to the process of investing in Forex Trading or the platform offering it in Pakistan, some questions need to be answered.

Is Forex Trading Shariah Compliant?

Qur’an is very definite and clear in what it allows and what it restricts. However, with the advent of new technologies and trading channels, it becomes complicated to assess them in accordance with religious teachings.

Qur’an clearly prohibits gambling and riba ( usury or interest). Since both of these activities are associated with Forex trading, many scholars have argued that Forex trading is haram according to Islamic principles.

In order to tackle this hurdle, there exist Muslim forex accounts. There are companies that deal in interest leveraging forex trading but offer separate Muslim forex trading bases. Furthermore, there are companies dedicated to interest-free forex trading completely.

Forex brokers, in general, do business by paying or charging the interest differential between the two components of any pair of currency when the position holds overnight. In an Islamic setting, the brokers allow investors to hold their positions overnight without paying interest or the swap commission. The regular spot Forex trading accounts are for immediate buying and selling and have no overnight interest charges.

Thus it can be concluded that the Islamic Forex trading offering no interest charges and spot forex trading can be declared shariah compliant.

Is the financially naive population of Pakistan ready for Forex Trading?

Forex Trading is a good investment opportunity for the few financially educated, that have expertise in Investments and currency exchange rates. However, there are a few traits about the Pakistanis masses which make us quite not a fit for Forex.

Most of us aren’t financially educated and diving into Forex Trading with no guidance or expertise in other forms of trading is too risky, and most likely a loss incurring investment.
It takes one towards gambling. You gain profit once and keep experiencing a series of losses, keep losing money in hopes of a profit again.
We as a nation are more informed about Politics than current affairs and the global economy, we don’t follow financial alerts as closely as this profession requires.
Due to insufficient knowledge, most of us rely on technical analysis such as charts. This is called Scalping in which traders profit off small price changes for a stock. If not exited on time, this causes huge losses.
In search for more profits, most people do over leveraging. In case of a loss, they not only loose all their personal capital but also get in debt.
We tend to go all out when given a chance. However newbies should only be investing 1% of their capital in new schemes.
The amount of Scams in this market are insane. Most brokers don’t close your deals when the profit comes and complain about liquidity and stuff. They delay the charts, manipulate the marketplace and put you into loss for their personal benefits.

Step-wise Process of investing in Forex Trading:

Now that we know the opportunities and risks of Forex Trading, you can make up your mind if it is for you or not. But whatever you choose, stick with us to get the basic knowledge of how to invest in Forex Trading.

Stable Internet:

First and foremost, you must have a stable internet connection. Even a minute’s delay in this market would cause you huge losses.

Research on the forex market:

As discussed earlier, it is a complicated market full of scams, you must be fully aware of how it works and what are the fraudulent strategies that bring you loss.

Choose a reliable broker site or app:

Your success highly depends on your broker, it is preferred to choose an international broker. Forex Trading is quite unregulated in Pakistan, thus finding a certified reliable broker is hard.

Select a platform:

You can choose to use the platform provided by your broker or use a broad and independent platform such as Meta Trader 4 or 5.

Practice on a demo account:

Never start your Forex experience with the real funded account. All Brokers offer demo accounts with no investment, get your hands-on experience through these demo accounts first.

Create your original account:

Now that you have the basic learning and experience of Forex, open your account. You provide your CNIC, address, nationality proof to your broker through email, in order to get your account credentials (email & password).

Fund your account:

You would now fund your account by linking it to your bank account and converting rupees to dollars, pounds, or other currencies. Most traders in Pakistan choose to convert their native rupees to a more liquid currency like USD or EUR when trading forex.

Monitor the market trends regularly:

You must not make casual guesses, you should always be following news and be right behind it. All your trades should be backed by past currency trends or predictions by economists.

Forex Trading brings immense profits, with the slightest shift in currency values. A small amount of capital can bring huge profits given leveraging options. If you’re mindful of current affairs, have a strong financial background, and have high-risk tolerance, this is just the right thing for you. It offers easy earning, flexible working hours, and easy accessibility.

However, if currency exchange, stock market, non-asset backed investments are new concepts for you, Forex is probably not for you. You must start from asset-based businesses and Investments to get yourself financially educated before you step into Forex. The unregulated Forex market in Pakistan, the huge amount of scams and complex strategies make it a controversial investment option.

Saudi FinTech and digital loan broker Arib raises $2.3M Seed from Merak Capital

Shaheera Faheem — Mon, 21 Mar 2022 14:34:39 GMT

KSA-based FinTech and digital broker for personal loans in Saudi Arabia, Arib
has raised $2.3 million in Seed funding round led by Merak Capital to finalize the licensing process, expand Arib’s portfolio of services and streamline its operations and technology infrastructure.

The funding round was led by Merak Capital which is an asset management company licensed by the Capital Market Authority (CMA) of Saudi Arabia that invests in the technology sector across equity classes, private and public.

“We at Merak have always been committed to investing in technologies that play a pivotal role in the region’s digital infrastructure. As such, we are proud to back Arib as it accelerates in digitizing hundreds of billions in loans across the Kingdom, and soon the region.”
~ Abdullah Altamami, Partner and CEO of Merak Capital

Arib, launched in 2019 by Waleed Talaat, Omar Alhammad, and Mohamed Dessouky is the first and largest digital broker in Saudi Arabia that aggregates all financing institutions in one platform to provide the end-user with all available financing offers.

Arib developed its first product, Syaaraat, an all-in-one platform that provides consumers with auto financing options from different banks and financing companies. The platform helps people choose the best auto financing options pertaining to their credit profile quickly and easily while increasing sales, lowering costs, and offering access to new clients for banks and car dealerships.

“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is witnessing an unprecedented revolution in technology, and it’s not more apparent than in the FinTech space. Alongside the accelerated adoption of FinTech solutions, SAMA introduced a license for digital brokerages as a supportive activity to financing services. And we are proud to have been granted initial approval by SAMA for the activity of digital brokerage services.”
~ Waleed Talat, CEO and Co-founder of Arib

The proceeds of the recent fundraise would enable the startup to meet the requirement set by SAMA to finalize the licensing process, expand Arib’s portfolio of services to encompass different types of loans, including personal loans, home loans, and credit cards. It would further help Arib to streamline its operations and technology infrastructure.

Egypt’s largest national banks launch new fintech fund Nclude by Global Ventures

Shaheera Faheem — Mon, 21 Mar 2022 14:00:26 GMT

Egypt’s largest national banks – Banque Misr, National Bank of Egypt, and Banque du Caire along with Global Ventures, a leading MEA-focused venture capital firm, announce the launch of Nclude by Global Ventures, following approval by the Central Bank of Egypt (“CBE”).

The initial amount, equivalent to $85 million investment in the Fund, is led by Banque Misr as an Anchor Investor and National Bank of Egypt and Banque du Caire as Strategic Investors alongside other investors including eFinance Investment Group and Egyptian Banks Company.

“We are incredibly grateful for the opportunity to partner with the local and international investor community to provide ambitious founders the tools they need to succeed and compete at local, regional and global levels, while contributing to Egypt’s socio-economic development and prosperity.”
~ Eslam Darwish, General Partner of the Nclude FinTech Fund

Fintech activity in Egypt has exponentially increased in recent years, making the country an attractive location for entrepreneurs and prospective investors in this industry. The supportive investment ecosystem reflects the success of government reforms aimed at streamlining regulatory and licensing processes, in addition to the Central Bank of Egypt’s initiatives in partnering with fintech players to promote a digitized and cashless economy.

Nclude is launched to support emerging high-potential new players in Egypt’s financial services sector, with an eye to developing the market’s e-payments ecosystem and expanding the Group’s transaction-based revenues.

The newly launched fund has already made investments in four Egypt-based fintech startups including Khazna, Lucky, Mozare3 and Paymob.

“This step is an implementation of the directives of President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi to support innovative youth in Fintech and Fintech-enabled sector, as well as CBE’s FinTech & Innovation Strategy which aims to create an enabling environment for the FinTech industry and adopt more innovative FinTech solutions capable of delivering banking and financial services to all segments of society more easily and at less cost, as a crucial step to transform Egypt into a regional center for the FinTech industry in the Arab World and Africa.”
~ Tarek Amer, Governor of the Central Bank of Egypt

“This is an important step to transform Egypt into a Regional center for the Arab and African Fintech industry. It will also help raise financial inclusion rates and accelerate Egypt’s digital transformation, which is integral to delivering the Egypt Vision 2030.”
~ Mohamed El-Etreby, Chairman of Banque Misr

“The Nclude Fund aims to sponsor early-stage Fintech startups, and young Fintech talent, who will help build the Egyptian economy of the future. In addition, the Fund targets creating an appropriate environment to attract, nurture, and localize talent in the Egyptian market to build creative Fintech solutions, while promoting innovation in the digital banking and financial services sector, to reach all segments of society with ease and efficiency. “
~ Hisham Okasha, Chairman of the National Bank of Egypt

“The launch of this Fund creates a unique opportunity for investors, and entrepreneurs to come together and create a scalable and affordable financial technology solutions. Such solutions will not only improve the quality of current services but will also create new services using cutting edge technology that leverages a data-driven approach to attract the underbanked and financially excluded segments of society.”
~ Tarek Fayed, Chairman and CEO of the Banque du Caire

“We are delighted to have the overwhelming support of all our investors in this Fund, and thankful for their trust. Over the past few years, we have had the privilege of being part of the journey of many entrepreneurs across MEA, with a particular focus on the Fintech sector and Egypt as a key priority market.”
~ Basil Moftah, Partner at Global Ventures

Egypt’s fintech Lucky raises $25M Series A to grow its rewards app

Shaheera Faheem — Mon, 21 Mar 2022 11:49:32 GMT

Lucky, Egypt’s leading app for credit products, offers and cashback rewards announced raising a $25 million Series A funding round led by the recently-launched fintech VC fund Nclude, to continue its expansion and increase its credit capabilities.

The Series A round was led by Nclude backed by Global Ventures alongside Egypt’s largest national banks – Banque Misr, National Bank of Egypt, and Banque du Caire.
The round also recorded participation from regional investors including PayU, Endeavor Catalyst, VentureSouq, Otf, Arzan Capital, and DisruptechVentures. The existing investors and significant shareholder Lorax Capital Partners also participated.

“We are delighted to have led Lucky’s latest funding round. Nclude by Global Ventures is focused on acceleratingFintech Innovation and driving Financial Inclusion via partnerships with the leading Fintech and fintech enabled companies.”
~ Eslam Darwish, General Partner of Nclude FinTech Fund

Lucky was founded in Egypt in 2018, by Momtaz Moussa and Ayman Essawy with the mission to revolutionize the way the Middle East and North Africa shops, pays and saves. To date, it has connected more than eight million customers with access to a growing range of easy-to-use credit products, discounts and cashback rewards that can be used in person and virtually with twenty thousand local and global brands.

“We are delighted to complete this $25 million fundraise. The MENA region’s huge unbanked, young population and the cash-dominated economy is a significant market opportunity for us. With the backing of such esteemed investors, we are perfectly positioned to build on our momentum, cement our position as a market leader and expand our current offering.” The Egypt-based FinTech has also recently expanded into Morocco and is exploring further regional expansion.
~ Momtaz Moussa, Co-founder of Lucky

Lucky brings seamless financial flexibility and increased spending power to MENA, where many consumers have not traditionally had access to credit. The company has seen 250% year-on-year growth in gross merchandise value, with great feedback, including an App Store award from apple for best apps in Egypt.

“We look forward to continuing our rapid growth, increasing our eight million-strong active user base, and building out our creditcapabilities with the support and guidance of our investors.”
~ Ayman Essawy, Co-founder of Lucky

The startup plans to use the latest funding to increase market leadership and build out Lucky’s credit capabilities as customers become more educated and experienced using credit.
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Your go-to-guide for Startup Funding in Pakistan

Shaheera Faheem — Sat, 19 Mar 2022 17:31:58 GMT

Ambition is the way to success and it is your will that will take you places. So as long as you’re following your passion, success must follow, right?

Well, big dreams and empty pockets don’t bring success, you must be able to pitch your ideas effectively to get the money your big dreams demand. Success is a combination of passion, persistence and money.

If you’re a passionate aspiring entrepreneur with a million-dollar idea, the first step is to dive deep into researching your consumer market, your competition, manufacturers, finance, revenue model, marketing, development plan – in short, each and every aspect of your product. That will not only help you execute your business better but also get funding easily.

Let’s go over some of the ways you can get funding for your startup in Pakistan.

1. Bootstrap

Most founders don’t need funding in the early stage of the company. If you can manage enough capital to headstart your startup, there is no better option than this.

It lets you retain full control of your company, avoid paying interest and if things don’t work out, you don’t owe any amount to an investor. This is why most of the founders continue to bootstrap until their business is profitable.

The next option is to raise money from family and friends. This gives you the leverage to start your company on your own terms and pay it back as soon as your product starts to generate revenue without any additional interest costs.

2. Government Funding Schemes

National Business Development Program for SMEs (NBDP) – A project by SMEDA

NBDP is a project of SMEDA (Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority), funded through the Public Sector Development Program of the Government of Pakistan.

PKR 5,00,000 would be given on a first come first served basis subject to the fulfilment of eligibility and other terms and conditions.
It facilitates by equipping the aspirants with machinery and testing apparatus, office space, and required software along with their licenses.
For eligibility, the business must have an NTN and should’ve started within 1 year of applying date with at least 4 months of operation.

Ignite – National Technology Fund

The government acknowledges startups being the building blocks of the knowledge economy, thus have been introducing programs and incentives to accelerate growth in this sector.

Through Ignite, the Government provides incentives to address market failures and form regulation that balances risk with innovation.

Ignite funds companies and startups that aim to solve local problems through creativity and innovation, and that tackle global opportunities in diverse verticals.

The services offered under this platform are:

Seed Funding: After a careful process of application submission and evaluation, startups that pitch sustainable, profitable and innovative ideas are provided with the required capital.
FYP Funding: Ignite collaborates with Institutions to look out for disruptive final year projects that show high potential. It provides the students with funds to construct hardware and prototype of their software projects that could later be launched in the market.
Incubation Centres are discussed in detail in the next section.
Training through their platform DigiSkills. This program was developed to equip the youth, freelancers, students and professionals with the knowledge, skills, tools & techniques to make them suitable for global or local remote work.
A platform for Investors and Mentors to gather

Innovator Seed Fund (ISF) – An initiative by HEC

The HEC has recently launched the Higher Education Development in Pakistan (HEDP) project to help accelerate the economic engines of the country. Innovator Seed Fund (ISF) is an initiative under HEDP that helps aspiring entrepreneurs put their idea into action.

The grant winners will receive up to $35,000 in seed funding.
It offers the necessary guidance and support through BICs. It provides entrepreneurial training, legal training and support, financial education, business development service provision, and investment readiness training. In addition, successful start-ups will be
It further connects you to a range of funding sources to raise capital during the scale-up phase post-program.

Refer to this article to find out about all the initiatives by the government that facilitate young entrepreneurs and early-stage startups.

3. Not-for-Profit Funding Organizations

Karandaaz

KARANDAAZ PAKISTAN is a not-for-profit special purpose vehicle that is the implementation partner of the Enterprise and Asset Growth Programme (EAGR) of the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO).

They go by the vision “Financially Included, Economically Empowered Pakistanis!”

It eases access to financial services for unserved MSMEs and unbanked individuals through a double bottom line investment platform. These technology-enabled solutions will bring the masses toward digitalized money and pace up economic growth.

Karandaaz primarily focuses on women empowerment, youth employment and innovation. It facilitates growth in these domains by offering 4 products:

Karandaaz Capital: Provides wholesale structured cash and equity-linked capital to promising MSMEs.
Karandaaz Digital: Works towards financial inclusion by bringing all unbanked individuals and businesses to digital platforms.
Karandaaz Knowledge: Provides personalized insights and solutions to companies to help them better their finances.
Karandaaz Innovation: encourage disruptive approaches to address challenges in the financial inclusion space through the Innovation Challenge Fund.

4. Angel Investors

If you must take funding at the start the best option is angel investors, these are usually established business professionals with high net worths who are looking to invest in promising companies.

You can reach angel investors with just a solid idea and an implementation plan with no working model. These are the earliest investors. But there sure is a trade-off when taking these “angels”.

Most angel investors require you to give up partial ownership of your company.

However, every investor works differently, some will actively participate in decision-making while others may have a hands-off approach.

Angel Investor Network

You, an aspiring entrepreneur want the right angel investor for your startup, and an investor looking for an early-stage startup investment needs promising companies. Angel Investor Network is a platform that connects both parties.

It asks you if you’re looking for a fundraise or wish to invest. Register in your selected mode, search to find the right partner, and finally invest or get funded!

The homepage displays pitches of startups, what they do, what is the innovation they need funding for, the minimum required funding in total and per investor, all the basics are mentioned and detailed information can also be shared.

Angel investing groups sometimes host events or competitions that can help provide new entrepreneurs with additional networking opportunities.

5. Venture Capitalists

Once your startup has proven worthy of large investments, shown profitable revenues and large consumer demand, it is only then you pitch your idea to Venture Capital. You must have an airtight business plan and an in-depth knowledge of the consumer market before opting for VC funds.

VCs are looking for a return anywhere from 3-10 times their original investment, usually within the next 5-7 years, so be sure of who you get on board, the terms and conditions and the strategy shift given the company doesn’t generate the expected revenue.

Venture capitalists tend to invest only in high-growth companies since there’s a significant amount of risk involved. In response to the huge funds primarily in the early stages, some VCs ask for a seat on the board of directors of the company they’re financing or a share in the ownership.

The later you reach out to a VC, the more command you’d have over your company.

We’ve mentioned some renowned VC firms successfully operating in Pakistan.

Sarmayacar

Sarmayacar backs daring entrepreneurs building market-transforming technology startups in Pakistan. It is the proud investor of exceptionally successful startups like Bykea, Jugnu, Dot&Line, Abhi, Dawaai and a few other great ones.

Dotzero ventures

DotZero is a team of founders that have gone through their share of fundraising struggles. They claim to know what the founders need and offer just the right services.

Dotzero Ventures is an early-stage VC. It backs startups that have successfully demonstrated their sustainability, mass appeal, and business model through successful pilots.

I2I Ventures

i2i Ventures invests in early-stage technology-enabled startups solving big problems in Pakistan. The team believes providing capital is not enough to back their portfolio startups instead they facilitate companies with technical assistance, an insightful team of mentors and access to local and international experts.

The companies under their portfolio are insanely successful both in terms of popularity and funding. Creditbook, Edkasa, Truck it in, Abhi and Taza being a few of them. I’m sure you’ve heard these startups making headlines last year and in the past few months.

Entrepreneurship Development Fund – EDF

EDF aims to be Pakistan’s leading Fund supporting Entrepreneurs through Coaching/Mentorship and Funding. It is an early-stage VC that invests in passionate founders with a diverse range of companies from tech to agriculture.

EDF has previously invested in companies based in Pakistan, Canada and the GCC region.

6. Incubation Centres

An incubation centre is a set of all the facilities a nascent company and a first-time founder requires. The space, services, mentorship, access to potential partners, investors, and customers and foremost the capital all come as a package in Incubation centres.

The boom of Incubation centres across all universities and institutes followed by the widespread network of National Incubation centres throughout Pakistan uplifted many great companies that have now been receiving phenomenal global funding.

The Nest i/o

It’s a community hub that is home to nearly 200 startups and thousands of entrepreneurs, students and professionals. It has been operating successfully for half a decade. In addition to all the facilities, you get to learn from a network of mentors and industry experts and other fellow startups.

Invest2Innovate

Invest2Innovate has been supporting startup communities in growth markets for up to a decade. It provides support through the flagship program the i2i Accelerator, which has graduated 47 startups that have gone on to raise over $7.5M and create over 2000 jobs since 2012.

National Incubation Centre

Ignite startup portal has a network of NICs in 5 major cities of Pakistan. Up to date, it has committed to funds worth PKR 8.28 billion, admitted 846 startups, graduated 317 startups and have generated total revenue of PKR 2.95 billion.

A great number of successful startups originated from this program. Additionally various seminars, workshops and conferences are arranged by Ignite all over the country to spread awareness, knowledge and skills.

7. Loans to MSMEs

Landing traditional bank loans is pretty much impossible for low scale early-stage businesses. Most traditional lenders will lend only to established companies with strong financials.

If you can show that you’ve started gaining traction and making money which could be accelerated by a loan, only then will you qualify for a traditional bank loan.

‍Here is the list of some microfinance organizations and banks that give loans to small businesses in Pakistan:

U-Microfinance Bank Limited
Mobilink Microfinance Bank Limited
Pak Oman Microfinance Bank
FINCA Microfinance Bank Limited
NRSP Microfinance Bank Limited
Tameer Microfinance Bank
Khushhali Microfinance Bank
Apna Microfinance Bank Limited
First Microfinance Bank Limited

The mindboggling boom of the startup ecosystem is followed by an exponential increase in Investors dedicated to tech startups. Many Pakistan-based giants have received early funding from these platforms and later went on to raise millions of dollars bringing the most renowned investors to Pakistan.

Raising money for your startup is no doubt a vigorously tiring process, but having so many fundraising opportunities at home makes it a lot easier. If you have experience with any of these platforms, we’d love to know your views and experiences.

Saudi-based EdTech platform Al Gooru acquires Jeddah-based ChillLearn

Shaheera Faheem — Fri, 18 Mar 2022 15:06:59 GMT

Saudi Arabian online tutoring platform AlGooru has acquired ChillLearn, a Jeddah-based tutoring platform, to unlock new depth in the student-tutor online platform and to expand its operations across the region.

AlGooru was founded in 2019 by Khalid Abou Kassem, got accepted into the seed accelerator, Techstars Riyadh and raised a Pre-Seed funding round worth $600K in November 2021. To date, AlGooru recruits more than 450 vetted private tutors, covering more than 210 academic and non-academic teaching subjects.

“We plan to capitalize on ChillLearn’s market insights, access to supply, and know-hows to better cater to the needs of the 10M student market in Saudi. This will anchor our foreseeable expansion in the region, which will align with our mission to build GCC’s one-stop private tutoring shop.”
~ Khalid Abou Kassem, founder of AlGooru

ChillLearn is a web application that provides an environment to allow both students and tutors to meet live on the website for their tutoring sessions. ChillLearn served over 5,000 students and landed a win at the TechChampions Accelerator by the Saudi Arabia Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT).

“AlGooru and ChillLearn have a common mission. Their combined enthusiasm and synergy can yield previously inconceivable solutions to the online student-tutor platforms.”
~ Muhanad AlJaser, founder of ChillLearn

AlGooru’s mission is to easily match-make students and tutors, creating a community of dedicated professionals and enthusiastic learners to benefit from shared experiences. AlGooru and ChillLearn have crossed paths to innovatively create solutions where they are required most, in the field of complementary education.

Dubai’s metaverse startup Eikonikos raises $2M Pre-seed to expand its ecosystem

Shaheera Faheem — Fri, 18 Mar 2022 14:05:09 GMT

Eikonikos, a Dubai-based metaverse start-up, raised $2 million in pre-seed funding from angel investors as it seeks to expand its ecosystem and attract more users into the emerging digital realm.

“As investors, we are primarily concerned with the product and the personnel behind it. Eikonikos has a top-tier metaverse product and is directed by a well-balanced crew, that promises to become a big global player in future.”
~ C.J ,a partner at the angel investment firm

Eikonikos envisions creating an open metaverse platform that is owned by Web3 followers, developers, and a growing community of players. The company is currently in the process of issuing digital assets for investment as it gears up for commercial launch in May 2022, when its valuation will jump.

The metaverse is the new digital space that allows those in it to communicate and move using three-dimensional avatars or digital representations. The global metaverse industry was valued at $47.69 billion in 2020 and is projected to grow at a compound annual rate of 43.3 per cent to hit $828.95bn in 2028, according to Emergen Research.

“We are very determined to create a platform that directly competes and rivals metaverse giants like Decentraland and Sandbox. We will be able to interact with other Metaverse economies in the future. Building a dedicated and crypto-native audience that likes our dope Non-Fungible Token (NFT) designs, intense gameplay.”
~ Vineeth, CMO and co-founder of Eikonikos

The current pre-seed fundraising round would help the company to extend its ecosystem, bringing more fans into the digital realm.

Pakistan’s digital accounting app Metric raises $900K Pre-seed by i2i Ventures

Shaheera Faheem — Fri, 18 Mar 2022 12:53:08 GMT

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

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

Getir announces $768M Series E, becomes decacorn at $11.8B valuation

Shaheera Faheem — Thu, 17 Mar 2022 14:32:31 GMT

Turkish on-demand delivery startup Getir has announced closing $768 million Series E funding round led by Mubadala Investment Company. Following this deal, the company has reached a valuation of $11.8 billion.

The funding round was led by Mubadala Investment Company with participation from Abu Dhabi Growth Fund (ADG), Alpha Wave Global, Sequoia Capital and Tiger Global.

“Groceries represent one of the largest offline to online opportunities globally, led by fast-changing consumer habits which have accelerated online purchasing adoption. We believe Getir will continue to prove to be an industry leader as it expands into new categories and geographies. We remain impressed by management’s ability to enter new markets whilst providing an exceptional customer experience,”
~ Ibrahim Ajami, Head of Ventures and Growth at Mubadala

Getir is a technology company that joins the worlds of mobile technology and logistics, providing unprecedented solutions to the delivery of goods in urban areas. It has built dense networks of micro-fulfilment centres in dozens of urban areas. Those dark stores are operated by Getir and the company also controls and owns the inventory of products.

The company has managed to attract 40 million app downloads across nine countries. Overall, Getir manages 1,100 dark stores. The startup is quite dominant in Turkey as it currently operates in 81 different cities. It also covers 48 different cities for all other markets including the U.K., Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Portugal and the U.S.

“We are defining the ultrafast delivery sector and this latest round of funding is a testament to Getir’s position as industry pioneer. In such an exciting and competitive market we cannot afford to stand still. This investment will enable us to further develop our proposition and technology, as well as invest in our employees to continue to attract the best talent,”
~ Nazim Salur, founder of Getir

SWVL to invest $15 million to scale its operations in Argentina

Shaheera Faheem — Thu, 17 Mar 2022 13:59:27 GMT

Dubai-based mobility startup SWVL announced that it will invest up to $15 million to ramp up its operations in the Argentian market after recently acquiring Viapool, an Argentina-based mass transit app.

Swvl is a global provider of transformative tech-enabled mass transit solutions that enhance mass transit safety, reliability, and convenience in some of the world’s most challenging and complex emerging markets. Swvl is uniquely positioned to capitalize on the $1 trillion global mass transit market opportunity with daily commuting, inter-city travel, TaaS, and SaaS transportation solutions. It currently operates in 115 cities in 18 countries across Latin America, Europe, Africa, and Asia.

“We are excited to strengthen our strategic commitment to Argentina in collaboration with the Argentinian government, with what we believe is a compelling investment opportunity. Together, we will work to significantly improve mass transit capabilities nationally while creating employment opportunities.”
~ Mostafa Kandil, Founder and CEO of Swvl

Swvl strives to collaborate with the governments in all the countries it operates in. This investment aims to bring a transformative positive impact in Argentina. The startup will collaborate with the Argentinian government, and other relevant stakeholders, including local transport operators and their drivers, to further advance mobility solutions that make daily commuting more accessible, safe, convenient and sustainable for all citizens in Argentina.

“With this multi-year financial commitment and our acquisition of a controlling interest in Viapool, Swvl is demonstrating its dedication to improving mobility across Argentina. These investments and collaborations further our mission to enable riders and drivers to realize greater economic opportunities, our R&D capabilities across multiple engineering hubs and our organic and inorganic geographic expansion. Moving forward, we expect to deploy additional capital and resources to further scale our operations across South America, as the region presents tremendous growth opportunities and attractive unit economics.”
~ Youssef Salem, CFO Swvl

Saudi FinTech Malaa Technologies raises $1.7M Seed to expand its market reach

Shaheera Faheem — Thu, 17 Mar 2022 12:27:08 GMT

The KSA-based FinTech empowering business with data-driven financial servicing, Malaa Technologies has raised $1.7M in Seed funding to unlock its full potential in the world of Open Banking and Finance.

The Seed round recorded participation from exiting investor Impact46, as well as Khwarzmi ventures, VentureSouq, WealthWell, and a number of angel investors.

“Malaa team is a great example of aspiring entrepreneurs who took a bold step as the first fintech company to launch its services on top of Open Banking. Malaa will contribute to facilitating access to expense management and promoting a culture of savings in communities.”
~ Abdulaziz Alturki, MD of Khwarizmi Ventures

Malaa is a Saudi-based startup founded in 2020 by Ali Alorainy and Faisal Alqarni, that fills the gap in the current financial products offerings and advances cutting-edge technology adoption by providing data-driven financial products and services that serve end consumers and organizations.

Malaa gives its users a single place to manage their money, connect all their accounts, manage, save and invest or even apply for a loan. The startup aims to be the go-to when it comes to financial decision making whether it’s saving, loans or investing.

“There is an increase in financial awareness driven by changing consumer behavior globally and a number of government initiatives locally. Along with the Open Banking Policy, the need for personnel tools to manage and take effect of this major shift in the financial sector is evident. Malaa has a unique approach to addressing this shift with its solutions from financial management, investment, and especially lending.”
~ Mohammed Alnasyan, Impact46

The latest acquired funds would enable the Saudi-based FinTech to further develop its proprietary technologies and expand its market reach as it dives further into Open banking and finance propositions.

“Our FinTech thesis includes personal finance management where we think there is significant whitespace in the MENA region and we are excited about Malaa’s solutions-based approach starting with savings for millennials and Gen Z users as a tool to make better borrowing and investing decisions. We are thrilled to be joining Ali and Faisal on their journey.”
~ Suneel Gokhale, General Partner at VentureSouq

Encore Pay raises $1.5M Seed to empower Banks, FinTechs, and businesses across UAE

Shaheera Faheem — Wed, 16 Mar 2022 16:57:35 GMT

The UAE-based FinTech Encore Pay has raised $1.5M in Seed financing backed by GreenHouse Capital (GHC) to empower Banks, FinTechs, and businesses across the region with seamless payment solutions and a full-stack SaaS offering for Financial servicing.

“We have worked with startups and founders across Africa and now the Middle East for more than 10 years. We are quite impressed with the deep understanding and the platform offered by Encore Pay. Encore Pay is poised to grow and we are happy to be a part of it.”
~ Bunmi Akinyemiju, Partner at GreenHouse Capital

Encore Pay helps financial institutions and customers from various industries to enable digital payments across different customer touchpoints. The startup serves customers in 4 continents and has enabled them to set up and grow their businesses with minimum time to market using its platform.

Encore Pay offers PAYdirect, a modular platform to neo banks, fintechs, conventional banks, telecoms, and other payment services companies. As part of the collaboration, GreenHouse Capital shall also be using the PAYdirect platform for its neo bank and fintech businesses in MEA and North America.

“We are super excited to win the backing via an attractive balance of growth capital and partnership from a premier fintech VC who will bring expertise and new insights to support our growth. At Encore Pay, we want to empower our customers with a scalable and modular platform.”
~ Imran Saeed, CEO, and Founder of Encore Pay

The fintech startup plans to utilize the fresh funds to expand in its target markets in the MEA region along with enriching its platform, which supports neo banking, wallets, BNPL, digital onboarding, merchant payments, and kiosk management.

UAE’s AI-powered FinTech startup QFIL Solutions raises $1M Pre-Seed

Shaheera Faheem — Wed, 16 Mar 2022 14:36:31 GMT

The UAE-based AI-driven Fin-Tech provider, QFIL Solutions has raised $1M in its Pre-Seed financing backed by a regional Tech investor to launch its first AI product, called Magus AI, and deploy it in four markets.

“We were looking for disruptive players, ones that understood the hybrid reality of trading platforms and currencies, with technology and AI as a driver for a different level of outcomes. QFIL Solutions stood out with their vision and pipeline of products that could not only benefit traders directly but other platforms alike.”
~ Spokesperson of the regional tech investor backing QFil Solution’s Pre-Seed round

Founded in 2021, QFIL Solutions targets tech-savvy Gen Z users to provide platforms to help them minimize investment and trade risks and maximize gains. Its leading-edge AI engines, apps, and web platforms built on proprietary technology help investors, institutions, and retail traders maximize gains while minimizing risks.

“The landscape of trading is changing. Today’s younger traders have a very different approach. Our vision at QFIL Solutions is to provide them with breakthrough AI-driven products tailored to their ambition while helping them reduce their risks and maximize their gains on their journey for expedited wealth creation.”
~ Hani AlAita, Co-Founder and Managing Director of QFIL Solutions

The startup looks forward to launching Magus AI, the ultimate trading compass which is 80% accurate and features AI-driven real-time market signals, requires no human intervention, employs historic machine learning and sophisticated AI formulas and offers top-level financial advisory service for traders.

The startup will utilize its newly acquired funds to further develop Magus AI and ready it for launch in UAE, Singapore, Nigeria, and South Africa.

Justclean, on-demand cleaning service provider raises $6M from GIC

Shaheera Faheem — Wed, 16 Mar 2022 12:35:00 GMT

Justclean, the on-demand cleaning service with regional coverage and global aspirations, raises $6M from The Gulf Investment Corporation (GIC) to expand its market reach and delve into intricate and comprehensive product offerings.

The financing round was led by Gulf Investment Corporation (GIC), an investment company equally owned by the governments of the six-member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). GIC was formed to foster economic growth, economic diversification and capital markets development across the GCC region. Regional investors also participated in the funding round.

Justclean is a pioneering technology company based in Kuwait that is revolutionizing the laundry industry. It provides both B2B and B2C services, offers a marketplace application, SaaS, full logistics and delivery support. It recently launched a new car wash proposition, offering the service to car owners either at home or in stations in the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, and KSA.

Developed by Al-Enzi Brothers in 2016 with a mission to become globally acknowledged as the leading ecosystem provider for cleaning services, Justclean is working to digitize the region’s $ 2 billion laundry industry. The Company is shaping a new, sustainable laundry ecosystem that brings together the best and most trusted laundry service providers in the region into a marketplace application that provides end-users with convenience and supports businesses.

“We’re thrilled to have GIC lead this round as this will give our expansion plans a massive boost. With the close of this latest funding round, we will further enhance the platform and diversify our service offerings, turning justclean into a super app for the cleaning industry. We are massively excited about this considerable financial injection which will enable us to realize our ambitions and take the company into a dynamic new era of achievement and growth.”
~ Athbi Al Enezi, CEO and co-founder of justclean

The capital boost will enable justclean to accelerate its growth plans to expand its cleaning services within the GCC, where it has become the leading cleaning marketplace app, in addition to being the top Software as a Service (SaaS) and logistics service provider in the cleaning industry.

We are enhancing the technology and rolling out new services that will make us the go-to app for the laundry and cleaning sector and we are looking forward to fulfilling our global ambition,”
~ Nouri Al Enezi, deputy CEO and co-founder of justclean

Here are the 6 best Co-working Spaces of Lahore

Shaheera Faheem — Wed, 16 Mar 2022 08:20:05 GMT

The startup boom has set the bar high for forthcoming entrepreneurs. The saturated market with high competition requires entrepreneurs and small businesses to give their utmost best when investing time, ideas, resources, and money into their business.

The shared workspace is the new normal as young entrepreneurs don’t want to waste their capital paying bills and real estate rents. However, now the co-work spaces are plenty and it’s hard to decide which ones are good and which would just exploit you.

An overcrowded workspace, low-speed internet, inefficient office staff, rushy locations, loud colleagues, and mismanagement are worse than anything. You’d be better off in your house than such a place.

But don’t you worry, we’ve got you sorted. After researching a huge number of co-working places operating in Lahore, this is our carefully curated list of the best shared workspaces in Lahore.

Daftarkhwan
Colabs
Regus
Kickstart
Gitmit
Coworker

Daftarkhwan | Hali Road, Khayaban-e-Iqbal

Daftarkhwan goes by the tagline “More than just an office”, which it proves to be by offering a meeting point for entrepreneurs, a resource palette for start-ups, and an open call for collective action.

It is equipped with all of the modern-day requirements of a workspace. Daftarkhwan promotes and strengthens a community of professionals and entrepreneurs from diverse spheres to interact and collaborate to innovate transformational projects.

Daftarkhwan has 3 prime locations in Lahore and has a setup in Islamabad and Rawalpindi separately. In addition to its central location and flattering interior, Daftarhwan gives access to an in-house café that serves fresh, healthy food within your budget.

Fireside | Daftarkhwan

Daftarkhwan isn’t restricted to just providing shared office space but it conducts a podcast by the name fireside, that brings together the greatest entrepreneurial minds from all industries be it music, startup ecosystem, finance or academia. It also started a new podcast by the name “The Wonderwomen of Pakistan” that features the boss women of our society and gave insight into their journeys.

VC Exchange | Daftarkhwan

Along with the unique setup and services, in 2019 daftarkhwan initiated VC Exchange powered by Amazon Web Series (AWS). VC Exchange by daftarkhwan is a platform for startups to pitch to multiple leading investors through one on one investment meetings. It helps to match them with angel investors and venture capital firms investing in Pakistani startups.

General Information

Location: 90-B, Hali Road, Block B, Gulberg 2, Lahore.
Contact information:
- +92 (423) 893 8008
- hello@daftarkhwan.com
Preferred for: Startups and Freelancers
Additional features: Community benefits
Timings: 9am – 9pm

Payment Plans

Hot Desk (per day)	Hot Desk (per week)	Hot Desk (per month)
PKR 1500/day	PKR 6000/week	PKR 15,000/month
Dedicated Desk (per month)	Private Office (Team of 4)
PKR 6000/month	PKR 17,000/month

COLABS | Gulberg

COLABS is Pakistan’s fastest growing flexible workspace, designed to enable individuals and businesses to grow. It provides opportunities to collaborate, be more productive and innovate through a giant networking environment.

It has a diverse community which is a mix of freelancers, startups, SMEs and MNCs. Some notable members of the COLABS community include Rocket Internet, Patari, SadaPay, 10pearls, USAID, OMD and Coca Cola.

The most impressive feature of COLABS that sets it apart is the gender balance both in their employees and clients. It houses a 1:2 gender ratio within its spaces and a 1:1 ratio with the COLABS team itself.

The young minds are keen on saving money where they can, opting for shared office spaces instead of paying heavy rents. COLABS is primarily a product by the youth for the youth, as the average age of their in-house team is 27. This young team enables them to evolve with trends and be relevant at all times.

General Information

Location:
- 50-51 N Gurumangat Road, Gulberg II, Lahore
- 22-N Johar Town, Lahore
Contact information:
- 0300-8496079
- 0423-5750287-88-89
- sales@colabs.pk
Preferred for: Startups and Freelancers
Additional features: Community benefits
Timings:
- Mon-Sat: 9am to 9pm
- Sun closed

Payment Plans

Hot Desk (per day)	Hot Desk (per month)	Dedicated Desk (per month)
PKR 1500/day	PKR 16,500/month	PKR 18,000/month
Meeting Space	Private Office
PKR 999/hour	PKR 21,000/month

Regus | Tricon Tower

Regus provides vibrant co-working spaces with a social and productive environment, high-speed WiFi, printers and digital desk phones ready to go in the well-designed co-working spaces.

A calm environment, well-stocked kitchen, access to business lounges for a more private space, on-site cafe and coffee bar, walk-away distance from Lahore Gymkhana and other famous spots add up to the many features that make Regus one of the most comfortable co-work spaces in Lahore.

The open-plan, shared office spaces facilitate individuals to engage and exchange ideas. In addition, the regular networking and personal growth events let members expand their professional and social network giving them access to more opportunities and industry exposure.

General Information

Location: 73 Jail Road, Gulberg 9th floor, Tricon corporate centre, Lahore
Contact information:
- (051) 2099204
Preferred for: Startups and Freelancers
Additional features: Prime location
Timings:
- Mon-Sat: 9am to 9pm
- Sun closed

Payment Plans

Private Office (for 1)	Private Office (for 2)	Private Office (for 4)
PKR 1500/day	PKR 16,500/month	PKR 18,000/month
Business Lounges	Co-working Space	Meeting Rooms
PKR 8000/month	PKR 9,300/month	PKR 880/hour

Kickstart Co-working Space

Kickstart has been in this business for the longest time. Their experience and expertise gives young entrepreneurs access to a diverse community of market leaders and provides the best networking experience.

The offices are spacious, meeting halls and dining areas well-furnished, a well-managed and organised setup, a professional work environment with high-quality standards and professional staff. These are all the factors that make Kickstart the best among its competitors.

Kickstart has 3 prime locations that make Kickstart offices easily accessible to all the residents of Lahore.

1. Gulberg | 62-C2

The flagship branch of Kickstart features a 5-story standalone building that not only offers the traditional office amenities, but this location has unique facilities like a fitness studio, inside boundary wall parking, and a terrace. Many multi-million dollar startups like Educative and Starzplay and established IT companies like ZONES have offices in this branch.

2. Gulberg | 58-A2

This branch of Kickstart features the most spacious offices amongst all co-working spaces, it is also Kickstart’s first building. Along with other facilities, it operates 24/7 catering to the individuals doing night shifts or companies working with international organisations with time differences.

It hosts a vibrant community of startups like BYKEA, Swvl, and Payoneer.

3. WORK by Kickstart

WORK is dedicated for small level entrepreneurs, freelancers and students because of its economical plans that are easily affordable for all. It is mostly inhabited by small IT and Creative agencies, small teams, and freelancers. The space provides shared co-working seats only.

WORK by Kickstart has offices in Johar Town (Airline Society), Raiwind (Thokar) and Model Town.

General Information

Location:
- Gulberg
- Airline Society
- Raiwind, Model Town
Contact information:
- 0333-0596162
- solutions@kickstart.pk
Additional features: Podcast studio
Timings:
- Mon-Fri: 24 hrs
- Sat: 9am – 6pm
- Sun closed

Payment Plans

Flex Desk	Hot Desk
PKR 5000/month	PKR 9000-13000/month
Dedicated Desk	Serviced Office
PKR 16,000-25,000/month	PKR 16,000-20,000/month

GITMIT

GITMIT offers a creative atmosphere, a distraction-free workplace and a close community. GITMIT aims to meet all the international standards of shared workspaces in terms of infrastructure, services and management.

GITMIT prioritises user experience by providing a comfortable set-up with a friendly and cooperative staff that ensure the best ambience. In addition, it facilitates its members through a well-stocked cafe bar and a fitness room along with the basic amenities.

GITMIT accommodates all professionals including freelancers, remote workers, travellers, start-up companies and budding Entrepreneurs. Despite the high-level facilities, it is cost-efficient and affordable for all.

General Information

Location: 13-J Gulberg III, Ali Zeb Main Road
Contact information:
- +92 300 779 2020
- +92 300 777 6877
Additional features:
- Fitness room
- Cafe bar
Timings:
- Mon-Fri: 24 hrs
- Sat: 9am – 6pm
- Sun closed

Payment Plans

Hot Desk	Hot workstation	Private Office
PKR 10,000/month	PKR 12,000/month	PKR 15,000/seat
Dedicated Desk	Dedicated Workstation	Night shift (7:30 pm to 6 am)
PKR 15,000/month	PKR 20,000/month	PKR 10,000/month

Coworker

Lahore has over 70 co-working spaces, it’s hard to find a well-maintained safe space if you’re new to the city or new to shared workspaces. This is where coworker makes things easier for you.

Coworker is a platform that finds you trustable co-work spaces around you according to your needs and range. You just need to choose what facilities you’re looking for and your preferred location. Coworker gives you a few options to choose from that best fit your requirements.

Cowork not only operates in Lahore but also covers Islamabad and Karachi in Pakistan amongst other countries.

These are the best co-working spaces in Lahore but the literary and tech hub offers many more shared office spaces such as The Hive, Ignition, The Crib, LCE Plug n Play, Venture Drive, and Popcorn Studios.

Have a look at these articles featuring the best co-working spaces in Karachi, Islamabad and Peshawar as well. Share with us your experience with any of the shared workspaces in Lahore or elsewhere.

Riyadh’s online Recommerce marketplace Soum raises $4M in Seed round

Shaheera Faheem — Tue, 15 Mar 2022 16:34:45 GMT

Riyadh-based online Recommerce marketplace Soum emerges out of stealth with $4 million in Seed financing led by Outliers Venture Capital and Mazen Aljubeir to build a seamless and transparent secondhand buying experience starting with consumer electronics in KSA.

The round was led by Outliers Venture Capital and Mazen Aljubeir with participation from Khwarizmi Ventures, Ammar AlKhudairy, and multiple other key strategic angel investors.

“Today, only 12% of second-hand consumer electronic sales happen digitally, and more than 80% of digital sales are captured by the incumbent. Soum is unlocking the opportunity both on the supply side as well as the demand side and is led by three outlier founders who are exceptionally positioned to build Soum, bottoms-up, into a multi-country and multi-category successful business. We are thrilled to partner with Bader, Fahad & Fahad.”
~ Mohammed Almeshekah, Managing partner at Outliers Venture Capital

Soum was launched in 2021 by Fahad Al Hassan, Fahad Albassam, and Bader Almubarak with a mission to reimagine recommerce in the MENA region and beyond, building the most convenient, trustworthy, and transparent recommerce marketplace in the region.

Recommerce or reverse commerce is the selling of previously owned, new or used products, mainly electronic devices or media. The KSA-based startup aims to capitalize on the rapidly growing secondhand global market by refining the user journey and building trust on its platform.

“We are tackling a serious customer pain point and offering a solution that is an order-of-magnitude better than any other substitute. Although we have grown exceptionally fast, we are still in the very beginning of capturing a huge market opportunity. The key to unlocking this opportunity is building a highly independent and capable team of doers and problem-solvers pursuing a common goal of building a category-defining company that delights buyers and sellers. I am very proud of our team, and I am thrilled to go through this journey with every Soumer.”
~ Fahad Al Hassan, Co-Founder and CEO Soum

The rapid growth of the startup further validates the consumer demand for a recommence platform. Within eight months of operation, the KSA-based startup claims to have already processed millions of dollars of annualized sales.

The startup plans to utilize the newly acquired funds to further support its platform and market expansion efforts on the path to becoming the region’s next big player in recommerce.

Mobility FinTech startup Moove raises $105M in Series A2 financing

Shaheera Faheem — Tue, 15 Mar 2022 15:10:51 GMT

Nigeria’s Mobility FinTech startup empowering gig drivers with car financing options, Moove has secured $105M in Series A2 financing led by existing investors Speedinvest, Left Lane Capital, and thelatest.ventures to disrupt ride-hailing across Africa.

The Series A2 round was led by existing investors Speedinvest, Left Lane Capital, and thelatest.ventures, with participation from new investors including AfricInvest, MUFG Innovation Partners, Latitude, and Kreos Capital.

Prior to this funding, Moove has raised 3 funding rounds since its formation in 2019. A $5.2 million Seed in 2019, a $23 million Series A in August 2021, shortly followed by a debt financing round of $40 million. This latest Mega Deal brings Moove’s total funding to $174.5M in an equity and debt mix.

Moove, launched by Ladi Delano and Jide Odunsi, is a mobility fintech that provides revenue-based vehicle financing to mobility entrepreneurs across Africa. It is Uber’s exclusive vehicle financing and vehicle supply partner in sub-Saharan Africa. The startup is currently operating across South Africa, Kenya and Ghana.

“One of the things that we found and we’re very excited about is that this problem of lack of access to financing for mobility entrepreneurs is not just unique to Africa. It is a problem faced across many emerging markets. So what this new round is going to help us do is not just scale in Africa across our existing markets and new markets, but it will also enable us to do to scale into new markets and new regions.”
~ Jide Odunsi, Co-founder and Co-CEO Moove

Moove provides a sustainable solution through vehicle financing by enabling drivers to get into the business of ride-hailing without the hassle of borrowing cars from owners or taking loans to buy cars from dealerships.

After users sign up, get verified and trained on the platform, the startup offers a flexible payment plan to own or buy a new Moove vehicle usually spanning from 12-48 months. The startup integrates through the Uber platform to seamlessly discount weekly repayments from drivers’ balances before reimbursement

“We have managed to build a Nigerian solution for what we now know is a global problem. And that is exciting for us. Because not only do we have the opportunity to help solve the lack of access to vehicle financing problems for mobility entrepreneurs in Africa, but now we have the opportunity to take this Nigerian-born solution to the rest of the world.”
~ Ladi Delano, Co-founder Moove

The startup plans to channel the latest acquired funding to boost its expansion across the region, access more ground, and tap into new product opportunities like EMVs.

Bazaar raises $70M from Tiger Global and Dragoneer to digitize retail in Pakistan

Shaheera Faheem — Tue, 15 Mar 2022 07:25:28 GMT

Pakistan’s Bazaar, a startup that is attempting to digitize retail with e-commerce, fintech and last-mile supply chain solutions, announced raising a $70 million Series B round led by Dragoneer Investment Group and Tiger Global.

The round was led by Tiger Global and Dragoneer Investment Group with participation from existing backers including Indus Valley Capital, Defy Partners, Acrew Capital, Wavemaker Partners, B&Y Venture Partners and Zayn Capital.

“We are thrilled to support Bazaar’s vision of building an end-to-end commerce and fintech platform for millions of unbanked and offline merchants in Pakistan. Bazaar’s pace of geographic expansion and new product development is a testament to the rare talent and culture Hamza and Saad have cultivated at Bazaar.”
~ Christian Jensen, Partner at Dragoneer Investment Group

Prior to this financing round, the one-and-a-half-year-old startup raised a $1.3 million Pre-Seed in mid-2020, a $6.5 million Seed in early 2021, and a $30 million Series A in August 2021. This Series B round takes the startup’s all-time raise to over $100 million.

The startup was founded by childhood friends Saad Jangda and Hamza Javaid with a mission to build an operating system for traditional retail in Pakistan.

Bazaar facilitates the unbanked merchants of Pakistan. The formal financial institutions don’t extend credit to these merchants because they don’t have a credit score, which leads to them taking loans from shark loan providers.

Bazaar’s suite of digital products empowers merchants to simplify and grow their businesses, through commerce and fintech solutions. The Bazaar app provides a one-stop shop to purchase thousands of products and the Easy Khata app is a digital ledger for simple book-keeping and faster collection.

Bazaar is currently serving up to 1 million merchants, operates in over 500 towns and incorporates more than 200 brands on its platform. Bazaar’s financial arm, called Bazaar Credit, is offering short-term working capital financing to the merchants operating in neighbourhood stores.

“Our credit product is developed completely in-house and is digitally-enabled that connects to our last mile network. Everything from order generation to credit disbursement to cash collection is done completely by Bazaar.”
~ Saad Jangda, Co-founder Bazaar

Easy Khata has amassed over 2.4 million registered businesses across 500 cities in Pakistan. Merchants have recorded over $10 billion in annualized bookkeeping transaction value on the app.

“Easy Khata is serving as both a core system of records and also helping us launch in new cities. Our expansion within Pakistan in the last few months is a testament to how crucial Easy Khata is for us.”
~ Saad Jangda, Co-founder Bazaar

UAE’s sustainable fashion retailer The Giving Movement raises $15M Series A

Shaheera Faheem — Mon, 14 Mar 2022 11:43:47 GMT

UAE-based sustainable fashion pioneer with a 100%-certified ecological supply chain from a UAE manufacturing base, The Giving Movement has successfully raised $15M in a Series A funding round led by Knuru Capital for an aggressive global expansion strategy.

The Series A round was led by Knuru Capital, which deploys transformative capital into growth stage technology businesses, with the participation of other investors across the EMEA and Asian region.

“We are most excited to the part of the next phase of this great journey. The Giving Movement represents the best of what we see as this next, permanent wave in fashion. Consumers care about purpose, circularity, and the environmental impact of what they wear. Dominic and his team combine a very strong business performance with a deeply-rooted stance on community and human values in equal measure”.
~ Alain Dib, co-founder and CEO at Knuru Capital

The Giving Movement was founded in early 2020 by Dominic Nowell-Barnes with an aim to inspire a global movement of conscious consumerism through giving. The initial investment was raised from UAE-based entrepreneurs Lucy and Gaurav Sinha to address the challenges of sustainable fast fashion.

The Giving Movement has set forth to capitalize on the $50 billion fashion market in the UAE with a progressive mindful perspective. The company’s core advantage is the combination of a “give-back” brand ethos, an authentic sustainable supply chain, and a 100% UAE manufacturing focus, which has seen it capture a significant share in the GCC apparel sector to become a leading fashion brand emerging from the UAE in recent years.

The sustainable fashion E-retailer has grown exceptionally in a short period of time with a business model built for Generation-Z lifestyle values. In November 2021, the company crossed $1 million in donations that goes directly to Dubai Cares and Harmony House India.

“We are proud to be partnering with such value-add investors and to have built a brand in over two years on such an authentic consumer promise. Even more so, to have done this from our home in the UAE. As we expand into new categories and into new markets, quality capital will allow us to remain true to our purpose and to take our ethos global, while continuing to serve our loyalists and community stakeholders.”
~ Dominic Nowell-Barnes, Founder and Chairman at The Giving Movement

The Giving Movement partnered with the Museum of the Future at its February launch, to expand into formal wear in 2022. The company plans to acquire the latest funds to variegate its range and include children and babywear lines as it expands to new markets.

Morocco’s digital ticketing platform Guichet.com raises $309K in equity financing

Shaheera Faheem — Mon, 14 Mar 2022 09:54:42 GMT

CDG Invest funded Morocco’s leading online show booking platform, Guichet.com with a total of $309,000 enabling the startup to strengthen its market foothold in Morocco and follow through with its African expansion strategy.

CDG Invest is the investment branch of the CDG group. CDG Invest acts both as an investment manager for its own account following both financial and strategic logic, as well as as a fund manager for third parties.

Through its startup funding program 212 Founders, CDG Invest invested $309,000 in Guichet.com. Along with direct funding, the 212 Founders program incubated the startup and supported it in reaching its strategic goals. Since 2019, the 212 Founders program has facilitated 11 Seed and Series A financings totalling $5.4 million.

“We are honoured to be a part of Guichet.com’s ambitious development and expansion strategy. The startup has shown remarkable tenacity in the face of the health crisis, as well as an exceptional innovation in ensuring the continuation of its operations. Our goal with this finance is to assist Guichet.com in realizing its strategic aspirations in Africa and solidifying its leadership position in the Moroccan market,”
~ Youssef Mamou, Director of CDG Invest’s 212 Founders Program

Guiche.com was founded in 2019 by Moulnakhla Ahmed Tawfik to provide partners with the ability to sell and monitor ticketing in real-time. The platform’s performance demonstrates the market’s enormous potential in Morocco, and Guichet.com desires to take the risk of continuing efforts to digitize the industry.

The platform now boasts tens of thousands of users and has hosted over 1,000 events and shows in partnership with numerous exclusive partners, including Festival Mawazine, Festival de Marrakech du Rire, Festival de Fes des Musiques Sacrees du Monde, Oasis Festival, and numerous renowned sports teams.

“I am proud of the trust placed in me by the 212 Founders teams and of having participated in a program that has resulted in the birth of small international companies. This partnership relationship will enable Guichet.com to strengthen its position and face new challenges serenely beyond the Kingdom’s borders.”
~ Ahmed Tawfik Moulnakhla, Founder and CEO of Guichet.com

The latest fund acquisition through the 212 Founders program helped the platform to develop its strategic vision, validate its market leadership position in Morocco, and explore international expansion opportunities in the context of health care reform.

Saudi -based marketplace Qawafel raises $3M Seed to grow and expand

Shaheera Faheem — Mon, 14 Mar 2022 08:20:22 GMT

Saudi Arabia’s Qawafel, a B2B marketplace, has raised $3 million in a seed round led by AlSayed Group and Khwarizmi Ventures to enhance growth, create new products and services, and enter new markets by the end of 2022.

The investment was co-led by AlSayed Group and Khwarizmi Ventures, a Saudi-based Venture Capital fund investing in early-stage startups in the MENA region, in addition to a number of angel investors.

“The HoReCa space is exhibiting constant growth and high activity. Turki and the Qawafel team are dedicating great efforts in defragmenting the confectionery wholesale market, easing supply chain management for both buyers and suppliers, and creating great positive local impact.”
~ Abdulaziz Al-Turki, Managing Partner at Khwarizmi Ventures

Qawafel is a B2B marketplace that simplifies the trade between shops and producers of perishable food products across the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It provides integrated technical solutions aimed at enhancing the fragmented wholesale market through a full-stack B2B platform and digital services, offering a seamless user experience for both customers and vendors when managing operations.

“Qawafel started in the confectionery & chocolate market, where sales are estimated at 5 billion Saudi Riyals annually, and acquired approximately 1% of said market in a short period as 500 tons of chocolate were processed and passed around the cities of the Kingdom. We aim to expand vertically in the confectionery sector in general, where annual sales exceed 20 billion Saudi Riyals.”
~ Turki AlAyyad, CEO of Qawafel

The Riyadh-headquartered confectionery business was founded by Turki AlAyyad (CEO), Walid Al-Ghobain (Chief Partnership Officer), and Qays Bahurmuz (Chief Product & Technology Officer) around the end of 2020.

Qawafel aims to help and support small factories in the process of creating and innovating new products. The company has successfully enabled more than 300 local factories, serves more than 5000 points of sale in more than 188 cities and towns in Saudi Arabia and has maintained a sales growth rate of 30% per month.

“Qawafel’s vision is to provide the needed technical and logistical solutions to move the chilled food wholesale market to e-commerce and to enable small family businesses and shop owners to expand and have a presence in new areas. By achieving this, Qawafel aims to support locally made products and contribute to enhancing aspects around national food security.”
~ Turki AlAyyad, CEO of Qawafel

Qawafel plans to utilize the fresh funds to enhance its growth, improve and create new products and services, along with entering new sectors and markets by the end of 2022, such as the frozen food industry.

Truck It In – Business Idea, Value Proposition and Everything else about the company

Shaheera Faheem — Sun, 13 Mar 2022 11:33:25 GMT

In the scorching heat of mid-summer, a queue of 15 containerized trailers has been waiting on the road outside a gated community for the past 5 days. When passing them you’d see drivers sleeping under their trucks, having meals under them, pouring water on their heads to keep them going in the extreme weather.

The road is blocked, routine traffic is disturbed and the truck drivers look miserable. What could the reason be? It turns out to be a little miscommunication between the shipper and the distributor that everyone pays the price for. This delay not only makes the drivers miserable and restricts their vehicles but it costs the shippers large amounts that could easily have been avoided by a considerably managed and organized setup.

The billion-dollar road freight industry in Pakistan and the undeniable inefficiencies make room for a massive opportunity for digitization.

Digitizing with Compassion

A foreign company coming to Pakistan would never be able to understand the day-to-problems of the truckers in our region. The struggle of being away from home for long stretches provided our closely-knit family structures, compromised living standards amidst high inflation and other issues of the roads in Pakistan. But primarily it would be difficult to penetrate technology in this traditional industry and gain the trust of the truckers and shippers.

However, these hindrances are minimized when the solution comes from someone amongst them. Founders of Truck It In come from this area thus aim to facilitate the truckers with compassion.

Background of the Founders

Left to right: Raza Afzal, Sarmad Farooq and Haider Navid – Founders of Truck it in

Muhammad Sarmad Farooq – Co-Founder and CEO

Sarmad Farooq, the founder of Truck It In, belongs to the transport belt of Punjab that is the Mianwali/Chakwal region where transportation is the first business of choice and the majority of flatbeds and containerized vehicles on long haul hail from this region. His family and extended network are either directly involved in managing the fleet or own infrastructural assets on the mainland routes in Pakistan.

Sarmad is a Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute (GIKI) alumnus that graduated in manufacturing engineering in the year 2015. Right after his graduation, he started working on his startup named Dasti Sawari in the university’s Incubation Centre.

After almost a year of work on his startup, he joined Careem as Manager of Operations. He left Careem in 2021, along with the co-founders of Truck it in with the aim to build the truck hailing startup.

Raza Afzal – Co-Founder

Raza is a LUMS and IBA alumnus. He completed his BBA in 2014 and went on to do his MBA from LUMS.

He became a part of Careem in 2017 and worked with the company up till 2019, his last post being Supply Manager Performance and Marketing. Raza later joined Bykea as Vice-President of Growth, which he left to build Truck It In.

Haider Navid – Co-Founder

Haider, an IBA alumnus worked with SECP, State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and Unilever among some other industry giants and Government platforms.

He joined Careem in 2017 and became the Country Manager – Mass Transit/ Bus in 2019. He left Careem in 2020 to start working full time on Truck It In.

The Careem Mafia

One thing in common between all of Truck It In’s founders and in fact founders of most of the leading startups in Pakistan is a work history at Careem. Ever since Careem became an international giant, it has been deploying enthusiastic, well-informed leaders that went on to form companies like Swvl, Bazaar Technologies and Retailo.

The usual trend with the senior management of multinational companies is them trying to keep their talented employees to themselves. Surprisingly, Careem has been supporting, facilitating and mentoring employees that wish to go out and form a company of their own. Though many of these companies overlap with Careem’s customer market, the community at Careem has empowered its employees to do big.

These former employees that make big from learnings and guidance at Careem are commonly referred to as Careem Mafia as a reference to the PayPal mafia in the US that created geniuses like Elon Musk of Tesla, Chad Hurley of YouTube, Founders of Reddit, LinkedIn and many went on to become partners of the leading Venture Capitalists in the world.

The founders of Truck It In repeatedly mention in their interviews that their time at Careem enabled them to think big, guided them in scaling and marketing and mentored them along the journey.

Why Trucking?

Pakistan is the largest road freight market in the Middle East and North Africa, representing a $25 billion annual opportunity. It makes up to 10% of the national GDP.

Sarmad’s background in the road freight sector combined with the founders’ mutual expertise in transit made this just the right opportunity for them.

In an interview at daftarkhwan, Shehryar from DEOSAI ventures asked Sarmad about the rising competition in the trucking sector and how it affects their business. Sarmad revealed that this was their least worry since Road freight is a deeply fragmented space. The opportunity is far more vast than the available service providers.

“The competition in it is both new-age and traditional but the market is huge and growing at a fast pace which creates opportunities for [different] players to find their niche and co-exist.”
~ Sarmad Farooq in conversation at daftarkhwan

What is Truck It In?

Truck it in is a platform that connects shippers and truckers. It provides shippers with a reliable fleet of trucks at competitive pricing through its tech platform that comes with live tracking and insights.

On the other side, it facilitates Truckers by providing instant loads along with assurance for loaded return trips so no commute is wasted.

The platform earns a crust by charging a commission each time it facilitates a shipment, with the exact amount depending on factors such as the trade lane served and the price negotiated between trucker and shipper.

It is currently operating in Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, and Faisalabad. The online platform offers all categories of road freight to the shippers including Flatbed, Container, Halfbody, Mazda, Shehzore, and Pickup, for most of the major inter-city routes across the country.

Funds raised by Truck it in

Pre-Seed Funding – Raised $4.5 million

In April of 2021, Truck It In announced raising $1.5 million in a pre-seed round. The round was led by Global Founders Capital with the participation of:

Fatima Gobi Ventures
Deosai Ventures
BitRate Venture Capital
+92 Ventures, as well as angel investors including
Founders of London-based autonomous driving startup Wayve
Some members of Careem’s leadership

A few months later in September 2021, Truck It In announced a $3 million extension of its pre-seed round that was also led by Global Founders Capital and Fatima Gobi Ventures with the early-stage technology investment firm, Picus Capital, and Zayn Capital participating.

The extension took the cumulative funding to a grand total of $4.5 million.

Seed Funding – Raised $13 million

This month on February 4th, 2022 Truck It In raised $13 million in early-stage funding, which is still the largest for a logistics startup in the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan.

The startup’s seed round is jointly led by:

Global Founders Capital
Fatima Gobi Ventures.

The other investors in the round include:

Picus Capital
Millville
Wamda
Zayn Capital
i2i Ventures
ADB Ventures
Cianna Capital
Reflect Ventures
K3 Ventures

This latest round takes total raised capital to $17.5 million.

Future Plans of Truck It In

The aim of Truck It In after the huge funding is to set up the infrastructure that could support further digitization of the industry.

“The company is going to grow aggressively after getting the fundamentals and infrastructure in order,” – Sarmad told Bloomberg.

The platform apart from connecting shippers to truckers, now plans on adding advanced features such as digitizing the complicated documentation required at every shipment, educating truckers regarding the market with their data analysis and helping them make smarter decisions. Truck it in would also be expanding its tech team after the latest acquired funds.

There are some key players in the trucking industry across the MENA region. UAE-based TruKKer with a $99 million valuation, Egypt’s Trella that has also been operating in Pakistan since 2020, Lahore-based Freightix are some of the notable ones. However, Truck It In is by far the most well-funded Pakistan-only trucking startup.

The startup undeniably has great prospects, but it is still at an early stage to make any predictions for the coming years. Let us know your views regarding Truck It In and the rising number of road freight startups.

249Startups launches Sudan’s first equity fund “Rhino Investments”

Shaheera Faheem — Fri, 11 Mar 2022 16:13:46 GMT

Sudan-based innovation hub 249Startups has launched an equity fund “Rhino Investments” to boost the Sudanese entrepreneurial ecosystem. It has allocated $500,000 in capital to fund up to 14 Sudanese Seed-stage startups/SMEs. It would also launch an acceleration programme in the first quarter of 2022, helping startups scale and grow through workshops, monitoring and networking opportunities.

249Startups, a mission-driven innovation hub, was founded in 2018 by Mutaz Mohamednour, Khansa Elhag and Ahmed Elmurtada with an aim to revitalise entrepreneurship in Sudan’s economy.

Rhino Investments is 249 Startups’ newest funding vehicle that aims to create an inclusive startup ecosystem for entrepreneurs while creating networks between impact-driven and scalable startups, SMEs, and investors through the latest, most efficient, de-risking investment processes Sudan has to offer.

Applications to apply to the programme and the investments will open during the beginning of March 2022 for Sudanese entrepreneurs running businesses that aim to scale and create employment for youth.

Bloom becomes Sudan’s first startup to achieve Y-Combinator backing

Shaheera Faheem — Fri, 11 Mar 2022 15:44:26 GMT

Bloom, a fintech attempting to help Sudanese individuals hedge against rising devaluation, becomes Sudan’s first startup to achieve the backing of Y Combinator.

Bloom offers a “high-yield” savings account, free FX and adjacent digital banking services so customers can save in a stable currency, the dollar, and spend as they go in local currencies.

The one-year-old company was founded by Ahmed Ismail, a Sudanese former Barclays investment bank associate, and Youcef Oudjidane, an Algerian former managing partner at an American venture fund.

“People don’t hold Sudanese pounds; they typically either buy dollarized assets like real estate, or they buy land or physical U.S. dollars. What we’re offering people is the ability to tokenize that. And in small amounts of money, you’ll be able to hold value, as opposed to needing to save up huge amounts to buy an apartment or a plot of land.”
~ Ahmed Ismail, Founder of Bloom

Sudan’s decades-long reputation as a crisis country has resulted in the citizens’ low trust in the financial system. Many of Sudan’s 37 banks are undercapitalised, lack proper accounting standards and show strains from years of an unrealistically valued currency.

Getting Y Combinator’s badge of approval could help draw more attention to Bloom, and opportunities in Sudan at large.

Curacel launches new interface enabling tech businesses to offer insurance

Shaheera Faheem — Fri, 11 Mar 2022 15:12:47 GMT

The YC-backed startup Curacel, which develops insurance infrastructure for the African market, has launched a new interface that allows digital businesses like those in retail, fintech, e-commerce and logistics to add insurance to their core products.

Curacel was founded with the mission of creating the much-needed infrastructure that will drive insurance inclusion across emerging markets. The APIs and tools accelerate seamless insurance policy, claims assessments and enables the distribution of insurance at scale.

“The opportunity is massive. And we’re not just looking at instances where people are buying insurance for themselves, we are also looking at transactions that are insurable — like you can bundle loans and life insurance,”
~ Henry Mascot, CEO and co-founder of Curacel

Curacel allows hospital management systems to connect their system to the startups’ APIs that enable integration with insurance companies and automation of the payment process. Up till now, about 4,000 hospitals and 15 partner insurance companies have used their platform and through their systems processed claims value to a tune of $25 million.

“We provide the infrastructure for existing insurance companies and the ecosystem to make them more efficient, and scale faster to capture the opportunity in Africa.”
~ Henry Mascot, CEO and co-founder of Curacel

Antler East Africa closes $13.5M fund to support early-stage tech startups

Shaheera Faheem — Thu, 10 Mar 2022 13:47:01 GMT

The Nairobi office of VC firm and venture builder Antler, has closed a $13.5 million fund to invest in early-stage tech startups in the region.

The oversubscribed round saw participation from Limited Partners including Baillie Gifford, a well-known Tesla backer along with family offices such as Canica; and institutional investors like the IFC.

Antler East Africa is a subsidiary of the parent company Antler, which was launched in August 2019. The early-investment firm has ever since made 14 investments including AIfluence, Marketforce-subsidiary Digiduka, Honeycoin, Uncover Skincare, Try Cooked and Vybe.

“We still do the venture building. That’s still the core of what we do. Just that now that the fund is closed, we have enough money to spend in existing businesses that are coming in.”
~ Selam Kebede, Director Antler East Africa

The firm earlier invested in new startups seeking funding rounds from Pre-Series up to Series C. With the acquisition of this funding, the firm can now invest in well established companies funding their growth and expansion.

Being a female-led VC team, Antler East Africa is particular about investing more in startups founded and led by women in the region. It further plans to improve the numbers from its venture building model, where 35% of the founders in its portfolio are women.

Egypt’s interior design startup, Shatablee raises $1.2M to accelerate expansion

Shaheera Faheem — Thu, 10 Mar 2022 13:02:22 GMT

The Egypt-based interior design and home renovation startup, Shatablee has raised $1.2 million to scale operations and to accelerate its expansion in its home market.

Shatablee was founded in 2021 by Mostafa Amer to digitally transform the traditional home finishing process. The startup offers a 3D technology-powered digital platform where users can build and customise home designs in less than 30 minutes and then have the entire renovations complete in the span of 90 days.

“Shatablee boasts a top-notch team of designers, architects, and technicians, driven by the latest resource planning technologies, who work to demonstrably deliver the best quality and customer experience with reduced costs and time.”
~ Mostafa Amer, Founder and CEO of Shatablee

It provides innovative solutions enabling all homeowners in gated communities to access a faster, easier and cost effective journey with a variety of financial solutions under one single digital platform.

“The sheer size and fragmentation of the market play to our advantage. We believe that Shatablee is best suited to address the asymmetries faced by customers as well as professionals in the market, be it the lack of financing, the prolonged time to deliver that may take up to 12 months, the limited price transparency or the inadequate quality of houses created across many segments, especially within gated communities”
~ Mostafa Amer, Founder and CEO of Shatablee

The fresh funds will be used to empower the company’s ambitious growth strategy and the implementation of its expansion plans in its home market.

Egypt’s FinTech and ‘Lifestyle Banking’ pioneer Nexta raises $2.2M Pre-Seed

Shaheera Faheem — Thu, 10 Mar 2022 12:30:26 GMT

The Egypt-based FinTech and ‘Lifestyle Banking’ pioneer Nexta launched with a $2.2 million Pre-Seed to disrupt the daily digital banking experience and consolidate transactions.

The Pre-Series funding round of Nexa was led by Disruptech, an Egypt-based fintech fund, with the participation of key international backers.

“We believe that Egypt is witnessing a complete phase of digital transformation, thanks to the unprecedented support from the CBE. We are confident that Nexta’s strong team is well-positioned to pave the way in innovation with its disruptive offerings.”
~ Mohamed Okasha, Managing Partner at Disruptech

Nexta was founded by Ibrahim Farag and Ahmed Hisham in 2021 with the aim to reimagine payments and money management in Egypt. The fintech brings a “next-generation banking” experience by enabling “lifestyle banking” right from your phone.

“Nexta pledges to provide a new and wholesome banking experience for numerous market segments and contribute as a significant player to the creation of the Egyptian era of digitization. Our partnership with Visa allows for exchanging expertise and penetrating an upcoming market.”
~ Ahmed Hisham, Founder and Managing Director at Nexta

It focuses on simplifying money management by making money tasks simple, fast, and affordable. A Nexta card will aggregate the users’ existing payment cards, allow for easy and reliable money transfer, and a multitude of other features to come.

“We are proud to secure the trust of the CBE and Visa, and this is only the beginning. This is shaping up to be a highly competitive market. We await the formal announcement of the EKYC and Digital Banking Guidelines to be one of the early applicants. This is a vast market, and we are leading the wave.”
~ Ibrahim Farag, Founder and CEO Nexta

Nexta will utilize its newly acquired funds to launch its digital banking solutions, along with expanding its market and continuing its strategic partnerships.

Tunisia’s Wattnow raises $1.3M pre-Series A to expand across Africa and Middle East

Shaheera Faheem — Wed, 09 Mar 2022 15:54:13 GMT

Tunisia-based IoT energy management solution Wattnow, has closed a $1.3 million pre-Series A funding round, led by Katapult Climate and 216 Capital to boost its local sales and expand outside of Tunisia, targeting markets in Africa and the Middle East.

The Pre-Series A financing was led by Katapult Climate and 216 Capital, with participation from Launch Africa Venture, Cross Boundary, Oman Technology Fund and a business angel from Saudi Arabia.

Wattnow helps companies gain actionable insights on their overall energy usage that lets them cut down energy bills and reduce carbon footprint. The Smart Energy Monitoring System identifies trends, waste sources and anomalies, in order to maintain optimal energy consumption across all covered locations.

“In a world where energy costs are increasing week after week, Wattnow’s platform and technology have the potential to help businesses significantly reduce their energy bill but also their impact on the environment. We are very excited to support Issam and the Wattnow team in their exciting journey.”
~ Dhekra Khelifi, Partner at 216 Capital

The fresh funds would enable Wattnow to boost local sales. Wattnow aims to deploy a part of the funds into its internationalisation, targeting markets in Africa and in the Middle East, while always keeping an eye on where the environmental impact can be the highest.

“This round will play a major role in helping us take Wattnow to the next level. As a 100% Tunisian startup, the whole team is very proud to have been able to make it to this stage, and the best is yet to come.”
~ Issam Smaali, CEO of Wattnow

Singapore’s marketing platform Insider raises $121M Series D and achieves Unicorn Status

Shaheera Faheem — Wed, 09 Mar 2022 13:16:05 GMT

Turkey-founded and Singapore-based marketing platform Insider, has closed a $121 million Series D led by Qatar Investment Authority, making Insider the first woman-founded startup to achieve unicorn status in Turkey and the wider Middle East region. Insider is now the world’s ninth-largest Business-to-business (B2B) Software as a Startup (SaaS) unicorn.

The Series D Mega Round was led by Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) and recorded participation from Sequoia, Riverwood Capital, 212, Wamda Capital, Esas Private Equity, and Endeavor Catalyst.

“The bar for competition has been raised across the board in SaaS over the past 5 years. Insider stands out as an outlier. Hande is a truly exceptional leader and, backed by her brilliant co-founders and teams, is building a world-class software company with capabilities beyond those of many in the Valley. Theirs is a different mindset: one that breaks past boundaries and makes what seems impossible to many, a possibility.”
~ Joe De Pinho, Principal at Riverwood Capital

Insider enables marketers to connect customer data across channels, predict behaviour with AI, and individualize cross-channel experiences. Insider helps 1000+ leading enterprise brands and high-growth startups including Samsung, GAP, Santander, Vodafone, IKEA, MAC, Virgin, Toyota, Singapore Airlines, Madeira Madeira, Marks & Spencer, and Estée Lauder accelerate digital growth through cross-channel customer experiences.

The startup was founded in 2012 by Hande Cilingir, with co-founders Serhat Soyuerel (Chief Revenue Officer), Arda Koterin (Chief Customer Officer), Sinan Toktay (CTO), Okan Yedibela (VP of Engineering), and Muharrem Derinkök (Chief Product Officer).

Insider is a gender-inclusive and diversity promoting platform with 700 team members from 41 different nationalities across 28 countries worldwide. 60% of top executives in the company, including the CEO, CMO, CFO, and CHRO are women.

“We’ve been blitzscaling remarkably in the past three years and achieved 3X growth. In the same period, our global team grew by 300%, and our customer base continues to increase,”
~ Hande Cilingir, Founder and CEO of Insider

After unlocking the unicorn status, Insider has aggressive global hiring plans and anticipates creating more than 50 jobs over the next three years, with an emphasis on hiring female engineers to fill R&D and product development positions.

UAE’s Dukkantek raises $5.2M Seed to drive digital transformation in traditional retail spaces

Shaheera Faheem — Wed, 09 Mar 2022 12:21:31 GMT

UAE’s pioneering digital storefront management platform Dukkantek has raised $5.2M in a Seed funding round led by Global Founders Capital to drive digital transformation in traditional retail spaces.

The Seed financing was led by Global Founders Capital, with participation from Colle Capital Partners, Wamda Capital, Plug and Play, and Comma Capital. Other strategic investors in the round include Nowais Capital, Annex Investments, and AMK Investment Office.

“The adoption and utility of technology in SMB’s across sectors is accelerating rapidly and Dukkantek is at the forefront of this change in the GCC region. With energetic and driven founders, the Dukkantek team has tackled major issues in a severely underserved section of the market and we want to aid in supercharging the growth of their merchant base. “
~ Victoria Grace, Founding Partner of Colle Capital Partners

This is the first fundraiser of Dukkantek since its formation in January 2021. The company up till now had entirely been bootstrapped by the three Co-Founders.

Dukkantek aims to strengthen local community stores through digital transformations and end-to-end technology that improves all business processes. The store management platform uses an integrated system with cloud-hosted software.

“Dukkantek’s impressive traction and long-term potential are underpinned by a strong team, a full-stack solution, and a comprehensive offering for the merchants they onboard. We are thrilled to lead this funding round and partner with the Dukkantek team to help make their vision a reality and continue our support for high-growth startups in the MENA region”.
~ Mariam Kremer, Partner at Global Founders Capital

This latest capital acquisition enables Dukkantek to continue its efforts in empowering traditional merchants to thrive in a digital world, expand exponentially, and maintain its premium end-to-end technology.

Ghanaian fintech Dash raises $32.8M seed to build connected wallets for Africans

Shaheera Faheem — Tue, 08 Mar 2022 13:07:30 GMT

Ghana-based payments app provider Dash has secured $32.8m in a seed funding round headed by Insight Venture Partners to build connected wallets for Africans.

The round was led by Insight Ventures with participation from Global Founders Capital, ASK Capital, 4DX Ventures and Zinal Growth Partners. Individual investors included Pine Labs CEO Amrish Rau, Jitendra Gupta of Jupiter Money and the founders of Moss, executives from ProcessOut and the founders of PennyLane.

Dash offers an accessible, modern and unified alternative payment network for African consumers. It lets the users send, spend and receive money regardless of currency. The user can pay for goods and services, save and invest all through the app. The firm is currently operating in Kenya, Ghana and Nigeria.

The funding will help Dash expand to new markets such as Tanzania and South Africa, get the licenses needed to operate there, build out its team, invest in technology and launch new features.

Uganda’s Rocket Health raises $5M to scale telemedicine across Africa

Shaheera Faheem — Tue, 08 Mar 2022 12:50:39 GMT

Uganda’s Rocket Health, a telemedicine and last-mile healthcare provider, has closed a $5 million Series A funding round to accelerate its technology roadmap and geographical expansion to the different regions of Uganda and Kenya.

This funding round was led by Creadev, an evergreen investment firm backed by Mulliez family, with the participation of early-stage African investors Grenfell Holdings and LoftyInc Capital Management. The round brings the total funding raised by Rocket Health to $6.2 million.

“We have been highly impressed by the creativity, tenacity and vibrant culture of the Rocket Health team, who hold an ambitious vision for the future of African primary care. The opportunities are countless, from data analytics to innovative distribution channels.”
~ Creadev Africa

The startup was founded in 2012 by Davis Musinguzi to make healthcare easily accessible across Africa, a region with the highest disease burden in the world and the lowest patient-to-doctor ratio.

Rocket Health offers online medical consultation, collection of samples, and delivery of medicines. They also have a USSD service for those without an internet connection.

“I think tech is what helps us cover that gap, create more efficiencies, and broaden our reach beyond. There’s no way we’re going to build enough hospitals to be able to reach everybody with the health care that they need. I think telemedicine really helps breach the gap of availability,”
~ Davis Musinguzi, co-founder and CEO of Rocket Health

Rocket Health runs its own lab and pharmacy delivery services that help them remain in control of the delivery of products and services. They charge a $3 consultation fee and $1.5 for drug delivery.

The latest acquired funds will be used to scale the integrated digital health solution to more regions across the country and within East Africa over the next two years. In the long term, it will pursue growth opportunities in West Africa.

As Rocket Health expands and embarks on its next phase of growth, they have partnered with Ada, a Berlin-based end-user self-assessment platform, to integrate artificial intelligence into its teleconsultations.

Egypt’s logistics platform Naqla raises $10.5M pre-Series A to advance its technology

Shaheera Faheem — Tue, 08 Mar 2022 10:44:10 GMT

Egypt-based logistics platform Naqla has raised $10.5 million in a pre-series A round led by investors El Sewedy Capital Holding and Hassan Allam Holding with the Sallam Family.

“We’re thrilled to join Naqla on their journey towards a destination of completely changing the infrastructure of logistics in the region. We have tremendous expertise in the infrastructure space, and this investment will increase the synergies between our different portfolio companies. We love the leadership team at Naqla and are not just betting on the market size, but on their grit and vision.”
~ Farouk Kadous, Board Member at El Sewedy Capital

Naqla is the first trucking platform in Egypt since 2017, that connects shippers with truckers through its ground-breaking technology platform. Since its establishment, founders Sherif Taher and Samer Sallam have expanded Naqla into a 165-person organization spread across all the major country locations.

The startup was set with the mission to simplify the process of the transportation of goods and ensure efficient and hassle-free shipping through a mobile app that connects shippers with a network of trusted carriers. The Application streamlines shipping from load pricing, pick up to delivery, payment, and documentation to put an end to the manual process and save valuable time.

The logistics industry in Egypt is worth $13 billion. Naqla, since its formation has delivered 4.6m tonnes of cargo in 35+ zones across Egypt. It currently connects more than 400 shipping and cargo companies with 10,500 drivers.

“We are now perfectly positioned to grow our digital logistics offering and market presence, bringing a much-needed technology infrastructure to the badly served Egyptian logistics and trucking industry, at a critical time in the country’s economic growth. We thank our investors for their part on the Naqla journey – this investment will enable rapid acceleration of our business and our planned vertical expansion into our new segments.”
~ Sherif Taher, Co-Founder and CEO of Naqla

The fresh funds will help the startup invest further in advancing its technology, digitising the freight process and positioning the company for growth and development in 2022.

Mobility SaaS startup AHOY raises $20M round to scale its technology globally

Shaheera Faheem — Mon, 07 Mar 2022 13:27:05 GMT

The UAE-based logistics startup AHOY announced raising a $20 million funding round, during its inaugural Keynote event “The Deployment”. The company held the fundraising to scale its technology globally.

This round raises their total investment raised up till now to $27 million. The startup further plans to raise a few bridge funding rounds in the fore-coming months before the Series-A round.

AHOY focuses on reimagining movement technology and developed a true enterprise-grade tech infrastructure to optimize and automate any movement-related process.

Recently, AHOY announced its global hybrid solution AHOY Movement Studio (AMS), a collection of Software Development tools (APIs, SDKs, and libraries) tailor-made for enterprises, that would allow developers to build the most enhanced movement-related solutions.

“The deployment of the AHOY technology across all mobility-related sectors offers endless possibilities. This year, AHOY aims to provide 100+ job opportunities for highly skilled software professionals in Dubai and Riyadh. We aim to increase the research and development team activities in UAE & Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and scale our presence into international markets”.
~ Jamil Shinawi, CEO & Co-Founder AHOY

The e-commerce logistics startup claims to have grown 25x in terms of revenue, the number of transactions, technology deployment and deliverables between 2020 and 2021 exceeding their OKRs and plans.

AHOY is currently based in UAE and Saudi Arabia while offering services globally. The company with the acquisition of the latest funds plans to diversify into select African and Latin American countries in the coming 12-18 months.

Egypt’s female-led health tech Chefaa raises funding to expand its network

Shaheera Faheem — Mon, 07 Mar 2022 12:53:05 GMT

Egypt-based health tech Chefaa has raised an undisclosed venture round from Newtown Partners, Global Brain and GMS Capital Partners to expand its network, support the release of its new product, launch in new markets and digitise management for chronic patients’ quality of life.

It is the involved venture capitalist’s first investment in the Egyptian market. South Africa based Newtown Partners is an early-stage venture fund that has previously invested in Swyft, Reach Labs and Blockfolio. Global Brain, headquartered in Japan has a massive portfolio of 24 IPOs and 54 Merge & Acquisitions in diverse industries.

“We have found Chefaa to be compelling for its proven ability to scale across geographies, impressive traction and growth across MENA, a strong female-led team with extensive healthcare and pharmaceutical expertise, a large, engaged base of customers, as well as strong alignment with our pharmaceutical e-commerce thesis and their ability to digitize healthcare interfaces.”
~ Llew Claasen, Managing Partner at Newtown Partners

Chefaa is an e-pharmacy benefits platform that provides an end-to-end healthcare experience by focusing on offering compliant, ethical and patient-centric services. The wellness platform offers services to users through Chefaa’s main platform, app and Chefaa Prime, an AI-driven solution that presents an insurance alternative, a subscription-based service offering a seamless array of support to patients and medical customers from all socio-economic backgrounds.

“ There is usually a challenge to meet patient needs particularly when it comes to medicine. We believe that Chefaa’s approach of growth, which is an opportunity to enhance medical literacy through freemium service and employee benefits, is the right way and contributes to one of the severe national health problems; a shortage of providing optimum care for chronic patients.”
~ Yasuhiko Yurimoto, founder, CEO and General Partner at Global Brain

The startup plans to utilize the fresh funds to further expand its network, support the release of its new product, launch in new markets and digitise management for chronic patients’ quality of life.

“From the start, we focused on empowering Chefaa’s ability to measure the impact of every step it takes with real data, not just for funding but for execution and scaling as well.
I believe this venture round is pivotal not because it will only help us scale our validated business models, but because it will also help us capitalize on untapped market opportunities.
We are confident Chefaa will dominate over a much larger market share in the next two years.”
~ Doaa Aref, CEO and Founder of Chefaa

UAE’s BNPL startup Tabby raises $54 M Series B led by Sequoia Capital India and STV

Shaheera Faheem — Mon, 07 Mar 2022 12:00:07 GMT

Dubai-based buy now, pay later (BNPL) platform, Tabby has completed a Series B extension of $54 million led by Sequoia Capital India and STV for international expansion and to further expand its consumer product offering.

The extension of the Series B round was led by Sequoia Capital India and STV, with additional participation from existing investors Arbor Ventures, Mubadala Investment Capital and Global Founders Capital (GFC). Last year, Tabby raised a Series B funding of $50 million. This latest round brings tabby’s total funding to $185 million in both debt and equity since it launched three years ago.

“Consumer-centric digital financial services provided real-time and without friction can unlock the growth of commerce and benefit the ecosystem as a whole. We continue to remain bullish on businesses that can do so at scale.”
~GV Ravishankar, Manager director Sequoia India

“We are proud to have partnered with Hosam and Daniil in their Series-A, and more proud to have deepened our partnership with tabby in all funding rounds since. We are strong believers that the company will continue spearheading BNPL’s growth across the region, fueled by the rapid switch to digital payments, e-commerce growth, and remarkable product vision and team, cementing its position as the market leader for BNPL in MENA.”
~ Ahmad Alshammari, Partner STV

Tabby empowers shoppers with the financial freedom to access the things they want or need while allowing them to maintain financial health and control. Saudi Arabia and UAE are the main markets for the company.

“We know the direction that we’re taking the business forward. Sequoia can add significant value in terms of what they’ve seen happen and some of the other markets that they’ve invested in before, especially as we start to expand our product offering into new areas.”
~ Hosam Arab, Co-founder and CEO Tabby

Tabby has been ranked among the top 10 shopping apps in Saudi Arabia and the top 20 in the UAE. The Dubai-based company has partnered with seven of the 10 largest retail groups in the GCC, which is more than any other regional BNPL player.

Currently, the company has over 1.1 million active users who shop with more than 3,000 brands monthly. These users drive over 3 million clicks to its partners. Retailers using tabby as their payment solution have witnessed a more than 10% decline in the usage of cash on delivery by their customers, said the company.

The latest investment will be channelled to support tabby’s international expansion and further expand its consumer product offering.

Saudi’s Master Works raises $40M in private equity fundraise by Merak Capital

Shaheera Faheem — Fri, 04 Mar 2022 15:26:18 GMT

Saudi Arabia-based Master Works, a pioneering data and digital transformation company has raised $40 million in a private equity financing round led by Merak Capital, an asset management company.

Master Works was founded by Hani Al-Lehaibi and Bandar Al-Amri, in 2010 with the goal to become the leaders of Digital Transformation. The company offers unique and exceptional qualifications in the field of Data Management, AI, Data Strategy, BIG Data, advanced Analytics, and API management implementations.

The Riyadh-headquartered business has offices in Egypt, UAE, Jordan, and India. The firm served more than 140 clients across government and private sectors in the Kingdom, with the support of more than 20 global technology providers.

Within the past few years, Master Works has launched four product lines and services, expanded its customer base, along with boosting its relationships with local and global key players in the information technology sector.

“Having Merak Capital as a partner reflects our absolute intention to meet the investors’ aspirations, and it will play a key role in helping us achieve the growth journey we desire as we help more clients, and the Kingdom, expedite this digital transformation.”
~ Hani Al-Lehaibi, founder Master Works

Merak Capital is an asset management company licensed by the Capital Market Authority (CMA) of Saudi Arabia that specializes in investing in the technology sector across equity classes, private and public.

“With the vision of the executive team, we are confident the company will hit more achievements in the coming years. Merak Capital is proud to be part of this distinguished journey, which is an embodiment of an inspiring success story for all stakeholders in the information technology sector in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”
~ Othman Abdulrazaq Alhokail, Partner at Merak Capital

Jiye Technologies launches ‘Agri-Tech’ BNPL Feature In Pakistan to empower farmers

Shaheera Faheem — Fri, 04 Mar 2022 15:25:30 GMT

Jiye Technologies, the fastest growing Agri-Tech platform in Pakistan has announced a first of its kind business-to-business (B2B) buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) feature through a digital financing product for farmers and businesses across Pakistan under its program called ‘Jiye Khushhaal Karobar’.

Jiye Technologies and licensed financing entities collaborate to empower farmers, retailers, and businesses with quick, easy, and convenient access to credit to sustainably grow their revenue. It provides them access to up to 50,000 PKR worth of micro-loans that have the ability to be increased over time.

“Hailing from an agriculture background, I have always felt that enabling businesses and farmers with access to smart credit would really help uplift their income and help them grow; our BNPL solution is one of the many initiatives under ‘Jiye Khushal Karobar Program’ that is designed with their needs in mind. We want to extend a helping hand to empower our partner SMEs and marginalized farmers so that they have the ability to sustainably grow their business and livelihoods”
~ Ali Amin, Co-Founder Jiye Technologies

Jiye Technology aims to bring financial inclusion by catering to the working capital needs of unbanked businesses. The BNPL solution provider offers them fair and transparent credit terms with flexible payback schedules ranging from 4-15 days and multiple payment methods including digital wallet deposits.

The Jiye Khushaal Karobaar Program’s BNPL solution offers multiple Stock Keeping Units (SKU) of fruits and vegetables in advance for the value amount of the loan to enable retailers to generate increased sales and escape debt traps.

Jiye Technologies also intends to expand into further verticals to enhance their business support initiatives and also to build a highly efficient agricultural value supply chain across the country.

Pakistan’s MyTm raises $6.9 million Seed Funding

Shaheera Faheem — Fri, 04 Mar 2022 15:25:08 GMT

Pakistan’s MyTm, a one-stop solution to cater to the financial needs of the masses, secured $6.9 million in its seed round by investors from Saudi Arabia, Canada, Mauritius, the UK, and Pakistan.

The funding round witnessed participation from renowned investors including My Petroleum (My Group), 100 Ventures, Loyal VC, United Seven Hills Venture, and PEX International.

NRSP Microfinance Bank is the banking partner and settlement bank for MyTm. The key drivers for this funding round were Ignite, National Incubation Center Islamabad, and Founder Institute Pakistan which helped with strategizing business plan, go-to-market strategy, and validation internationally.

“Pakistan is home to the fifth-largest youngest population in the World while having only one bank branch and one ATM for every 15,000 individuals. Hence, it is a great growth opportunity for a fintech startup like MyTm. That is why Ignite sponsored MyTm along with some other NIC startups to connect them with potential customers and investors at GITEX 2021.”
~ Asim Shahryar Husain, CEO Ignite

MyTm claims to be Pakistan’s first Islamic fintech platform. It empowers retailers and merchants by providing them with a one-stop solution to cater to the financial needs of the banked, unbanked, and under-banked simultaneously. The company works towards financial inclusion through its customer-centric approach that enables cashless and cash-based transactions through the consumer app and retail network concurrently.

Earlier in 2019, MyTm conducted a Pre-Seed round that raised 30 million Yen from Rentracks Japan, a Tokyo stock listed company. This Seed round of $6.9 million takes the total funding raised up to date to $7.2 million.

“Promoting the Prime Minister’s vision of a Digital Pakistan, this Investment will enable MyTm to acquire an NBFC (non-banking financial company), hire new talent, and create a network of cash-rich agents in the country. Additionally, MyTm will be enabling digital payments providing commerce, financial, and banking services at 6000 locations across Pakistan by Q4 of this year.”
~ Zain Farooq, CEO MyTm

Iraq’s IoT Kids raises funding from the leading ISP provider

Shaheera Faheem — Thu, 03 Mar 2022 16:34:05 GMT

Iraq-based EdTech and children’s online learning portal for programming, IoT-Kids has successfully raised a five-figure round from Iraq’s largest ISP provider Earthlink Telecommunications through the Iraq Angel Investors Network.

The investment was raised from the leading Internet service provider (ISP) in Iraq; Earthlink Telecommunications through the Iraqi Angel Investors Network via IAIN member Dr Ala’a Jasim. The fundraiser also included a matching $20K grant from the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH via its project “ICT for Youth in Iraq” as part of the organization’s support to the Angel Network.

Founded in 2015 by Mohammad Khaled and Ali Taher, IoT-Kids was set to provide programming courses for schools across the country. In 2019 IoT Kids introduced the digital versions of its courses through an online portal. The company boasts a digital community of more than 200,000 users and has had more than 10,000 students complete its courses.

The Iraq-based EdTech has recently graduated from the Takween Accelerator Program; a Yanhad project implemented by the American University of Sulaymaniyah.

“We are very excited to have Earthlink as part of our journey, the funding will help us expand our online platform, marketing efforts and in due course expand outside of Iraq to other countries in the region.”
~ Ali Taher, Co-founder and COO IoT Kids

Earthlink Telecommunications is the largest and fastest-growing Internet Service Provider in Iraq and its portfolio of services includes ICT solutions, data centres, and managed services catering to the needs of the public and private sectors.

“Earthlink’s commitment to building strong internet infrastructure in Iraq derives from its vision to be the technology driver of Iraq’s future, and we already come a long way evolving from an internet service provider to an internet economy enabler. Our investment into IoT Kids echoes our strategy and we see a great potential in IoT Kids vision to raise a new tech enabled-generation”.
~ Dr. Ala’a Jasim, Deputy CEO EarthlinkTelecommunications

This latest investment would help the Iraq-based EdTech ground its position in the market and scale with the growth capital. But, primarily, it provides educational depth and network potential for the platform.

Saudi’s Circyls raises $1.3M Pre-Series A via crowdfunding platform Scopeer

Shaheera Faheem — Thu, 03 Mar 2022 16:30:37 GMT

Saudi Arabia-based fintech Circyls has raised $1.3 million in pre-Series A round by the crowdfunding platform Scopeer to grow its team and expand its user base across KSA.

Circyls raised $1.3 million Pre-Series A round through Scooper, a crowdfunding platform. Before this, Circyls had raised its Seed Round worth $400K back in 2019. It also managed to join the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) regulatory sandbox. This year, the startup would go public on Nomu, the secondary public market in Saudi Arabia.

Circyls offers its users the opportunity to have expanded access to capital through its e-ROSCA model. The rotating savings and credit association (ROSCA) model is the most popular saving mechanism among communities with limited access to formal financial services. e-ROSCA is a digital alternative to the traditional saving mechanism.

The platform lets users choose to join a specific cycle based on the amount of money they need and schedule a payout date of their preference.

After this acquisition of the latest investment, Circyls plans to serve up to 600,00 users across Saudi Arabia in the coming period. The startup would be channelling the funds to grow its team and expand its user base across KSA.

Egypt’s mothers-centred eCommerce platform Mumerz raises $1.2M Pre-Seed

Shaheera Faheem — Thu, 03 Mar 2022 16:30:08 GMT

Egypt-based e-commerce platform offering products for mothers, soon-to-be mothers and children, Mumerz has successfully raised $1.2M in its Pre-Seed round led by the local fund Disruptech.

The Pre-Seed round was led by local investors Disruptech, which is an Egypt-focused $25 million fintech fund. This investment further validates the local community’s trust in Mumerz and its customer market.

“We are excited to lead the investment round for Mumerz. We believe that Mumerz will grow into one of Egypt’s leading femtech platforms, offering unique products and services to Egypt’s community of mothers. We will be working closely with Mumerz to expand its offering to customized financial services, helping to support increased opportunities for financial inclusion of women in Egypt.”
~ Mohamed Okasha, Managing Partner Disruptech

Mumerz is the largest bilingual community and e-commerce platform in Egypt. It hosts a one-stop online shop for all parent and child needs, promising its customers next-day delivery.Mumerz.com offers diverse products addressing the needs of pregnant women and kids up to the age of 12. Mumerz.com aims to fill the gap in information, advisory, and products that parents and children need.

The platform additionally offers a blog that includes articles on a large variety of issues related to pregnancy, childbirth, and Mum & childcare, integrated with the largest parent and child e-commerce platform in Egypt.

The company is co-founded by Amir Shenouda and Nadia Gamal El Din. Amir has extensive experience in Mum and Child merchandise as he held major positions at Hamley’s, Toys R Us, Cartoon Network, Mumzworld, Souq, and Amazon. Nadia is the founder of Rahet Bally that serves more than 1.9 million active Mums in Egypt via financial, physical, intellectual, and social support. Nadia brings her insights on the Mothers Support community into Mumerz.com.

“We believe that the mother, baby, and child online vertical is underserved in Egypt. The key to that is in delivering an optimal customer experience with a wide range of mother-baby and child products at affordable prices.”
~ Amir Shenouda, Founder and Managing Partner mumerz.com

“Mumerz.com capitalizes on Rahet Bally’s massive insights on exactly what moms need as well as a seasoned advisory team that recommend what’s the best product fit for each mom’s needs based on Rahet Bally’s reviews across all product categories.”
~ Nadia Gamal El Din, Founder Mumerz.com and Rahet Bally

The Egypt-based startup will be channelling its newly acquired funds to further support its online platform with diversified offering and content as well as expand its market share in Egypt and Beyond.

Egypt’s food delivery startup Elmenus raises funding from Careem to expand across the region

Shaheera Faheem — Wed, 02 Mar 2022 07:31:05 GMT

Uber-backed Careem invests an undisclosed amount in Elmenus, a leading Egyptian food delivery app, in an effort to roll out more services and expand its market share across the region.

Elmenus is a Cairo based food delivery startup that helps people decide what to eat through a comprehensive platform with user photos and a personalised food discovery experience. The Egyptian startup is expanding rapidly and scaling its operations and now connects users to 6,000 restaurants across Egypt.

Last year, Elumnus raised $10 million in funding from several investors, including Egyptian electronic payment platform Fawry, New York-based hedge fund Luxor Capital and Egyptian property developer Marakez. Before this, Elumnus raised a Series B round of $8 million from Dubai-based Global Ventures and Cairo-based Algebra Ventures.

“We’ve been very impressed with the Elmenus teams’ drive and purposeful approach to building a successful food business.”
~ Mudassir Sheikha, Co-founder and CEO Careem

Egypt is Careem‘s biggest market in ride-hailing and now it is extending its reach by exploring the rising market of food delivery services. This partnership will help connect the company with more than 12,000 eateries in five Egyptian cities and their customers.

This agreement with elmenus is a crucial step in launching Careem’s Super App across the region.

“There is an enormous potential in Egypt to improve the food ordering experience and Elmenus is uniquely positioned to lead the way.”
~ Mudassir Sheikha, Co-founder and CEO Careem

UAE’s Alaan launches with $2.5M Seed to optimize corporate spend in the Middle East

Shaheera Faheem — Wed, 02 Mar 2022 06:19:08 GMT

UAE-based FinTech and multi-currency spend management startup Alaan launched with a $2.5M Seed Round that was led by 468 Capital, Global Founders Capital, and Presight Capital, to optimize and facilitate corporate spend in the Middle East.

The Seed round was led by 468 Capital, Global Founders Capital, and Presight Capital with participation from a number of angel investors including Mato Peric, Erik Podzuweit, and Florian Prucker, founders of Scalable Capital as well as Philippe Teixeira da Mota, founder of Hedosophia.

“Although more than 97% of all business entities in the Middle East are SMEs, they are largely underserved by traditional financial institutions. We were impressed by Parthi and Karun’s vision to help SMEs in the region digitize their payment flow using an exceptional platform that we believe is set to revolutionize spend management.”
~ Ludwig Ensthaler, General Partner 468 Capital

Parthi Duraisamy and Karun Kurien, ex-McKinsey employees founded Alaan in 2021, with the aim to transform the processing of business expenses through its platform that automatically reconciles spending in real-time.

“We founded Alaan after experiencing first-hand the frustrating expense and invoice management processes. We have solved critical pain points in the end-to-end payment flow by building a software layer on top of the regulated banking infrastructure.”
~ Karun Kurien, Co-founder and Head of Product and Technology, Alaan

Alaan presents a smart way to manage business spend that eliminates cash, expense reports, physical receipts and reimbursements. It instantly issues multi-currency virtual cards that can be used for e-commerce transactions, SaaS subscriptions, vendor payments or in-store purchases.

“At Alaan, our vision is to offer SMEs and entrepreneurs an innovative platform to manage company spend, be it through card rails or account-to-account rails. In markets such as the UAE, over 80% of consumer payments are digital. But when it comes to business payments, we haven’t seen the substantial transformation, and the old world of offline payments still rules. This is where Alaan comes in. We enable businesses to manage expenses smartly, seamlessly, and digitize their payment flow.”
~ Parthi Duraisamy, CEO and Co-Founder Alaan

The latest acquired funds would be channelled to expand its headcount and scale in multiple markets across the Middle East.

Easypaisa partners with Qisstpay to facilitate secure digital payments

Shaheera Faheem — Wed, 02 Mar 2022 05:37:56 GMT

Easypaisa, Pakistan’s leading digital payments App has partnered with Qisstpay, the country’s fastest-growing retail payment solutions service, to facilitate convenient and secure digital payments at Qisstpay partner merchants across the country.

Easypaisa has been collaborating with strategic partners across the country with the aim to digitize all cash payments in Pakistan and to increase the adoption of digital financial services. Easypaisa is the most used Pakistani App across all categories and remains committed to creating a transparent digital economy in Pakistan.

“Through this partnership with Qisstpay, which is the only SECP licensed company to allow instalment solutions, Easypaisa is proud to have become the first mobile wallet in the country to facilitate innovative payment options like 1 Click checkout & BNPL. We are very excited to develop and further expand this space, which has a lot of potential in Pakistan’s payments landscape”
~ M. Mudassar Aqil, CEO Easypaisa

Qisstpay has been introducing innovative financial services, after the launch of its Buy Now Pay Later service that received unmatchable success, it launched frictionless 1 Click Checkout, allowing customers to check out in just one click within seconds, enabling them to pay through digital wallets.

“I’m thrilled to partner with Easypaisa and excited for the entire Qisstpay user base as they are about to experience the freedom to spend using this widely available and popular app across the country.”
~ Jordan Olivas, CEO and Co-Founder QisstPay

The partnership will enable customers opting to pay their Qisstpay instalment payments faster through their Easypaisa App in real-time, without any extra fee. The collaboration will also benefit merchants on a large scale as the friendly payment option of Easypaisa will invite a larger audience to indulge in online shopping to enjoy a faster purchase process via 1 Click checkout and payment splits.

What are pre-seed and seed funding rounds?

Sarwat Rizvi — Tue, 01 Mar 2022 17:32:24 GMT

If there’s anything that Silicon Valley loves more than complex startup terminology, it’s making that terminology even more cryptic to understand. And while certain startup funding stages have some technicalities to them, it might be a little challenging to define, the exact difference between “pre-seed and “seed” funding rounds.

Fundamentally, pre-seed and seed funding rounds are the earliest stages of funding that helps a startup get up on its feet. When you’re building a startup from the ground up, one of the most important aspects is to obtain funding that will help your startup to grow. There are various funding stages that are available for startups to get funding, which include pre-seed and seed funding rounds, sometimes succeeded by Series A, Series B, and Series C funding.

Where pre-seed and seed funding rounds, are the earliest stages of funding that can be used to help a startup thrive. We’ll dive deeper into the different stages of funding a startup goes through during its life cycle.

Difference Between Seed & Pre-Seed Funding

Pre-Seed Funding

Pre-seed funding is the kind of funding that helps a startup during its initial formation and functioning. Since this funding is meant to be used to get a startup off the ground, it’s not typically considered to be an actual round of funding. The investors who typically provide startups with pre-seed funding include the founder of the startup, close friends, family members, and supporters of the respective starters. Pre-seed funding can amount from $10,000 to $250,000.

A pre-seed startup funding round precedes Seed and Series A rounds and may follow funding from an angel round or a period of bootstrapping with your own financial resources.

Additionally, due to so many early-stage startups looking for financial support, the number of companies that actually receive pre-seed funding is quite low, investors usually consider thousands of startups before investing in only a handful of them.

Seed Funding

Now, coming to the Seed funding round. Seed funding is the first official equity funding stage for any startup. It represents the first official capital that a business venture or enterprise raises.

You can think of the “seed” funding as part of an analogy for planting a tree. This early financial support is ideally the “seed” that will help to grow the business. When given enough revenue and a successful business strategy, the company will eventually grow into a “tree.” Seed funding helps a company subsidise its first steps, including things like market research and product development. Seed funding assists a company in determining what its final products will be and who its target demographic is.

Investors who usually provide startups with seed funding include founders, friends, family, incubators and venture capital companies. One of the most common types of investors participating in seed funding is called an “angel investor.” Angel investors tend to appreciate riskier ventures, such as startups with very little proven track record so far, and expect an equity stake in the company in exchange for their investment.

Some companies never extend beyond seed funding into Series A rounds or beyond.

Additional Funding Stages

While Series A funding is typically designed to be used for the optimization of a startup that is currently in its initial stages, Series B funding is directed towards helping startups expand their market reach.

As for the Series C funding, these funding sessions are designed for the rapid growth of the company. Additionally, this funding could help your startup acquire another company. While it’s possible to obtain this funding from family, friends, or even your own bank account, the two most imminent forms of funding occur from angel investors and venture capitalist firms. In many cases, this funding is provided in exchange for a small share of the company, technically referred to as equity.

Each stage of capital raising can be extended. For example, a business might engage in additional rounds of Series B funding before moving to Series C. However, if a startup conducts dozens of rounds of financing, investors may become sceptical of the company’s financial health.

The Fintech Revolution – Our Top Picks from Pakistan

Shaheera Faheem — Tue, 01 Mar 2022 15:57:23 GMT

The high rate of financial exclusion in Pakistan is mindboggling. As to the State Bank of Pakistan’s Access to Finance Survey (2015), only 16 per cent of Pakistanis had a bank account and 23 per cent had formal financial access.

For the longest time, financial inclusion merely meant opening a bank account. This approach can produce only a limited impact, given the vigorously long procedure of opening a bank account, lack of credit history and liquidity.

In recent years an important driver towards financial inclusion has been mobile money. The ease of performing transactions through your phone converts your phone into a financial access channel.

What could be more of a virus carrier than cash that goes from one hand to the other, multiple times? Cash exchange became deadly during covid and wanting or not people had to shift to digital banking. Covid changed the dynamic of many sectors, but the innovation in financial technology is unbeatable.

We are living in the age of the fintech revolution. Currently, more than 220 fintech companies are operating in Pakistan, among which 40 are highly notable, getting global funding.

The fintech platforms can be divided into three categories of Fintech startups, Fintech Companies and Fintech Banks.

We have picked the favourites that we believe would be making big news this year.

Easypaisa

Easypaisa is one of the first and most popular fintech services in Pakistan that offers mobile-based branchless banking services all across the country. From the poorest to the middle-class, EasyPaisa seems to be a trusted name among all classes.

It offers Over-the-counter (OTC) transactions, bill payment, and mobile banking.
It also enables its customers to pay domestic and international payments securely without any hassle.
It lets you purchase airtime, give donations, pay for insurance, and disburse salaries and social cash transfers effortlessly.
It also offers Inter Bank fund transfers, health insurance, handset lending, and secure online payments anytime from anywhere you want.

TAG

TAG provides a digital experience of everyday banking.

Tag, a one-year-old startup, has raised over $12 million making it the largest seed financing round in the South Asian market.

Finja

Finja is a financial services platform for professionals, merchants, and SMEs providing credit and payments solutions. It simplifies the process of salaries, loans, bills, rolling out payments, online shopping and provides better business process management, all with just a click.

Some of the services they offer to their customers without any additional charges are Finja Wallet, Finja Retail, CRM Solution, Digital Wallet, and Payroll Plus. It also provides the FINJA card that turns into a debit or credit card according to the customer’s needs.

SadaPay

SadaPay offers hassle-free efficient financial services with no additional cost. You can securely send and receive digital payment through their mobile app.

On a mission to replace complexities and high costs in traditional banking, SadaPay runs without a physical setup. SadaPay’s branchless digital bank service comes with a digital wallet and a Mastercard debit card.

Moreover, it offers an effortless interaction with merchants. Accounts are also enabled for international transfers from 45 countries.

The firm secured one of the largest fintech funding round in 2021, at US$7.2mn, raising its total funding to US$9.3mn.

JazzCash

JazzCash is Pakistan’s largest branchless banking service provider. It has made transactions easy and quick for the vast majority. Users can send money on CNIC, mobile numbers, and bank accounts through JazzCash.

It is now a leading mobile payments platform in Pakistan, competing closely with EasyPasia. By 2019, JazzCash had 6.5 mn active digital wallets and had conducted transactions worth $13bn.

QISST PAY

QisstPay introduced the concept of payments in instalments from small things with the minimum cost as small as Rs. 1500. Many renowned brands have integrated QisstPay in their payment checkout section. As you pay the first instalment through your credit or debit card, the next instalment is deducted itself after 30 days.

The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) awarded QisstPay, a Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) license in December 2021. This BNPL license of a Non-Banking Finance Company (NBFC) is the first of its kind to a new Fintech concept.

NAYAPAY

NayaPay is one of the first electronic money institutions in Pakistan. It has partnered with the leading banks and agent networks to enable customers to open E-money wallets. Customers can send and receive money through effortless and secured digital transactions.

It has earned commercial approval to operate as the first Electronic Money Institution in Pakistan, after a year-long pilot and inspection by the State Bank.

NayaPay claims its card is superior to cash, as it’s more convenient, secure and well sleekier!

Tez Financial Services

Tez is the first completely digital non-bank microfinance company in Pakistan. Tez offers credit, savings, insurance, and investments via a uniform, data-driven platform. increase financial inclusion through its fast, efficient and transparent services.

Tez has expanded to offer health services, health insurance, loans and life insurance plans in collaboration with EFU, a leading domestic insurance company.

Karandaaz

Karandaaz is one of a kind not-for-profit company promoting access to finance for SMEs through a commercially directed investment platform. It also increases opportunities and eases the process of financial inclusion for individuals by employing technology-enabled solutions.

Karandaaz has been committed to a grant by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation with a vision to increase the poor’s access to digital financial services. It has also been provided with a grant by the UK government’s Department for International Development (DFID) under the Enterprise and Asset Growth Programme (EAGR).

Karandaaz started a green challenge fund to financially support corporations, non-profit organizations, green-techs or unregistered businesses that can contribute to tackling problems such as air pollution, waste management, and water scarcity.

This was our list of some fintech companies operating and doing exceptionally well in Pakistan.

We must always keep in mind that financial inclusion is highly dependent on creating the enabling environment for financial access.

The lack of internet services in underprivileged areas, the compromised internet speed in most areas and most importantly the trust deficit in the population regarding digital money are some of the many reasons people are still hesitant towards and even unaware of fintech companies.

The most important driver to speed up the shift to digital banking are incentives and awareness by the government. Every Government has a responsibility to provide the laws and regulations that encourage both financial sector development and inclusion.

The IT infrastructure is developing, the current government has been responsive towards the issues of the digital sector and the startup spike getting global investors coming to Pakistan is paving the way for an expansion of the fintech sector.

The hopes are high but there’s still a long way to go.

Let us know in the comments below, stories of people around you, especially among the low-income population, that shifted to digital financial services and what their experience has been like.

Cairo-based logistics provider Milezmore raises $5 M pre-Seed from Brimore to delve into last-mile delivery

Shaheera Faheem — Tue, 01 Mar 2022 11:29:48 GMT

Brimore, Egypt’s largest social commerce platform, has invested $5 million in end-to-end logistics service provider Milezmore to scale its cloud solutions, enhance its technology, expand its storage area and enlarge its delivery capacity.

Brimore is Egypt’s largest social commerce platform that enables local production by providing emerging brands with nationwide coverage through a network of individual distributors.

“For decades, Egypt has suffered from a fragmented traditional supply chain structure that no longer works with the rise of new commerce models, especially after being hit with a global pandemic. To address this challenge, we believed that the best solution was to invest in Milezmore to handle all the heavy operations. After all, Brimore’s promise is to create smart infrastructure for the masses, and our investment in Milezmore is a testament to that.”
~ Mohamed Abdulaziz, CEO and Co-founder Brimore

Milezmore aims to enable its merchants to capture high growth potential by providing supercharged cloud logistics solutions. Within a year, Milezmore has experienced exponential growth and built an infrastructure reaching a warehousing area of +20,000 SQM, covering the whole country with 15 delivery hubs, processing +15 million pieces, delivering +1 million packages, and attracting +25 new customers in different industries.

“We are proud to be the first Egyptian startup to offer all three services and cater to all types of companies. What I witnessed during the past four years is that the traditional supply chain wasn’t built to solve today’s problem, and I believe Milezmore was built for that. In one year, we were able to build a strong and passionate team that drove the company forward and achieved tremendous results. This is only the beginning, and we’re confident that Milezmore will revolutionise the logistics industry in the near future.”
~ Ahmed El Attar, Managing Director and Co-founder Milezmore

Milezmore has enabled Brimore to adapt to the ever-changing requirements of growth and has been the main factor behind Brimore’s rapid expansion. With the acquisition of the latest capital, Milezmore plans to scale its cloud solutions through robust technology, expandable storage area, higher delivery capacity, and double its team to enable a 50X increase in its customer base.

Egypt-based PropTech startup Milango acquires its local counterpart Circle to expand user base

Shaheera Faheem — Tue, 01 Mar 2022 11:06:16 GMT

Cairo-based community management software provider Milango, backed by A15, has acquired its local counterpart Circle, a 500 Startups-backed company for an undisclosed amount. This acquisition will help Milango increase its market share and further solidify its position as the premium community management solution in the region.

Milango is a Cairo-based startup that enables offline communities to offer different services to their residents and members through branded mobile apps. The startup raised a Seed round of $100 K in October 2020. Milango uses an integrated network of suppliers and a custom UI/UX design to digitize every aspect of the community.

“We have managed to exceed our initial usage expectations and established an engaged user base that is nearing EGP 100 Million in financial transactions with strong projected growth on that front for 2022. We are confident that with the acquisition of Circle and the addition of their premium clients to our portfolio, we are on the right track to bring #ASmarterLife to all communities.”
~ Amr Mostafa, CEO Milango

Circle is a mobile app that enables property managers to better engage with their tenants, handle their requests and reduce operational costs. Circle streamlines communication with clients and imitates sales office experience online making communication with overseas clients even easier.

“Circle success wouldn’t have been made possible without Nancy Kamal, my co-founder and her determined and ambitious mindset; the hard work of our team, and the support of our investors at 500 Startups. I strongly believe that the synergies this deal creates will shape a stronger proposition, that will serve millions of households across the region.”
~ Essam Maged, Co-Founder and CEO Circle

This acquisition will grow Milango’s contracted user base to well over 100,000 residential units and accelerate the startup’s growth in the community management category. This power partnership allows the two PropTech startups to explore further Tech opportunities as they consolidate their user-base and expand into neighbouring geographies and beyond.

Egypt’s B2B agri-supply chain startup FreshSource raises 7-figure Round to expand across region

Shaheera Faheem — Tue, 01 Mar 2022 10:05:28 GMT

FreshSource, one of the MENA region’s first B2B agri-supply chain platforms, announced a seven-figure investment from 4DX Ventures and Wamda. The exact amount of the investment was not disclosed.

The Cairo-based, fresh food platform was founded back in 2019 by a sibling duo with the aim to leverage technology and data, that would transform the lives of producers, businesses, consumers and improve the planet. FreshSource changes the way fresh goods are sourced, moved and sold.

Farah and Omar Emara, the sibling founders of FreshSource have previous experiences in P&G and Goldman Sachs respectively. Their step-in in the fresh food sector was backed by the 30 years ‘ experience of the duo’s family company Emarco Group, one of the largest cold chain logistics in Egypt, that sources the produce from around the world and keep it safe in their facilities.

“We saw a substantial market opportunity and believed that with our Management, Finance and Tech background coupled with our family business know-how, we would build a high-growth and impactful business that will introduce new ways of sourcing in the country.”
~ Farah Emara, CEO and Co-Founder FreshSource

“We are proud to have the confidence of some of the strongest investors in the region who share our vision of leveraging data and technology to streamline the inefficient Agri supply chain. This new investment will allow us to continue to bring top talent on board and build the team we need to achieve our mission and accelerate our growth.”
~ Omar Emara, COO and Co-Founder FreshSource

FreshSource plans to channel the recent funds for geographical expansion within the Egyptian market, investing in their technology platform, growing the team in Egypt, while planning the future expansion in the region.

“Farah and Omar have shown excellent knowledge of the market and ability to execute so far, and we think that they have the potential to build a really important business in the coming years. Great pricing, reliability, and quality is essential for the agriculture/food industry, and Freshsource is helping to deliver a service quality well ahead of anything else in the market.”
~ Peter Orth, Co-Founder and Managing Partner | 4DX Ventures

Pakistan’s Ecommerce startup Webx raises Seed Funding from UAE

Shaheera Faheem — Mon, 28 Feb 2022 16:31:31 GMT

Webx, Pakistan’s SaaS (software as a service) e-commerce start-up has recently raised an undisclosed amount in its first seed round funding from UAE based investors, arranged by Al-Hilal Securities Advisors.

Webx allows retailers to build their online retail stores. It is a one-stop solution for e-commerce that takes care of the payment and delivery channels by connecting the stores with top-tier payment providers and logistics services, through a fully-automated system.

It was launched in 2018, and by 2021 recorded a Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) of over Rs. 1 billion. It has a steady growth rate of 50% yearly.

“We want to make ecommerce easy and accessible to everyone. We have millions of retail businesses in Pakistan, and thousands of young entrepreneurs who are determined to build their own online brands.”
~ Waleed Masood, founder and CEO Webx

“Our long-term vision is to enable the young entrepreneurs and SMEs of Pakistan to reach global audiences and create a wider acceptance of Pakistani goods and services in international markets.”
~ Fraz Saleem, Co-founder Webx

This investment led by Al Hilal Securities validates the MENA region’s and in fact, the world’s interest in Pakistan’s startup ecosystem primarily the retail, e-commerce and fintech sector. The phenomenal growth of the startup ecosystem brought many renowned investors to Pakistan and even more eyeing the industry.

“Pakistan is a country with 60% of its 230 million plus population in the 15 to 29 age group, which is the most tech savvy age bracket globally, is all geared up for the digital age.”
~ Zaheeruddin Khalid, CFA Director at Al Hilal Securities

Webx believes that the local eCommerce market will double in size in the next 3 years. The E-commerce startup aims to utilize the latest funds to expand the consumer base of the company.

Muawin, a digital lending entity partners with Retailo, the B2B giant to allow easy access to credit

Shaheera Faheem — Mon, 28 Feb 2022 15:06:45 GMT

Muawin, a digital lending entity for small and medium enterprises, has announced a partnership with Retailo, the fastest-growing B2B startup in the MENAP region that is digitizing retail supply chains in Pakistan.

Muawin is Pakistan’s first business-to-business (B2B) buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) company, empowering people to take control of their finances through credit-based & tailor-made digital solutions.

Retailo is a platform that supercharges retailers across the MENAP region with the aim to improve the lives of the unserved segments of society through technology. Retailo has built a large network of 50,000 + retailers and is now operational in Saudi Arabia as well.

This partnership will allow Retailo’s 50,000+ retailers quick, easy and convenient access to credit through Muawin. This strategic move is made possible through close integration between Muawin’s backend and Retailo’s customer application. Retailo’s customers can submit the KYC application, gain approval from Muawin, and place an order for goods on credit, all through one single app.

“We’re really excited to launch this partnership with Retailo. We hope this will catalyze increased access to Pakistani e-commerce outlets, along with easy access to credit.”
~ Moeed Qamar, Co-founder Muawin

This seamless process would enable thousands of underserved retailers access to a platform that allows digitized credit, inventory supply and speedy business growth.

“Retailo’s mission is to use technology to improve the lives of underserved and empower 10 million retailers across MENAP. We have made deep inroads in digitizing supply chains and our partnership with Muawin will allow us to provide credit line to SME retailers which will increase their business and income.”
~ Wahaj Ahmed, Co-founder Retailo

This partnership will initially facilitate the retailers of Karachi and soon expand across other major cities of Pakistan. Muawin and Retailo further plan to extend their partnership in other verticals of retail like wholesale.

PayFast partners with bSecure to offer payment solutions

Shaheera Faheem — Mon, 28 Feb 2022 14:22:54 GMT

Pakistan-based digital aggregation platform bSecure has partnered with payment service provider PayFast to offer more payment solutions to their customers.

bSecure is a one-click checkout solution for global selling. It facilitates the management and streamlining of product checkout for an instant buying experience. It takes a security-centric approach with encrypted transactions and transparency of user needs and expectations.

PayFast is a State Bank licensed and regulated fintech that allows businesses to receive payments from customers through a variety of online payment methods. It enables payment acceptance for a diverse range of entities including ecommerce merchants and retailers, freelancers, corporations, and billing entities.

This merger would facilitate the clients on bSecure’s platform to seamlessly and securely accept online payments through Visa and Mastercard payment cards in addition to UnionPay and PayPak cards, bank accounts, and mobile wallets. A strategic partnership with Bank Alfalah enables the Visa and MasterCard acceptance.

“Our innovative partnership with bSecure will bolster Pakistan’s digital payment acceptance capabilities and cater to a wider variety of merchants and young entrepreneurs.”
~ Adnan Ali, CEO PayFast

PayFast’s role in providing all bSecure Builders a seamless onboarding journey has been critical and together we hope to make all customers’ online purchases seamless,”
~ Adam Dawood, CEO bSecure.

You can simply visit bsecure.pk sign up and start accepting prepayment orders in as little as 3 days. This collaboration permits E-commerce businesses to accept credit/debit card payments and API-based bank transfers.

Egypt launches $50M venture capital programme to support tech startups

Shaheera Faheem — Fri, 25 Feb 2022 15:18:03 GMT

Egypt has launched a $50 million venture capital programme to finance new and existing investment funds, in collaboration with the World Bank.

The fund was announced by Nevine Gamea, Egypt’s Minister of Trade and Industry, and Executive director of MSMEDA, the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise Development Agency, during the opening of the Direct Investment Week.

The Direct Investment Week was co-organised by MSMEDA and the African Private Equity and Venture Capital Association, in cooperation with the World Bank, the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), the Misr Insurance Holding Company, and the National Bank of Egypt (NBE).

The Venture Capital programme aims to support young innovators by providing both technical and financial support that would help them establish tech-focused projects and apps that facilitate peoples’ needs.

Nevine Gamea emphasized the state’s interest in supporting young innovators. She further added that MSMEDA is keen on reviewing and developing its financial services on an ongoing basis to meet the needs of various types of projects, primarily those relying on technology and modern applications and have witnessed rapid growth after the spread of the Coronavirus.

“The most prominent feature of the venture capital programme is that it allows investment in funds that wish to expand in the African market. This helps increase trade exchange and exchange experiences with neighbouring countries in Africa.”
~ Nevine Gamea | Minister Trade and Industry, Executive Director MSMEDA

UAE’s e-commerce platform Kaso raises investment from Y Combinator

Shaheera Faheem — Fri, 25 Feb 2022 14:41:48 GMT

The leading B2B platform of UAE, Kaso that was formerly known as Elkaso set to digitize the ordering process between restaurants and food suppliers in the UAE and KSA, raised investment from Y combinator to expand in its leadership, talent, and product offering.

Along with the announcement of closing an investment from global accelerator Y Combinator, Kaso also announced the appointment of Frank Biedka, former CTO of Zalando, a leading European e-commerce platform, to lead Kaso’s technology development.

“Biedka’s extensive experience in driving innovation through technology aligns perfectly with Kaso’s mission to revolutionize, digitize and simplify the food supply procurement process. I am excited to welcome a tech leader in the industry to continue taking Kaso to our path to reach $300m in GMV by end of this year”.
~ Manar Alkassar, Co-founder of Kaso.

Kaso is a food supply chain solution provider that gives access to a Tech-enabled platform connecting restaurants with suppliers in time to refill their stock needs or make last-minute orders on demand.

Kaso raised initial pre-seed funding in 2021 that helped it grow 10x in the last six months, servicing over 3500 restaurants and supplier partners in the UAE and Saudi Arabia alone.

“We are incredibly proud to now be part of the prestigious portfolio of YC companies. Kaso’s acceptance and hypergrowth are testaments to the region’s need for a digitized solution to streamline the food supply procurement. We are bridging an evident gap in the thriving $50B food supply Gulf market, with our users already reducing supply costs by 15% and reducing order errors by 80%.”
~ Ahmed Soliman, Co-founder Kaso (former VP, Delivery Hero logistics)

The latest investment will be channelled in an extensive rebrand of the company. Kaso’s rebrand includes the launch of a new website, kaso.ai, introducing the company’s new visual identity, and a fresh new name and logo.

Foodpanda launches first e-bikes for delivery riders in collaboration with Climate Change Ministry

Shaheera Faheem — Fri, 25 Feb 2022 11:26:51 GMT

In a ceremony on Thursday, 24th February 2022, Foodpanda, Pakistan’s leading e-commerce company became the first e-commerce player in Pakistan to launch e-bikes on its platform for delivery riders. This initiative was undertaken in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Climate Change.

The first set of e-bikes was distributed among the riders during the ceremony, that was attended by Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Climate Change Malik Amin Aslam, Muntaqa Peracha, Interim CEO foodpanda Pakistan, Hassan Arshad, Principal, Policy & Communications foodpanda Pakistan and Usman Sheikh, CEO Jolta Electric, along with other senior representatives from the companies.

“This partnership is geared towards fostering a culture of environmental wellbeing, in line with Prime Minister’s Clean Green Pakistan Initiative. As the number of delivery riders has significantly gone up, this is going to be the first of its kind practical action. Needless to say, it is a collective action approach and will pave the way for other players to take this as an example and follow suit.”
~ Malik Amin Aslam, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Climate Change.

The number of food delivery and quick commerce delivery riders on the roads has exponentially increased within the past few years. The popular mode of transport for all deliveries are motorbikes. E-bikes for delivery purposes would have a great impact on the environment.

This initiative by foodpanda reassures its vision to work towards environmental sustainability. Foodpanda partnered with Jolta Electric to scale e-bikes on its platform and will also explore financing opportunities with different banks to support its riders.

“Launching e-bikes is in line with our core philosophy of embedding technology into our business and aimed at defining a direction for the future. foodpanda is today a household name and has over the years become an integral part of people’s lives through its value-added offerings. This is reason enough for us to stay one step ahead and demonstrate our commitment to climate action at a time when there is a great urgency to act.”
~ Muntaqa Peracha, Interim CEO at foodpanda

Tech and e-commerce giants like foodpanda, taking innovative steps towards the protection of the environment create a chain effect. Other companies follow these trends and come up with solutions that reduce the impacts of climate change.

ENA partners with Jolta Battery to work on graphene supercapacitors for the Pakistani market

Shaheera Faheem — Thu, 24 Feb 2022 13:07:58 GMT

Pakistani startup Energy and Automation (ENA), a company of Jaffer Business Systems (JBS) recently joined forces with Jolta Battery Private Limited, a sister company of Jolta Electric (Pakistan’s First EV company), to provide solutions to the telecom & banking sector.

The two companies signed an exclusive agreement with a potential of $35million to work on graphene-based Supercapacitors with an innovative power backup storage technology called “ENARGEZE SUPERPOWER”.

The event witnessed the presence of Jolta Group Chairman Muhammad Azim, Jolta Electric CEO Usman Sheikh, Jolta Battery Co-Founder & COO Rehan Aslam, JBS CEO Veqar Ul Islam, ENA’s Chief Executive Amir Salman, and Director Faisal Murad.

“The Supercapacitor is 25 times better than VRLA dry batteries. This new technology is safe to use and minimizes the use of generators. In the bigger picture, this will contribute to a greener Pakistan by reducing carbon footprint and fuel consumption. ”
~ Amir Salman, Chief Executive ENA

ENARGEZE SUPERPOWER seems to be a transformational innovation given the frequent power outages, unreliable transmission infrastructure, and low-efficiency alternatives in our country.

“Jolta Battery is bringing the most advanced technology in Pakistan, which will be significantly helpful to the national exchequer by reducing the import bill of up to $1 billion in three to four years.”
~ Rehan Aslam, Co-Founder & COO Jolta Battery

This initiative by ENA and Jolta Battery will create a pool of employment opportunities and facilitate huge growth. Additionally, it is also a step towards green and clean energy in Pakistan.

Egypt’s OneOrder launches with $1M in initial funding to solve supply chain challenges in the Egyptian food & beverage industry

Shaheera Faheem — Thu, 24 Feb 2022 12:28:20 GMT

OneOrder, a logistics company set to solve Egyptian restaurants’ supply chain inefficiencies, announces its launch with an initial investment of $1 million to upgrade the supply chain amongst Egyptian restaurants by allowing restaurants to get all their supplies from a single platform.

The funding round was led by MENA’s leading venture capital, A15.

OneOrder is a logistics company addressing the major inefficiencies faced by Egypt’s restaurants when sourcing supplies. Their platform would let Egyptian restaurants buy all their needs from one application, with reliable quality, prices, and timing.

We believe restaurants should be focused on delivering a high-quality experience and service to their customers without having to worry about sourcing and procurement. We are the platform to deliver that.”
~ Tamer Amer, Founder and CEO of OneOrder

This single app and the web-based platform allow them to sidestep many of the pitfalls like non-transparent pricing, unreliable quality, irregular delivery timing, risks of sudden shortages or outages, unnecessary overheads and costs.

“We are excited to partner with Tamer to solve one of the main challenges the Food & Beverages industry faces in the MENA region. By leveraging Tamer’s extensive experience as a successful restauranteur and A15’s history of building scalable technology platforms, we will aim to provide restaurants in the region with reliable, convenient and timely supplies that are consistently priced.”
~ Karim Beshara, General Partner at A15

The proceeds of this initial investment will be used in setting up a platform to address structural challenges facing Egyptian restaurants when sourcing supplies. OneOrder also plans to expand its proposition geographically across the MENA region.

NayaPay, a Karachi-based fintech startup raises $13M Seed to grow user base and introduce new services

Shaheera Faheem — Thu, 24 Feb 2022 11:15:52 GMT

Pakistan-based fintech platform, NayaPay, has raised $13 million in one of the largest seed rounds in South Asia, to deploy a multi-service messaging and payment app that aims to increase financial inclusion among unbanked adults in the region.

The round was led by:

Zayn Capital, a London-based investment firm
MSA Novo, Global fund manager
Graph Ventures, an early-stage VC from Silicon Valley

Along with participation from Singapore-based Saison Capital, Waleed Saigol’s Maple Leaf Capital and Warren Hogarth; CEO Empower Finance and sponsors of the Lakson Group (a Pakistani conglomerate).

We were impressed by the completeness of the vision of the founding team at NayaPay, and their differentiated platform-based strategy– first focused on servicing the needs of underbanked consumers and SMBs with specific use cases and building out from there.”
~ Faisal Aftab, Managing Partner Zayn Capital Fronteir

NayaPay super-app allows Pakistani residents to send and receive money, split bills and make payments conveniently from smartphones. It also issues virtual and physical Visa cards linked to the NayaPay wallet to further facilitate digital payments.

Last year, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) issued a commercial approval to NayaPay to operate as the first Electronic Money Institution in Pakistan.

Students and freelancers usually considered high-risk clients by the traditional financial institutions are the first target market for NayaPay. It would soon be launching a SaaS-based platform called NayaPay Arc that primarily serves this group. This will offer universal payment acceptance and financial management tools for small and medium businesses.

“NayaPay Arc will provide universal payments acceptance and a range of business financial management tools to empower entrepreneurs and small business owners. The tools are intended to give business owners the visibility of their cash flows, pay suppliers and grow sales. “
~ Danish A. Lakhani, CEO and Founder NayaPay

With the latest funding, NayaPay targets to have 5 million users over the next five years and grow the number of digital payments. They also plan to introduce other digital financial services like lending and investment in future.

Tunisian InsurTech startup Avidea raises $696K in Pre-Series A to expand talent and market offering

Shaheera Faheem — Wed, 23 Feb 2022 14:42:04 GMT

Avidea, a Tunisian digital insurance startup raised $696K in its Pre-Series A round to expand its talent and market offering. The investment round was led by Capsa Capital Partners, a private equity firm, and the specialist investment vehicle 216 Capital Fund which is managed by 216 Capital Adventures.

Avidea assists insurance companies in lowering the cost of automotive claims by digitizing the customer journey for a better experience. The Tunisian InsurTech streamlines, defrauds, and optimizes the vehicle insurance claim process by creating a seamless two-way digital claims platform.

The latest acquired funding will be used to add additional talent to the Avidea team while expanding the product’s functional scope and target market, as the company enters a critical phase of industrialization and internalization.

Lahore-based coworking space Daftarkhwan raised Seed funding from UAE’s unicorn EMPG

Shaheera Faheem — Wed, 23 Feb 2022 14:30:50 GMT

The UAE-based regional classifieds giant Emerging Markets Property Group (EMPG) invested in daftarkhwan, a coworking startup from Lahore to ground its position in the Pakistani ecosystem and explore further digital opportunities in the property listing. The amount of the investment was, however, not disclosed.

“Daftarkhwan has moved on from hosting startups only to legacy businesses housing their employees at our co-working spaces. So co-working is working now and working for everyone. It’s all about delivering the right type of experience and giving the flexibility of service that can cater to mature businesses and young businesses,”
~Saad Idrees, Founder Daftarkhwan

Daftarkhwan raised its first round of angel investment in 2018, from Walled City Co, which has earlier backed startups like Airlift, GrocerApp, and Tazah. This seed funding by EMPG, which is also the parent company of Zameen.com, marks the second round of investment raised by the PropTech startup.

“Our sole focus right now is to continue doing what we are doing and do more of it.”
~ Saad Idrees, Founder daftarkhwan

Daftarkhwan is one of the pioneers of the coworking movement in Pakistan. It has 3 prime locations in Lahore and has a setup in Islamabad and Rawalpindi as well. It currently has the capacity to host 1,650 people each day. Daftarkhwan plans to scale it to over 3,000 people within the next three months.

“Daftarkhwan has always taken great pride in being more than just an office for its community of entrepreneurs and innovators, and we are excited to expand this community further.”
~Saad Idrees, Founder Daftarkhwan

“Pakistan Technology Startup Fund” established to provide Rs 1 Billion funding to 50 startups annually

Shaheera Faheem — Wed, 23 Feb 2022 13:25:48 GMT

Prime Minister Imran Khan announced the establishment of the Pakistan Technology Startup Fund while chairing a meeting on Tuesday. This fund would grant 50 startups annually with a combined seed funding of PKR 1 billion.

“The information technology sector and technology savvy youth are the biggest asset of the country that can be utilised to bridge the huge current account deficit. “
~ Prime Minister Imran Khan

The government aims to incentivise investment in the IT sector for economic growth. To take the mission forward, no tax policy or registered freelancers and 100 per cent forex retention for IT/ITeS companies and freelancers registered with the Pakistan Software Export Bureau (PSEB), was announced earlier this week.

Prime Minister assured facilitation by the government to the IT sector and startup ecosystem. He ensured to make necessary changes in the foreign exchange and income tax policies in order to help IT Startups.

He further added that the Capital Development Authority (CDA) in the country’s federal capital will be declared as Special Technology Zones so that IT firms and freelancers can avail the benefits offered by the Special Technology Zones Authority (STZA).

Prime Minister Imran Khan approved historic package for Youth which includes tax relief for freelancers and startups, ease in inflow/outflow of foreign currency and establishment of Pakistan Technology Startup Fund that would result in significant increase in economic growth. pic.twitter.com/RON9W9Hkk5
— Usman Dar (@UdarOfficial) February 22, 2022

UAE-based healthcare platform Nabta Health raises $1.5M Seed to expand market share across the region

Shaheera Faheem — Tue, 22 Feb 2022 13:22:15 GMT

The FemTech and preventive healthcare startup Nabta Health raises $1.5M in Seed funding to further support its Hybrid platform offering, and expand across the UAE and the GCC regions.

The Seed funding was led by Basim Anwer of Regionality Group of Companies, with participation from renowned angel investors including Priya Oberoi, Founding General Partner of Goddess Gaia Ventures, Dr Sarper Tanli, Operating Partner of TVM Capital Healthcare, and Nadia Mannell, Founding General Partner of Seed South Capital, along with participation from existing angel investors.

Nabta Health is dedicated to preventive women’s healthcare. The femtech firm accelerates the detection, diagnosis, and treatment of chronic diseases in women. It empowers women to manage their health with privacy, autonomy and convenience using a new model of hybrid healthcare. This digital model makes healthcare more accessible and affordable.

Over the course of this year, Nabta Health has launched the woman-centric, goal-oriented Nabta App, established an ecosystem of health and wellness providers through a B2C marketplace, signed exclusive distribution agreements for MENA with several high profile femtech companies, and established partnerships with the leading healthcare providers in the region.

“The femtech market is still very, very nascent in the emerging markets. Fewer than 1% of femtech companies target countries such as the UAE and Saudi, despite there being a sizeable, largely untapped market opportunity and a real human need. Nabta Health is in a unique position now to be the leader in femtech health and wearables in the GCC, and we are excited with what the future holds for us.”
~ Sophie Smith, Founder and CEO of Nabta Health

The latest seed financing will be channelled to expand Nabta Health’s product portfolio to include a number of B2B SaaS offerings and to expand its market share within the UAE.

The Kenya-based retail startup, MarketForce raises $40M Series A to expand across Africa

Shaheera Faheem — Tue, 22 Feb 2022 12:52:58 GMT

MarketForce, the retail B2B and end-to-end distribution platform founded in Kenya has raised $40 million in Series A funding.

This round was led by a London and Lagos based African-focused investment vehicle, V8 Capital Partners. Participation was witnessed from Ten13 VC, SOSV Select Fund, Vu Ventures, Vastly Valuable Ventures, Uncovered Fund. Along with them, existing investors including Reflect Ventures, Greenhouse Capital, Century Oak Capital and Remapped Ventures also took part. Ken Njoroge, Cellulant co-founder and chairman board MarketForce also participated in the funding round.

MarketForce provides a unified digital commerce marketplace to facilitate trade among Africa’s informal merchants and leading consumer brands. It lets them maximize their profit and grow in a digital age.

MarketForce is currently operational in 5 countries including Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda. It has up to 125,000 outlets and has processed sales transactions worth $500 million.

“Our mission is to enable SMEs to grow, and what we’ve realized over time is that offering them loans is great, but that we need to empower them to access goods. And that’s why we’ve introduced this merchant inventory financing, which is like an overdraft facility, where they’re able to order goods and pay later after selling them. We started a pilot and it is going well.”
~ Mbaabu, CEO and co-founder MarketForce

Before raising $40 million Series A, MarketForce conducted a pre-Series A round that raised $2 million. This latest round brings the total funds raised by MarketForce to date to $42.5 million.

After acquiring the latest investment, MarketForce plans more partnerships to bring on board other services for merchants like insurance, savings and investment. In addition to introducing new financial services, it also plans to enter additional markets in East and West Africa.

PM Imran Khan announces ‘no tax’ policy for registered freelance workers

Shaheera Faheem — Tue, 22 Feb 2022 10:16:33 GMT

During the launch ceremony of the National E-Tijarat Portal in Islamabad, Prime Minister Imran Khan announced that registered freelancers will be exempted from all types of taxes.

Praising the growth of the IT sector, Prime Minister stated the IT exports reached a grand total of $4 billion within the past two years. He further added that the government is exploring avenues to attract IT exports to the tune of $50 billion in the coming years.

“IT is youth-driven. All of these tech company owners became billionaires by the age of 20. Even today, older people have to work under younger people in the IT sector”
~ Prime Minister Imran Khan

Addressing the youth and primarily the women, he stated the great opportunities IT provides for financial inclusion and contribution to the economy. He pressed the audience to explore technology as a means for advancement by giving the example of Nadia, a freelancer from Gilgit-Baltistan.

The government aims to increase incentives and remove barriers after deliberations in order to help the country’s youth, he said sharing the government’s vision to accelerate digitization in Pakistan.

The Information Technology Ministry of Pakistan launched the portal to register freelancers in September 2021. Get yourself registered through Pakistan Software Export Board here.

Saudi-based FinTech EdfaPay raises $1.6M Pre-seed to launch financial services across the Kingdom

Shaheera Faheem — Mon, 21 Feb 2022 17:19:59 GMT

EdfaPay raised $1.6 million pre-seed investment that recorded participation from Nuwa capital, InspireUs VC, Wallan Investment group, and other strategic angel investors.

EdfaPay is a Saudi-based fintech startup that would offer products and services that help companies to easily collect customers’ payments through the use of smartphones eliminating the traditional point of sale or any other physical payment devices. EdfaPay aims to create a business-enabling environment by easing distribution of sales channels, financial transactions and expansion of businesses.

“There is indeed a need for an urgent solution in this digital world to address and resolve most of the legacy POS shortcoming and beyond. We believe EdfaPay will be the perfect solution for that.”
~ Nedal Sabbah, Partner Founder of EdfaPay

UAE’s Udrive, a car rental service startup, raises $5M Bridge to expand as demand shifts from owning to subscription

Shaheera Faheem — Mon, 21 Feb 2022 17:10:08 GMT

Udrive, a car rental service startup based in UAE, raised $5M in the latest bridge round with strategic investments from Cultiv8 and Oman Holding International.

Udrive is a pay-per-minute car rental startup that caters for drivers in Dubai, Sharjah, and Abu Dhabi as a cost-effective, short-term driving solution. It lets drivers book a car through the Udrive app or the website, pick it up at a nearby location and start their journey.

The consumer demand has recently shifted from owning and buying cars to on-demand and subscription, The success of Udrive further validates this demand. It is now one of the largest rental booking platforms by transactions per car in the region, having recorded up to two million trips to date.

Along with short-term on-demand rentals, it offers additional services including free fuel, parking, and comprehensive insurance for all its customers.

“We are digitizing mobility making it easily accessible to everyone. The recent funding secured will help us invest in new technologies as well as grow our offerings into the region this year.”
~ Nicholas Watson, CEO and co-founder Udrive

Egypt’s HR Tech startup and gamified psychometric test provider SAmAS Gamify raises $150K Pre-seed

Shaheera Faheem — Mon, 21 Feb 2022 16:56:17 GMT

The HRTech startup set to digitize and gamify the psychometric analysis part of recruitment, SAmAS Gamify raised $150K in Pre-Seed funding led by SoftEQ venture studio USA.

SAmAS Gamify is transforming how psychometric assessments are conducted through a gamified assessment tool that is AI-powered and backed with blockchain technology. This funding and the growing waitlist validate the existence of a consumer market for the innovative product.

The startup up till now has been focused on building the product, increasing the waitlist and preparing for the shipments. The team announced that the shipping of an early version of SAmAS Gamify to the first selected users would start in Mid 2022.

The recent investment would support the development of the product, accelerate their launch and back their market entry move.

“We will continue the development of our gamified psychometric assessment. We are on a path to creating and launching a product that is a game-changer in the field of psychometric assessment and how it’s used by companies & candidates.”
~ Team SAmAS

Interested in zero investment businesses? Look at these ideas and examples!

Shaheera Faheem — Fri, 04 Feb 2022 12:34:00 GMT

Education from a leading International institution, followed by a career in a world-famous organization, is a guaranteed starter pack for the founding team of every successful startup operating in Pakistan.

Why don’t we see an equal contribution from local graduates? Is it lack of exposure, lack of ideas, lack of direction or the very obvious lack of capital?

Most of our youth hesitates to enter the startup ecosystem due to minimum financial resources. Money undeniably gives you a headstart but by no means is it a prerequisite for a successful startup.

Do Big Dreams and No Cash get you anywhere?

They surely do, given the big dreams are paired with determination, dedication, persistence and a great level of risk tolerance.

Getting investors is a tedious task. Even high revenue-generating businesses have a hard time landing funding essentially in the early stages. The options left are to bootstrap (owner funding) or to opt for something that doesn’t require high capital to launch.

Let’s go through a few such businesses that can be done with minimum to zero early investments.

Service Providing

There is a wide spectrum of services a platform could provide. Ranging from simple data entry services, web and graphic services to licensed consultancy services.

It requires you to find a clientele and gather a skilled team that provides service and gets paid by the client. Such a startup can be started with zero investments and have high prospects of success.

Event Management and Decor

A company that shows a promising portfolio of their plans and designs. The clients pay in advance and once you have a few successful events to your name, you’re good to go. A simple business with no outside or self-funding.

Drop-Shipping

It is a form of retail business in which you take orders from customers and get them delivered through some other shopping platform. This way you don’t require manufacturing, warehousing, or marketing. One platform that gets products delivered from more than one platform.

Online Courses and Teaching

A simple way to start a low-cost startup is to curate lesson plans through videos or other software targeting a particular audience. Provide this learning material through your own platform. As you expand, hire more teachers and course creators to cover a larger spectrum of topics.

Podcasts or Blogs

If you’re one of those curious people who need to know all that is happening around them or the opinionated one always having something to say. The world can benefit from your thoughts and knowledge. Get a mic, share your learnings, talk to great conversationalists and enlighten the world.

You can choose your medium to be podcasts, writing blogs or even storytelling through animations. There exists an audience for everything.

Renting and Hosting

A new concept introduced to us by Airbnb was to rent our houses, rooms or lodges for vacation tourists. It’s a win-win for both the involved parties. You get rent and the tourist gets the real taste of the place they’re visiting.

Similarly, people living up north in Pakistan can convert some of their property to guest accommodation. To make it fancier you can host them at your traditional eateries, festivals and celebrations. This costs you minimal resources yet generate a high amount of money.

Example of businesses that started with nothing

You might be thinking it’s all talks and no action. Well, let us assure you by examples of these highly successful companies that started with little to no money.

MailChimp

It’s a company that makes marketing software for small businesses with its prime product being the e-newsletter service. The company started with zero outside funding and now makes $400 million.

Google

Our very own google itself was created in a dorm room by two Stanford students. The aim was to build a search engine. It was not until much later, Google received substantial funding.

Apple

The $1 trillion valuation giant, Apple, is also an example of bootstrapping by two young founders with the very little they had.

SurveyMonkey

It is the top online survey and polling company started as a part-time project. The team started with absolutely zero investment and raised finances almost a decade after its formation.

GitHub

Github, the central perk for all the developers. The company survived on subscriptions from individuals and businesses for the longest time. It was recently acquired by Microsoft for $7.5 billion.

BaseCamp

BaseCamp is a leading web software company in the USA. The web design firm was having a hard time managing their projects thus developed a project management app that made wonders. The company is currently worth $100 billion.

Indeed

Indeed, the top job-hunting site got started and launched its first product without any outside help. It was acquired at a valuation higher than $800 million.

Shopify

Shopify, the go-to e-commerce service of the current times. It was created due to the unavailability of a well-managed e-commerce platform. The founding duo couldn’t raise venture capital until much later.

eBay

eBay was supposedly a passion project for the founder hence no investments were made. The online marketplace now stands at a valuation of $42 billion.

Lynda

Lynda is a free resource for people interested in learning web design and other skills. They were just a couple running a business with no venture capital of any sort. The company however developed to a great extent and was sold to LinkedIn worth $1.5 billion.

There is one common pattern seen in the founding stories of all these startups. The founders encountered a problem, in absence of any solution available, they decided to develop a solution themselves.

This brings us to a few aspects to strengthen and a few different ways to approach things in order to form a prosperous startup without any investment.

Automate your life, find digital solutions for your recurring work routines.
Solve an existing problem by leveraging an existing business model.
Start today, don’t hold your idea waiting for the right time, start with whatever resources you have.
Engage is sales-driven businesses, no stored capital is required for such businesses.

Benefits of no investment partners in early stages

Not only is it functional to go on without venture capital but it is preferred primarily in the early stages.

Your company, your call. You get to build your startup according to your plans. When an investor finally come on board, the company has set its identity and the coming investors work around it.
Probability of raising a higher amount increases when the company has made its name in the consumer market.
An increased risk tolerance.
Pivoting as per the market’s demands is easier.
Tight deadlines and performance pressure create unnecessary stress limiting creativity.
Investment can accelerate growth, but not the product. Early-stage requires to focus on the product altering and updating with feedback.

We think that’s enough convincing to make the point that a startup can very much succeed without initial investments. It is a matter of finding a problem affecting many and creating the right solution preferably through digital means.

Do you have a great idea? Get started now! Maybe your company will be the next big thing.

Taxation on IT exports —The Two-Sided Story of 100% Tax Credit

Shaheera Faheem — Thu, 03 Feb 2022 06:07:00 GMT

The value of domestic currency dropping is good news for exporters. Sounds weird, fair enough! The process is that when the price of the Pakistani rupee drops, the labour, resources, raw material and manufacturing happening within the country becomes cheaper. As a result, exporters after issuing the payrolls receive higher profits.

This is why, reports suggest, developing countries with depreciating currencies for long periods develop faster.

Thus a situation majorly harmful for a country in debt, for salary taking population and as a whole a demeaning position turns out to be an opportunity in disguise for the export sector. Primarily, the IT export sector.

The recent boom in the exports of knowledge-intensive services elevated Pakistan’s economy in a time of crisis.

Pakistan has been changing its policies according to the innovations brought by IT and other tech sectors. A few of the noticeable efforts by the governments to facilitate IT exports are mentioned.

Rs 10 billion funds established for IT industry
Rebate cash rewards of Rs 4 billion for IT exporters.
Rs 1 billion is being spent on training and capacity building to graduate employable staff through a carefully curated 5-month course.
Formation of e-commerce council under Ministry of commerce.
$25,000 can now be brought in home remittance increasing it 5x.
Pakistan is now listed on Amazon as a seller.
Pakistan Post digitalizing process started.

The most supporting regulation for IT businesses was the complete tax exemption on IT exports. The Government of Pakistan, instead of incentivizing the rising sector, has taken back the only relief it had available.

Tax exemption has been converted to 100% tax credit over income tax liability.

What is it, How is it different from tax exemption, why is it receiving such a backlash, and why does the government consider it a successful policy?

Let’s dive deep to know all about it.

What is 100% tax credit?

Tax reduction vs Tax Credit | Photo by community.tax.com

A tax credit is an amount of money that taxpayers can subtract directly from taxes owed to their government. A 100% tax credit should mean tax exemption, but no, it comes with a vigorous documentation process making things difficult for beginners primarily.

6 conditions for 100% Tax Credit

Income from the export of computer software, IT services, and IT-enabled services are subject to 100% tax credit. The tax credit regime requires compliance on the following aspects:

The exporter of IT services (the taxpayer) is required to bring 80% of the foreign receipts back to the country through normal banking channels.
100% tax credit is available up to June 30, 2025.
Annual Income tax returns are filed.
The company applying for tax credit should be 100% withholding compliant w.r.t all expenses; procurement, rent, subscriptions and salaries etc.
The taxpayer has filed with FBR the withholding tax statements for the immediately preceding tax year.
Sales tax returns are filed (though sales tax is exempted on the export of IT services).

Why did Government shift to a tax credit regime?

Prime Minister approved the withdrawal of 80 income tax exemptions in April 2021 under the Income Tax Amendment Bill 2021, the IT sector being among those. The tax exemption was supposed to be valid up till June 30, 2025. There are a few reasons for this shift.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has asked Pakistan to withdraw income tax exemptions worth Rs 140 billion to meet the requirements of the revival of a $6 billion IMF program.
The government claims the proposal enhances the scope of concession to the IT sector contrary to the news circulating in social media.
Increases the number of tax filers.
It would provide a definitive record of how much tax exemption is being provided.
It plugs existing loopholes in the system making the tax code simple and introducing automation to make the revenue system transparent.

Clarification by FBR | Photo by FBR.gov.pk

The requirements seem to be the basics that most IT startups and well-established businesses are already doing. Those not doing these necessities are going against the laws.

Why is it then, that this news was taken with loud oppositions from all concerned parties?

Concerns of the IT sector

The IT industry has shown strong concerns regarding the many conditions that the tax credit is subject to.

Ambiguity in implementation of 100% tax credit

Policies have hardly been Pakistan’s issue, it is the implementation that always lags.

With the simple process of tax exemption, big companies like DPL, S&P Global and Teradata have fought lawsuits developed due to a lack of industry knowledge of tax officers, causing them millions of dollars.

With the credit regime, things would get further confusing, negotiations becoming part of the definite process causing resistance in IT enthusiasts and hurdles for existing IT companies.

Stakeholders not involved in the decision-making process

The news came as a surprise to the Ministry of IT & Telecom, Pakistan Software Houses Association for IT & ITES (P@SHA) and all other stakeholders.

Regulations changed mid financial year

The tax exemption was withdrawn abruptly giving no time to startups and SMEs to create strategies. The change in policy middle of a financial year creates ambiguity in a lot of aspects.

Probability of net Operating Losses (NOL)

NOL is the result when a company’s allowable deductions exceed its taxable income within a tax period. For novice startups and SMEs, given the documentation and tax filing, it is highly probable to happen since we have already seen that in the case of NonProfit Organisations in Pakistan.

Inconsistent tax policies make Investors reluctant

It highly damages current foreign investors’ confidence in the Pakistani market and averts potential investors as well.

Effects on the sector’s export revenue growth

In spite of the Government’s facilitating tax regime, the IT sector experienced a great growth trajectory with the exports reaching $2.12 billion in the 2020–2021 fiscal year. This shift might have a catastrophic effect on the growth since Pakistan’s IT industry is still in its early stages.

Effects on cost and ease of doing business

This new regime would increase the cost of doing business for reporting companies which are hardly 20% of the total existing. Requirement for an accountant for handling compliances would further increase the cost essentially for startups and SMEs.

The lengthy procedures, frequent notices and law actions would significantly decrease the index of ease of doing business in Pakistan.

The government’s policy update is all good if implemented accordingly, but let’s be honest, we haven’t been able to implement the simplest of regulations. Pakistan doesn’t seem ready to carry out a tax credit regime as of now.

The IT sector claims it has not been facilitated with provisions such as cashback on exports, subsidized electricity tariffs, loans on lower interest rates that other export sectors have been utilizing.

Other countries in the MENA region offer incentives to their IT sectors. Bangladesh offers a 10% cash reward on IT exports along with a tax exemption. On the other hand, China and India have dedicated Special Economic Zones for the IT sector providing several incentives including tax reliefs.

Export Yield per worker | Photo by P@SHA

The demands of the IT sector are justified since they highly contribute to the country’s economy.

The shift to tax credit though introduced for the advancement of the IT sector are expected to cause a catastrophic impact on IT revenue growth. Talks between the IT sector and the Government can form a solution that benefits both parties.

Is Pakistan ready for Cloud Kitchen Networks? - A yummy analysis

Shaheera Faheem — Wed, 02 Feb 2022 05:47:15 GMT

Spending my hostel life on the opposite side of Park Road in Islamabad, we were often declined orders from most of the food chains. In fact, once we were told by KFC “hum gaun me deliver nahi kartay” (We don’t deliver in villages), well that hurts when you wanted a Zinger after a long tiring day.

Consequently, we had to order from not-so-good local restaurants. However, it is understandable there are a few issues when it comes to food deliveries, a few being :

Hard to reach every corner of large cities.
Delivering hot food to locations far off from their branches.
Sky-touching real estate costs for rent and ownership both if a franchisee wants to increase their branch network.
High maintenance costs for outlets.
Dine-in areas and services going to waste given the pandemic situation.

A new world calls for new services. We wish for a world where no one is deprived of Zinger burgers, irrespective of where they live.

The only way to make this dream a reality are Cloud Kitchen Networks. It is a concept that provides a smart solution for all these problems.

But firstly, What are Cloud Kitchens?

A cloud kitchen restaurant is a shared kitchen space that runs on a delivery-only model. It provides kitchen space, equipment, chefs and ingredient at a high demand location. Collaborating restaurants can provide recipes, half-made meals, or ready-to-deliver meals to cloud kitchen.

When ordered through a food delivery service, food is completed in such kitchens and delivered within a few minutes. Such cloud kitchens can have takeaway options but no dine-in facilities.

The cloud kitchen format gives the restaurant the flexibility to launch more than one brand using the same kitchen infrastructure. This is the economical option for restaurants to reach more locations without investing in a new branch.

“These are hidden kitchens that serve food at lower rates since they reduce the operating costs of restaurants significantly. It also makes it possible for them to offer services in new geographies by simply maintaining their digital presence.”
~ Abdus Samad Rashid, founder and CEO of Hotpod

Why Cloud Kitchens are the next big thing?

The idea of going out or cooking is becoming less appealing to millennials and Gen-Z. As a generation, we are more inclined towards comfort and avoid socializing unless necessary. A few reasons why cloud Kitchens is bound to succeed at this time:

It helps food business entrants sidestep high rents and real estate costs by shedding the front-of-house.
The more elaborate cloud kitchens are based on data intelligence such as area wise demographics of residents, popular cuisines and hyperlocal demand-supply.
They require lower financial investments as compared to a full-fledged restaurant but give you full opportunity to reach a large pool of customers.
Having a single shared kitchen keeps operational costs low.
It offers convenience to the customers, which is an important decision-making factor nowadays.
It lets you keep a flexible menu, changing according to season, trend, demand or your personal preferences without any hassle.
Cloud kitchens allow restauranteurs to experiment with new concepts, fail fast, and easily scrap ideas that aren’t working with low exposure.
These kitchens can optimize processes, ordering, and staff scheduling based on consumer behaviour thus giving them direct access to customer data.
Cloud kitchens can run very efficiently given optimized prepping and delivery processes.
Virtual restaurant brands can gain quick exposure through delivery apps saving them marketing costs as well.

Cloud Kitchen Networks in Pakistan

The revolutionary concept of virtual kitchens was already popular worldwide. Pakistan entered the $1 trillion cloud kitchen market as the pandemic encouraged food deliveries over dine-ins.

There are a few cloud Kitchen networks currently operating in Pakistan.

Lettus Kitchens
Hotpod Managed Kitchen Network
Cloud Kitchens Pakistan

Cloud Kitchen Networks have different models differing in store-fronts, facilities they provide, outsourcing items, and packaging. Let’s go through the business models of a few operating in Pakistan.

Working Model of Hotpod Kitchen Network

Hotpod is the first shared cloud kitchen platform in Pakistan providing kitchen spaces in high demand locations across the nation.

It provides a cost-efficient way to expand the distribution network of food businesses by giving instant access to the food aggregator’s user base.

Hotpod launched its operations from 3 kitchens in Karachi and planned to expand to more than 50 shared cloud kitchens in the country.

Working Model of Lettus Kitchens

Lettus cloud kitchens is a hybrid model. They are multi-cuisine spaces that enable 70 per cent-plus of frequently ordered online food options to be prepared in a single mid-sized kitchen.

The kitchens are tech-enabled offering an online ordering platform, digital billing services, equipped kitchen stations and inventory management.

They launched a portfolio of delivery-only restaurant brands partnering with brands that provide ready-to-eat products. Masoom’s bakery is one such example.

Working Model of Cloud Kitchens Pakistan

Committing to their tagline “You cook, we’ll do the rest”, they provide commercial kitchen and storage space, manage all delivery orders, handle logistics to deliver faster and more accurately, take care of the cleaning, maintenance, and security.

A turn of events

On December 24th, 2021, Hotpod, Pakistan’s first and most renowned cloud kitchen platform announced shutting down its operations.

“We were unable to reach a product-market fit and realized that the external factors pertaining to the food industry in Pakistan make cloud kitchens a much harder proposition at this time.”
~ Taha Anis, co-founder Hotpod

This announcement was followed by an article explaining their vision, shortcomings and the reason they decided to shut down.

Issues faced by Hotpod building cloud Kitchens in Pakistan

There are a few aspects in our country that don’t support cloud kitchens.

Smaller margins are available to optimize fixed costs.
High inflation and currency depreciation increase food costs.
Price limitations on food delivery costs due to discount incentives by brands.
Taxation is an additional expense in an unregulated economy. Embedding taxes in food costs as per the rules increase prices well beyond what the unregulated brands offer.
Customer acquisition for smaller brands causes unfavourable economics.
Unclear growth graph for the physical infrastructure of cloud kitchens.
Risk of perishability and quality degradation.
Unreliable third-party delivery services.
Limited digital payment platforms.
Increasing commissions and hidden costs from aggregators.
Aggregators launch their own brands that overshadow all the rest due to their premium placements and allocations.

Pakistan’s pioneer cloud kitchen platform shuts down, what does it mean for other cloud kitchen networks?

It is a concerning point for all such platforms. Is it really not the right time to build a successful virtual kitchen network in Pakistan?

Hotpod shared its learnings throughout the process to help other similar platforms regarding the dos and not-to-dos when it comes to cloud kitchens.

Things Hotpod suggests doing differently from what they did:

They recommend running a smaller pilot as they created 3 kitchens right from the beginning.
Hotpod tried to create a model that solves issues with Customer Acquisition, Physical Infrastructure, Culinary Operations, Supply Chain, Stakeholder Management, Delivery Services, and Customer Services all in one go. They stated a better approach would be to choose a more specific problem in the food space.
It suggests aspiring entrepreneurs take a more tech-focused approach when it comes to cloud kitchen space.
Lastly, they suggest sticking to one model during the fundraising stage.

Keeping in mind the hurdles in the path of cloud kitchen setups, there still is a lot of hope in this evolving society.

Unilever’s interest in cloud kitchens

Unilever issued an article titled “The sky is the limit when it comes to cloud Kitchens”. They plan to be a part of this boosting sector by providing packaging and ingredients appropriate for deliveries.

“The food needs to remain stable, fresh and warm for longer. So we help design dishes and ingredients that, when the box is opened, look and taste as they would in the restaurant. That’s not straightforward when you consider these boxes can be in transit for some time and sped around streets on the back of a bike,” the article read.

With giants like Unilever contributing to the cloud kitchen space in Pakistan, the sector can grow exponentially. Learning from hotpod’s journey, there is a long way cloud kitchen platforms can go.

We can expect the virtual kitchen networks to grow in Pakistan and change the food delivery dynamic altogether in 2023. Let’s hope for some yummy changes soon.

Social E-commerce: Pakistan’s adaptation to the new generation of online shopping

Shaheera Faheem — Tue, 01 Feb 2022 11:05:00 GMT

If your new year’s resolution was to avoid shopping sprees, you better stay away from social media. You opened your feed, saw an influencer, liked their shoes, they have tagged brands of each and every piece of their attire, you go to the brand’s page, a few hours later you have bought a few pairs of shoes and some sweaters that you absolutely didn’t need.

That is the new generation of online shopping, termed social commerce. It uses networking websites such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter as vehicles to promote and sell products and services.

Social media has recently become the best marketing and shopping platform. The AI algorithms help sift through content and deliver only relevant content, making it easier to get various advertisements of just the things you’re interested in.

There are a few things that make social media perfect for shopping, some we’d be discussing here.

These days we buy based on social opinion, which is the online version of word of mouth.

Trust has always been a concern in online purchases, hence most of the online orders are still cash on delivery. Most people only shift to pre-payments after they themselves or someone they know has ordered a few times and had a good experience.

Research suggests that now individuals use social media to get advice and reviews from trusted sources before making a purchase. It is now a common practice to see the tagged images of any brand on Instagram, to get an idea of customers’ opinions about them.

Thus the brands more “advised”, gain more trust.

Familiar Interface

Users can buy on social platforms without being redirected to other websites. Since these social media platforms are a familiar user interface, the shopping experience becomes even easier.

This model moves social media beyond its traditional role in the discovery process by encouraging users to complete the entire purchase process without leaving their preferred apps.

Convenient and Hassle-free

Given the unprecedented circumstances, our lifestyles have completely changed. Immediacy, convenience, and speed have become top consumer demands now.

With the newest features of shop now in advertisements that take you directly to that item and you can proceed to payment with absolutely no effort or time utilized, things have become comforting and hassle-free like never before.

Shoppable adverts have checkout capability which triggers when a customer clicks the “shop now” or “buy now”. These buttons enable customers to make instant purchases.

Every redirect increases the risk of losing the customer, thus headless checkouts like these increase customer acquisition.

Social media platforms have been evolving accordingly.

Launch of Facebook Marketplace in Pakistan

The most liked social platform for businesses has been Facebook for a very long time. Often you get redirected to Facebook from other social media platforms to shop. With the presence of its official marketplace in Pakistan, more and more people would shift to Facebook to run their online businesses.

We designed Facebook Marketplace to make it smooth, easy, and more convenient for sellers and buyers that are already enjoying our social platforms.” ~ Facebook Management

Google Plans on making YouTube an e-commerce leader

Covid caused a loss in revenue for google while other social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest leveraged their platforms as hotbeds for online shopping. The boom in e-commerce has made google come on board as well.

Google plans to use the world’s largest video platform as its entry to e-commerce. Youtube has asked creators to tag products featured in their videos. Integrating with shopping platforms like Shopify, buyers can get a product they liked in a video with just a click.

Pakistan’s e-commerce platforms were not late jumping on the bandwagon, as a lot of businesses now run entirely through social media with absolutely no physical existence. Developments are being made in social e-commerce with innovative startups being launched.

E-commerce giants like daraz.pk, olx, elo have a prominent social presence and a good amount of their sales happen through social media. However, there are a few startups that provide social e-commerce platforms for brands and small businesses to buy and sell through social media.

Let’s go through a few of such leading platforms.

BazaarGhar

A startup focussed on bringing the bazaar to your doorstep quite literally. BazaarGhar would digitalize the famous bazaars of Pakistan by creating their social media presence on the startup’s social media platform.

The company would bring the sorts of Zainab Market and Liberty to social media with the name of the shops and the shopkeeper’s picture. They share their material through short videos via TikTok or any other app.

BazaarGhar handles all the back-end stuff, managing deliveries, advertisements, reaching the consumer market while the merchants can focus on displaying their products.

CelebShop

The key feature that makes social commerce a giant, is the social media influencing culture. We want to wear what the celebrities wear.

Celebshop is a social e-commerce platform that is not only supported but co-owned by celebrities of Pakistan. The online store is gradually making waves as it boasts a planned presence of more than 100 celebrities and 150+ brands on its platform.

“Market Expansion in Pakistan has been extremely promising with Fashion alone accounting for 69% of the e-commerce Revenue”. ~ Saad Ali, Co-Founder, Chief Operating Officer Celebshop

A celebrity puts together a look with products from collaborating brands of Celebshop. A buyer can buy this entire look from one platform with 100% authenticity since this is what the celebrity literally wore themselves.

Gahhak

Gahhak is a social e-commerce platform where you can buy and sell new or used commodities, products and services and create your own Virtual Dukan. It gives users the opportunity and a platform to connect with a larger audience, expanding their reach in a cost-effective and accessible way.

Social commerce gained momentum during covid. This behaviour shift, kick-started by the pandemic will most likely be permanent. This year $27 billion was brought by social media in the US alone. The prospects of this emerging phenomenon are great.

The trust developed through social opinion, the increasing trend of digital banking and the exponentially rising social media userbase in Pakistan would make social e-commerce the new norm of shopping in the next few years.

Cryptocurrencies in Pakistan — A Shady Area Forever?

Sarwat Rizvi — Mon, 17 Jan 2022 17:26:00 GMT

Bitcoin had a market capitalization of $1072.21 billion as of February 21st, 2021. The global blockchain market is expected to rise to $23.3 billion by the year 2023. These figures are jawbreaking, considering the relatively short time since cryptocurrencies were bought into existence.

Bitcoin was the world’s first decentralized cryptocurrency that was created back in 2009 and has now become a fixture in the news. Last year in October 2021, the official launch of the very first Bitcoin exchange-traded fund secured an investment worth $550 million initially on the very first day. Not just this but its prices even hit an all-time high, crossing $66,000 per Bitcoin.

We’ve also witnessed a massive spike of the “crypto-mania” over the past few months in the country.

Pakistan has reportedly ranked third globally, after India and Vietnam, in crypto adoption metrics. Binance, a cryptocurrency exchange, is one of the country’s top downloaded apps. With social media is buzzing with crypto investment advice, almost everyone seems to be wanting to invest in this rogue digital currency.

For some time now, Bitcoin enthusiasts have been making continuous efforts to get crypto-related rules and regulations devised and put to action. With an aim, to acknowledge the surging influence of the currency and educate the masses regarding it, the Sindh High Court set up a committee last year, to look into the matter and formulate methods to legalize the transaction of cryptocurrencies in the country.

What started as an underground experiment by a handful of programmers has now become a trillion-dollar ecosystem that has gradually attracted the attention of many of the businesses as well.

As of now, Bitcoin, valued at $1.2 trillion, exceeds the market cap of Tesla and Facebook, and is significantly bigger than all the payment giants like Mastercard, PayPal and Visa put together. In a recent rally, the combined cryptocurrencies universe reached a value of 2.2 trillion dollars, outpacing tech behemoth Apple, which before this turn of events was the world’s most valuable company.

Furthermore, a price-tracking website showcases over 6,000 entries of crypto, providing the masses with a plethora of cryptocurrencies to play around with. While most of these, such as Litecoin and Dogecoin, are little more than Bitcoin copycats, there are also some truly impressive innovations like the Ethereum, that goes beyond mere currency and provide a platform to create complex decentralised contracts and applications. Ripple is an efficient medium to send remittances and settle payments. Cardano tops the list of ‘green’ cryptocurrencies, with an energy footprint less than 0.001 percent of Bitcoin. Zcash and Monero incorporate privacy-enhancing technologies

So, while the world enjoys the perks of crypto, what is Pakistan doing about it?

The case of crypto is quite curious in Pakistan’s financial landscape. With the government still trying and somewhat struggling to weigh the possibilities of opening avenues for cryptocurrency in the country, while at the same time trying to devise regulations related to crypto to keep the masses safe from any relevant scams like fraud and prevent capital flight, money laundering and tax evasion. All of this, however, has not stopped many from taking financial risks and trying their luck in the world of crypto. Because of the crypto enthusiasts today, the cryptocurrency space has exploded in size over the last decade, with innovations and a collective market capitalization of more than $2.5 trillion.

According to the country-level data analysis, the top three countries globally in terms of crypto user counts are: India, the United States of America, and Nigeria, with 100 million, 27 million, and 13 million users, respectively. The crypto users in India are only 7.3% of the total population, while Pakistan has about nine million users, a meagre 41% of the population.

This data suggests, that almost half of Pakistan’s population not only holds knowledge about crypto but is also contributing to its market capitalization by investing in it. The stats also suggest, that while the government might presently struggle to come to a viable consensus regarding crypto, it won’t stay like this for long. However, while the FIA actively investigates cryptocurrency use among citizens to the point where the Sindh High Court has had to restrain them from harassment, matters are even further complicated by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which has asked the government to better regulate cryptocurrencies.

There are plans to set up Bitcoin-mining operations in KPK. In several cases, it may be more profitable to simply buy and hold bitcoins in the long run than to set up expensive infrastructure to mine them from scratch.

Overall, for now, there doesn’t seem to be some grand foresight of crypto in Pakistan but perhaps putting the related laws and strategies to action, might bring out crypto into the spotlight and get more people familiarized with the concept of digitized currency.

JaduJobs — Filling the Skill Gap Between Graduates and Job Market

Shaheera Faheem — Fri, 14 Jan 2022 20:21:00 GMT

The age-old debate on Degree vs Skills is still on. Is a degree just a waste of time and money? Why do graduates don’t have the necessary skills required for the industry? Why is a graduate from an average institution considered unemployable by many?

And most importantly, will we always keep whining about it?

JaduJobs believes if an economy exists, jobs exist. Unemployment has more to do with the wrong approach, lack of the right mentoring and the skill deficit in the youth. The founding team of Jadu Jobs saw a problem and figured out a way to fix it.

JaduJobs sensed an apparent disconnect in a graduate’s approach and the industry’s requirements. The company works with the aim to fill the gap by equipping the individuals with the demanded skills.

The working model of JaduJobs

The program is offering a 4-month tech career fellowship. It is a well-balanced course that teaches Tech & Professional Skills, Soft Skills and provides Mentoring from global industry leaders. The key feature of the program is a guaranteed job by the end of it.

The curriculum at JaduJobs

During the span of the course, Jadu makes the trainees ready for the industry as it collaborates with the industry regarding their requirements.

The well-curated curriculum is a balanced mix of activities that build their technical and communication skills.

Interactive online learning
Group projects & assignments
Sessions and exercises on Community building
Teamwork activities, as that is how you move forward and sustain your company.
Live coding sessions
Learn from peers through one-on-one sessions
Share their reflections in the form of weekly blogs or social media posts

All these activities would help the fellow develop the attributes of an industry-ready tech professional. This makes them ready for any industry with the confidence, communication skills and creativity along with the tech factors.

The Revenue model of JaduJobs

The course however is free of cost, Yes that’s right. How is it sustainable then? Well, the model is very simple, when a student gets a job only then they are required to pay back or better-termed re-invest into the company.

Remote Learning and Earning

Covid acts as a great accelerator for the shift to remote learning and remote work. Companies already working on digital had a smooth shift during the worst of the pandemic while others struggled.

Full-time office jobs are most likely to fade in a few years. All setups would shift to hybrid modes integrating both in-office and remote employees as per the work demands.

JaduJobs provides complete training online making it feasible for everyone around Pakistan. This way the audience widened and it is undoubtedly a more cost-efficient model.

The focus of the platform is to provide students with remote jobs from other countries. This is a smart way to bring money to Pakistan, exponentially increase employment opportunities and enhance the exposure of the students.

How is JaduJobs different from other skill-building platforms?

Considering the high unemployment rates in our country, the job incentive brings more and more people to this model.

The relevant expertise of the founding team makes JaduJobs highly probable to succeed among many other skill teaching platforms. The team has diverse experience in skill teaching and mentoring.

Mentors as Enablers

Mentoring is not given due attention in our Institutions. The concept of peer-mentoring or seeking mentoring from industry experts in your field is rare. The right mentor enables while an irresponsible one can leave you swayed off your path.

According to the founding team, these are some essential aspects of mentoring that many seem to neglect:

Emotional intelligence
Avoid information that may misguide the student
Listen and get to know the situation of the student
A thorough understanding of the student before presenting options
Provide An ambit of options and let them choose
Do not enforce decisions on them

Admissions Open for the third Batch

After successfully training and employing two batches, Jadu is now ready for Cohort-3. The admission requires no pre-requisites, it is open for individuals from all fields. The program is remote and can be accessed anywhere.

The deadline to apply is 25th January 2022. Rush over to JaduJobs and get yourself registered for a career-uplifting experience.

ezWiFi secures pre-seed funding to help businesses make money with their WiFi

Shaheryar Ehsan — Wed, 12 Jan 2022 15:00:00 GMT

Who would have thought that a restaurant could make some additional bucks by selling their WiFi to customers all around? ezWiFi aims to create a sharing economy for WiFi via businesses by “enabling brick-and-mortar stores to make money by offering their customers Free WiFi.”

The startup is making waves already in Pakistan with partnerships with corporate giants like Unilever, L’Oreal and Jazz and is also hiring for many roles as they intend to rapidly scale across Pakistan to acquire more customers. After Pakistan, the startup intends to scale to Africa, South Asia and GCC region.

The investment round has been led by Iffi Wahla from E42 Ventures (US) with additional investments from angels like Naeem Zamindar (PK).

ezWiFi is being led by Sher Ali Khan, who intends to scale the startup by connecting the #nextbillion via his idea of sharing economy through WiFi. He holds a Bachelor’s degree from Imperial College London and has also previously worked with Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley in the capacity of Tech Analyst and Software Engineer respectively.

Iffi Wahla from E42 Ventures remarked:

We are looking to build our presence in Pakistan as we see tremendous potential in what is still a nascent startup ecosystem. ezWiFi has us excited because it offers an opportunity to connect the masses to high-speed Internet while providing value to businesses. With the right investment, not just capital, but with people and infrastructure, we believe ezWiFi has the capability to not only capture the local market but go global and E42 is delighted to be a part of the process.

ezWiFi offers businesses a mobile and web application where they can view analytics, run promotions, build customer lists, collect feedback and manage multiple locations.

What are your thoughts regarding ezWiFi? Will you be happy to get free WiFi in exchange for some ads? Let us know in the comments!

A compilation of Pakistani startup fundings that made the huge total of $375 Million in 2021

Sarwat Rizvi — Wed, 12 Jan 2022 14:11:00 GMT

Pakistani startup ecosystem saw impeccable growth in the year 2021, fetching a combined total of $375 million. To give you a glimpse, in the year 2021 Pakistani startups were valued at over $1.5 billion, which isn’t just 450 percent higher than the combined total of only $66.44 million generated by local startups in 2020 but it’s also double the cumulative investments secured during the last six years. The number of deals closed also witnessed a surge of 67 percent, jumping from 49 in 2020 to 82 in the year 2021.

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated digitization in many industries and as per the data shared by the startup investment advisory platform Alpha Beta Core, the startups secured the largest share in the logistics sector raising 32% of total funding in 2021, followed by e-commerce at 27% and fintech at 25%. Investment in health tech and edtech startups shared a combined total of 4% in the outgoing year.

Courtesy: Dawn News

Recent data from Invest2Innovate (I2I) — an organization that keeps track of funding flows to startups, reports that Pakistani startups successfully closed 81 investment deals in the previous fiscal year, as compared to 174 deals worth $231 million closed during the past 5-year tenure combined, i.e., between 2015 to 2020.

The data readily suggests that investment activity for the year 2021 had been dominated by the startup culture in the country. Startup investment stood at $19.26 million after closing 13 deals during Q1 and then at $81.73 million after closing 18 deals in Q2. Up until Q3, Pakistani startups raised $173 million across 17 deals, bringing the total to $273.9 million across 48 deals.

Sector-wise, e-commerce dominated the fundraising landscape, ranking at $174.6m across 20 deals. However, almost half of the raised capital came in from a single startup — Airlift.

Airlift technologies, closed a Series B funding round of $85 million back in August last year, which was reported to be the largest acquisition secured in the startup history of the country. Another startup, Bazaar, a B2B marketplace, across two rounds raised $30 million while Tajir raised $17 million and TAG, a fintech startup, raised $17.5 million.

Kalsoom Lakhani, General Partner i2i Ventures, shared the stats of the shift that the startup landscape of Pakistan witnessed in the year 2021 on Twitter.

1/ Happy 2022, friends! Here's @Invest2Innovate's end of year graphic. In 2021, Pakistani 🇵🇰 startups raised $350M via 81 deals, > 5X of what was raised in all of 2020 ($65M). To benchmark, Bangladeshi 🇧🇩 startups raised $166M & Nigerian startups raised > $1B (!) in 2021🇳🇬 pic.twitter.com/IS6uQQo7R7
— Kalsoom Lakhani (@kalsoom82) January 3, 2022

Other startups that raised a capital of $10million or more in the previous year include Jabberwock (Cheetay) that raised $18m, QisstPay which secured $15m, Creditbook which secured $12.5m and Bridgelinx that raised $10m. Collectively, all the mentioned companies accounted for 57.85pc of all the invested capital.

Industries other than e-commerce, fintech and logistics also saw somewhat similar growth in investment. We further saw the online travel and ticketing platform Bookme, and Bagallery, a beauty and fashion startup raising $7.5 million and $4.5 million respectively in Series A rounds. While, in another pre-seed funding round, Krave Mart, the first to introduce quick-commerce in Pakistan, also raised $6 million.

The year 2021 lured in some of the most notable investors into the Pakistani market, including Tiger Global, Kleiner Perkins, Global Founders Capital, and Stripe. Moreover, as per experts speculations, the funding craze will continue to grow in 2022, since there’s still a huge untapped market gap in Pakistan that need attention and a viable business model.

New themes to look for in 2022 are health tech, to provide access to quality health care especially during the pandemic, edtech businesses to make online education accessible to millions of children around the country and fintechs to help address Pakistan’s undocumented economy that accounts for 75 percent of the presently unbanked population.

Here are a few startups ‘operating’ in the telemedicine field in Pakistan

Sarwat Rizvi — Tue, 11 Jan 2022 20:23:21 GMT

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated digitization in many industries and healthcare have been no exception to this trend. According to data shared by the startup investment advisory platform Alpha Beta Core, edtech and health tech have secured combined funding of 4 percent in the year 2021.

Some of these include Karachi-based telemedicine startup Sehat Kahani, which had managed to raise $1 million in a Pre-Series A round last year. Ailaaj, a digital health platform offering personalised patient care services, had raised $1.6 million in a seed round, while, Marham, another online healthcare platform, had closed a seed round where it raised $1 million from Indus Valley Capital. The list also includes Dawaai, who netted $8.5 million in a funding round last year led by US-based 500 Startups.

Telemedicine was already gaining momentum pre-pandemic, however, post-pandemic we witnessed a drastic shift towards digital healthcare services which even drove unprecedented investments in the health tech space. The growing consumer base called for an increased number of telemedicine startups to cater to.

While during the pandemic, on one end we saw delivery services getting more and more attention, on the other end the landscape of online healthcare was seeing an exponential shift that led towards immense growth. At present, there are around 320 health care startups actively working in the country, from online doctor’s consultation to getting medicines, these startups are following a variety of innovative approaches to reinvigorate the health industry and make lives easier for the people quite literally from the comfort of their homes.

We tried to pick 5 such startups across the size spectrum from offering cutting edge eHealth services to 24/7 online pharmacies, they’re all doing an impeccable job in making people’s lives better during this new normal of staying at home amidst the pandemic without having to miss out on one’s doctor’s consultations.

Dawaai: An online pharmacy

Dawaai is an e-store for the purchase of medicines and other healthcare products. The platform offers a range of products from supplements to homoeopathic, herbal to personal care and even medical equipment, it’s a one-stop-shop for all your healthcare requirements.

They deliver the medicines to your doorstep and even provide the facility of getting one’s lab tests done from the comfort of your home.

Marham: eHealth services

Marham is an online platform offering telemedicine services, It has served over 300,000+ patients through online consultations. Offering a wide range of specialized services, Marham has a hassle-free process of connecting patients with relevant doctors and physicians virtually.

It even allows you to view the doctor’s complete profiles, people’s reviews and feedback regarding a particular doctor, the doctor’s timings and even their fee.

Sehat Kahani: Telemedicine services

Sehat Kahani offers 24/7 telemedicine services for those in need. It is an all-female health provider network with an aim to provide quality healthcare to those in need. Sehat Kahani has a dedicated app for e-health services.

You can also get free counselling on your medical condition by asking questions on the Sehat Kahani forum, which are answered by qualified doctors and specialists. They even allow you to consult a doctor online for free in case of any coronavirus symptoms.

Ailaaj: ePharmacy

Ailaaj is an online store for the purchase of medicines. The product catalogue in this case includes general medicines, vitamins & supplements, haircare, skincare, and much more.

Users can even upload the prescription and get discounts for medicines.

Oladoc: Online Consultation and eHealth

Oladoc is another comprehensive telemedicine platform that allows patients to book appointments, physical and online, in a hassle-free process. Video consultation with doctors is also available, thus allowing the users to get their illnesses diagnosed and treated without having to step out of their homes.

Oladoc boasts of having more than 25,000 doctors on board with them from across the country.

Which Startups help you get insurance online in Pakistan?

Sarwat Rizvi — Mon, 10 Jan 2022 10:36:00 GMT

Regardless of where you live or who you are, protecting your home, assets and loved ones is always a key concern. In a world full of uncertainty, it’s only human nature to protect and secure your future and be prepared for whatever is to come.

InsurTech’s gathering momentum in recent times reflects a gradual industry-wide shift from a “product-centric” to a “customer-centric” model. With an aim to cater to consumer expectations, and concurrent market and regulatory conditions, and bring them as per with tandem technological advancement, the industry’s acceptance of these new technologies has significantly accelerated developments in the last 12 months.

While many countries had started moving towards digital insurance way before the pandemic struck, post-pandemic the landscape had entirely changed. Less physical interaction meant an increase in the use of digital tools to access products and services.

The newly introduced changes in the modes of living due to the Covid-19 not only led to an increase in customers contacting their insurers to understand various terms but also increased the number of insurtech startups in the country, which helped the people find the right insurance option as per their requirements.

Though gradually, digital insurance is finally finding its place in the country. The customer interaction in digital insurance has widely increased due to new products launches that aim to offer help to individuals in case of severe issues like global pandemics.

Another great innovation through digital insurance is usage-based insurance. The premiums payable are based on the extent to which an activity is performed. Hence, a customer is charged by how often they access the service. It is advantageous for dormant insurance covers. Such viable and well-suited services have bought even those people on board with digital insurance, who were previously against or immune to such ventures.

While companies like Jubilee Life Insurance, EFU, Adamjee Insurance, Alfalah Insurance, and State Life Insurance cover life, property, fire, liability, guarantee, and social insurance, the new wave of insurtech startups have now made insurance more readily available and accessible to the common man, making it just a click away.

Insurtech startups act as a bridge between the insurance company and the people, according to the kind of insurance quote one wants and the amount they’re willing to invest, the startup connects them with the most suited insurance package, which suffices their needs. Now insurance is just a click away! We’ve carefully shortlisted a number of insurtech startups that can help you get online insurance quotes within minutes in Pakistan, without having to commute to the office or go through rigorous paperwork.

Easyinsurance: Digitizing access to insurance in Pakistan

Easyinsurance acts as a free and independent guidance platform for Insurance products.

Living up to their slogan of digitizing access to insurance in Pakistan, the venture aims to integrate technology with existing systems, to provide you with an insurance plan that is well suited to your needs.

With insurance partners like State Life, Jubilee, Efu, Adamjee insurance, Asia insurance, premier insurance, Pak Qatar insurance and many more, easyinsurance simply makes insurance easier for you. They not only help you get a personalised insurance plan but also draw comparisons between these plans that help you pick out the best one from the lot. All you have to do is go to their website, easyinsurance.com.pk enter your requirements, compare different plans and buy insurance online.

Smartchoice: Insurance made simple for you

Another digital insurance platform like easyinsurance, that allows customers to compare insurance policies, evaluate plans and buy instantly from top insurance companies in Pakistan.

Providing you with a wide range of options to choose a personalised plan from, smartchoice also provides free consultation to help you understand your insurance needs.

Visit their website smartchoice.pk, choose the kind of insurance plan you want, enter the required details and you’ll see a list of insurance plans, choose the one that best suits your needs and budget.

Salaam Takaful Limited: The only Shariah Compliant Insurtech of Pakistan

Salaam Takaful Limited is the largest dedicated general takaful operator and the 1st Shariah-compliant insurtech in Pakistan. The company has general takaful offerings backed by digitized processes. Through the Takaful online option on the company’s website salaamtakaful.com, you can choose to buy an insurance plan online according to your insurance needs.

Tez Financial Services: Get back your financial freedom

With health insurance starting from as low as Rs. 75, you might as well start an insured and stress-free life now.

Tez Bima allows you to not only get health insurance at admirably low rates but also provides you with the ease to consult with an online doctor whenever needed. However, for now, Tez Bima only provides health insurance and whether it’ll shift towards other insurance plans or not in the near future, we can’t say anything about that.

Would Pakistan be late to all games, given our anti-consumer regulations?

Shaheera Faheem — Fri, 07 Jan 2022 10:31:20 GMT

Are you even a desi if you’re not obsessed with owning land? The interest in real estate is in our genes. Our history of colonization and the still running feudal system has processed us into believing that owning land is owning power. We work all our lives with the end goal of “apna ghar, apni zameen”.

Real estate has the highest appreciation value in Pakistan thus investing in real estate is always a risk-free profitable investment. Premium real estate in Pakistan however, is far beyond the reach of 99% of the population.

The only way to make investment culture inclusive for all classes is to provide opportunities for small investments. One such solution is crowdfunding. A concept completely alien to the Pakistani population.

2021- The year of the startup boom. The year brought many successful startups but less unique ones. A high success rate in digitalizing retail was followed by a large number of delivery services startups. There were ground-breaking investments in fin-tech, ed-tech, online booking and delivery startups.

In midst of all this, there was one startup that tackled the problem of money parking in real estate and the middle class never being able to afford to buy land. Xstate initiated equity crowdfunding in Pakistan in January 2021. It fractionalizes real estate property and lets investors buy small shares for as low as PKR 5000.

How Xstate works?

Xstate basically buys the property and fractionalizes it into smaller affordable parcels. Investors can now buy small portions of this property for as low as PKR 5000. The number of tokens and the holding time for the property is publicly preannounced. When the property is sold, every investor gets their share of the profit.

“We want to make real estate investments accessible for everyone no matter where they are and what their budget is. Using the concept of tokenization, we are able to do just that, providing the opportunity of fractional investments like cryptocurrencies while providing historically consistent high returns of the real estate industry.”
— Asif Khan, Co-founder Xstate

Investors can trade in their respective shares, buying more of the same property or selling this to get a larger share of another one. This property trading avoids parked revenues and keeps the money regulated.

What sets Xstate apart from its competitors?

Xstate has an emphasis on safe and shariah-compliant investments. Properties listed on their platform are completely owned by them. There is no third party involved between xstate and the investor during the whole duration of the project.
Xstate picks a prime property that is secure from all aspects and also has a great appreciation margin for the future.
It is an entirely transparent and scalable model that can be accessed everywhere.
It offers a simple user interface and an investment method. Thus their investor pool has tonnes of diversity in occupation, age, gender and other demographical factors.

Xstate shows Promising Prospects

Xstate has the potential to solve Pakistan’s economic problems by making real estate investments liquid and accessible.

The middle class has been deprived of financial inclusion because of their financial conditions never letting them invest. Xstate provides good avenues to save and invest for the middle class. Many women also made purchases through their platform and this highlights the financial inclusivity of the idea.

It offers overseas Pakistanis to invest from the comfort of their homes. Xstate is a completely online platform that provides secure real estate investment opportunities for all.

Does that mean “ab zameen hogi sab ki”? Well, not so soon.

Public notice by SECP

The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) issued a public notice on 17th December 2021 warning the general public to refrain from investing in any fraudulent investment schemes by Xstate Technologies (Private) Ltd Company and a few others via their online platforms.

SECP has noticed that a few entities are involved in illegal deposit taking schemes related to fractionalization of real assets through electronic platforms. Investors are advised to refrain from investing in such companies; (names mentioned below) (1/2) pic.twitter.com/y6VADhdxHf
— SEC Pakistan (@SECPakistan) December 17, 2021

Any company working around equity crowdfunding is not illegal since Pakistan, as of now, has no policies covering this domain. Fractional investment and crowdfunding are tricky businesses since charity-based crowdfunding is banned in Pakistan. Thus SECP’s concern and assistance would help build the general public’s trust in legally operating companies.

Xstate claimed they were not contacted regarding any concerns before the public press release.

“We welcome the opportunity to engage with SECP’s representatives to explain our business model and activities. We are confident that, given the opportunity to do so, we would assuage any concerns they have around Xstate.”
— Xstate’s response to SECP’s notice

Legal Aspects of Xstate

Xstate is legally registered at SECP and FBR. It works on the business model of Equity Crowdfunding which currently has no regulations from any regulatory body of Pakistan.

Xstate affirms its engagement in extensive due diligence with leading legal experts in the country and claims receiving assurances that operating in this sector would not be in breach of any existing regulations.

Similar platforms worldwide

Equity crowdfunding is a business model that has seen to be of great success in many countries in the past few years. The companies run legally with the approval of their regulatory bodies and the backing of their government.

BrickX

BrickX is an award-winning platform operating in Australia that provides a simple and low-cost way to access the property market. They divide each property into 10,000 shares (that they call bricks).

It offers automated investments with a set monthly deposit by the user which can be cancelled, changed or transferred to manage your own investment at any time. Additionally, it also offers investments for minors with the details of an adult trustee.

Property Planner

PropertyPlanner of UK, lets the customers buy their share in professionally managed properties across the UK. You can select your own preferred property or build a portfolio to suit your own criteria and easily diversify across different types of property assets.

It offers both newly listed properties and resale ones. It regulates the share quantity according to the number of investors. It lets sellers of property bid the initial amount. The valuation of the property is analyzed by an independent chartered surveyor every 3 months.

Smart Crowd

SmartCrowd, a startup operating in UAE, lets customers invest in prime Dubai rental properties for as low as AED 500 with MENA’s(Middle East North Africa) first and largest real estate crowdfunding platform.

It takes every aspirant through an educational process by explaining all the business models, features and how their system works. It lets the investor track the performance of their investments using an interactive dashboard. It also lets you diversify your investments across multiple properties to reduce risk through an entirely digital and hassle-free process.

But above all, SmartCrowd is regulated by the Dubai Financial Services Authority, giving it room to grow without restrictions.

LoftyAI

Similarly, LoftyAI, an American startup, claims it has made investing in real estate even easier than investing in stocks. The platform lets you diversify into real estate investing in less than 5 minutes for only $50.

It goes by a simple 4 step process :

View property
Purchase token
Receive token in your Algorand wallet
Hold tokens and receive rental income

Why not Pakistan?

Xstate left us dreaming for a day when the people constructing a building could actually collectively own the building. We had our hopes high for this startup enabling us to start investments for real estate with minimum savings.

Why is it that when a trend goes viral, succeeds in various countries, makes ground-breaking investments, it is only years after, that a similar operation starts in Pakistan?

We have been lagging behind almost 6 years in technology from our neighbouring countries. It is because of our un-friendly policies and fixed regulations that take ages to alter.

It is high time Government and regulatory bodies research the legal aspects of new businesses and introduce friendly regulations. All crowdfunding startups operating in other countries are facilitated by their policymakers.

In order to upgrade our economy, our regulatory bodies must be in-line with the new-age models and businesses. Regulations are meant to channelize the businesses in the favour of the country instead of creating hurdles.

“I am hugely bullish on fractional ownership in real estate,Wheels [are in] motion to set regulations.”
— Habibullah Khan, a strategy and branding advisor for early-stage companies.

Collective efforts of Xstate and SECP would bring financial freedom and financial inclusion in the real estate sector like never before.

Crisis bringing change — Here are the top 6 Pakistani Ed-Tech startups

Shaheera Faheem — Thu, 06 Jan 2022 12:19:20 GMT

The pandemic put the education systems around the world into an unprecedented crisis. Pakistan was already suffering from a severe learning crisis, an extended shutdown of schools deeply impacted the national education ecosystem.

Sometimes the world needs a crisis. Covid-19 turned out to be an opportunity in disguise for many sectors. The greatest impact was on Digital Education. Digital education tools helped bridge the learning gaps created by lockdowns and other disruptions.

Surprisingly, Covid didn’t bring about a rise in the formation of ed-tech startups but a rise in their usage. It was only now that most of the long-founded ed-tech startups came in daylight.

The pandemic, rising internet penetration, and globalization are some of the aspects that shifted the focus to online learning. Pakistan has many ed-tech startups fully functioning and delivering to their target audiences. Many of these collaborate with schools while others provide app-based platforms.

Here are some of the ed-tech startups that are transforming the education systems in Pakistan.

Maqsad — Learning made fun

Maqsad is a mobile-first education platform startup, with a goal to make education more accessible to 100 million Pakistani students. The Urdu word ”maqsad” means purpose.

“We believe everyone has a purpose. Maqsad’s mission is to enable Pakistani students to realize this purpose; whether you are a student from an urban centre, such as Lahore, or from a remote village in Sindh: Maqsad believes in equal opportunity for all,”
— Rooshan Aziz, Founder of Maqsad

Maqsad aims to change the traditional rote memorization techniques of Pakistan’s education system by adapting comprehension focussed ways of teaching.

In September 2021 Maqsad raised the nation’s highest Ed-tech funding of $2.1 million in its pre-seed funding round. The team now aims to make education accessible to a wider audience.

AirSchool- Shopify for Courses

AirSchool is a live-streaming educational platform with engagement and monetization tools to help anyone start teaching online. It helps experts to create courses, build their audience and make money.

In addition, it offers a free video series course on how to develop a digital course to get you started. The platform has thousands of courses covering a wide range of topics, in English and Urdu both.

These are a few features that make air school easy to use and popular among course creators and consumers alike.

Free Subdomain & Easy live or recorded courses setup.
Accepts payments through Stripe, PayPal, BankTransfer & local payment methods and keeps adding more methods as per expert requests.
Dynamic Dashboard to see all data.
Powerful Course analytics to help improve course completion rate.
No upfront fee.

NearPeer- One-stop destination for online learning in Pakistan

Nearpeer aims to make quality education affordable and accessible throughout Pakistan and the Middle East using technology.

It offers learning packages for CA, ACCA, University Courses, MDCAT, University entry tests, CSS, FSc, O’level and A’level. Each course has thousands of enrollments.

This startup is a success story of LUMS Center for Entrepreneurship (NIC) incubation. The idea was founded in 2015, ever since then they have upgraded adding more fields each year. It received an investment of $500,000 in 2021.

Edkasa

Edkasa is an ed-tech startup that facilitates high-school students by providing online education through their youtube channel, mobile app and online tests.

“If you look at the larger education landscape, we are here to meet the gap of people that have the need to go to an academy or hire a tutor to prepare for exams. We provide an alternative to that at a lower cost.”
— Fahad Tanveer, CEO and co-founder at Edkasa.

Edkasa is an attempt to ensure the required results, increase the chances of getting into world-class universities and increase Pakistan’s knowledge-based economy. They provide two products: the Edkasa app and connected classrooms.

Knowledge Platform

Knowledge Platform has developed and is continuously improving a highly innovative solution to address Pakistan’s educational crisis. They are currently working with more than 1,000 schools across 120 cities and towns of Pakistan.

Through their content and technology, teachers can easily improve engagement for a low price and without internet access.
Knowledge platform provides training programmes for the staff of its partner schools.
Performance Dashboard identifies learning gaps in real-time to make sure that no student or class is left behind.

Taleemabad by Orenda Project — Never stop learning

The Orenda Project’s mission is to use technology to bridge the digital divide between private and public schools in Pakistan by providing engaging, high-quality digital education to the masses.

It creates educational cartoon series.
Taleemabad offers daily follow-along lesson plans.
Collaborates with underprivileged schools to provide them with world-class education.
Taleemabad offers primary grades learning app for homeschooling.
They offer franchising opportunities for those who want to build a successful business in the field of education.

From teaching in refugee camps and forming a slum school at the young age of 18, Haroon Yasin, founder and CEO of Taleemabad, now runs the largest network of technology equipped schools that focus on the underprivileged masses of Pakistan.

The trend of online learning has just started in Pakistan. In a few years, most of the schools, academies, and universities would shift most of their operations to digital. These ed-tech startups would become household names in a matter of a few years.

Krave Mart raises $6 Million — Here’s how that is a success for Pakistan

Shaheera Faheem — Wed, 05 Jan 2022 06:58:06 GMT

It’s 3 am at night, you’re craving hot Cheetos.

No nearby shop is open, you can’t just order one pack of chips and end up paying more on delivery than the product itself.

You don’t want to wait 45 minutes to get your chips.

What to do?

Krave Mart comes to the rescue, ensuring 10 minutes of delivery with no delivery charges. Yes, you heard it right!

Krave Mart is a quick grocery delivery service launched on December 1st, 2021. It is currently operating in five areas of Karachi and is in the process of expanding to 12 others. The startup ensures delivery takes place within 10 minutes in an up to three-kilometre radius in Karachi.

The founders of Krave mart understood the need of the time and fulfilled it with their expertise, unmatched resources, ample experience, and a thorough understanding of the Pakistani market.

The marketing has been very smart. Their focus was on sanitary products and contraceptives. There still exists shame in buying these items. Also, when you’re in need of one, you want it right away.

Get them delivered to your doorstep in 10 minutes. Does it get better than this? No doubt Krave mart got popular within no time.

A few weeks after its launch, pre-seed funding of $6 million was announced. It was by far the largest early funding a Pakistan based startup had raised. But, with the ever-growing startup ecosystem of Pakistan, it now stands second to Tazah, a fresh produce marketplace, that closed its pre-seed funding round on $6.5 million two days ago, on December 21st, 2021.

But one may question, startups after all are private entities, how does their success affect the country?

Well, Krave Mart closing $6 million is as good for Pakistan as it is for them. Here’s how.

Stimulates an interest of global investors in Pakistan’s startup ecosystem

Krave Mart raising $6 million builds the narrative of the booming tech ecosystem in Pakistan, to the international audience. Pakistan startups are high on global investors’ radar, as they raised a record $310 million in different financing levels from across the world by the 10th of December 2021.

This year we saw the sorts of Better Tomorrow ventures, Capital Ventures, Quiet Capital, Tiger Global and more global investors pouring money into Pakistan’s tech sector. Many of these investors have been the initial investors of Google, Facebook, Spotify and other tech giants.

People who baulked at investing in Pakistan before are now queuing up to bet big on the 220-million-strong South Asian nation.

Creates a favourable environment for upcoming startups

Krave Mart’s successful early financing round makes Pakistan a potential candidate for Foreign investors. It thus builds a favourable environment for upcoming startups. The financial stability Krave Mart has created makes the startup sector a safe space for newcomers.

Simplifies legal aspects of launching a startup in Pakistan

Earlier, excessive taxation, constraints on capital flows and bureaucratic headaches presented significant challenges for growing tech startups. This funding frenzy in the startup sector has made the government more vigilant towards its small business policies. Measures were taken to ease the regulatory environment for businesses.

Pakistan recently passed six reforms in this domain. Companies can now be registered in one day. Three-year tax relief was provided. An online one-stop registration and tax payment system was introduced. The time required to get construction permits, to register commercial properties and electrical connections has been reduced to half. Time to export for border compliance and Imports for documentary compliance also reduced.

Another of our Manifesto commitments fulfilled – this time on Ease Of Doing Business. Pak achieves biggest improvement in its history in World Bank's EODB rankings. Over last decade Pak's ranking had slipped more than 50 places. Now we have improved 28 places – from 136 to 108.
— Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) October 24, 2019

These reforms appear to be effective as Pakistan’s position in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business report jumped from 136th place in 2018 to 108th place in 2019.

Generates massive job opportunities in Pakistan

Krave mart promises a quick 10 minute delivery for groceries and house essentials. In order to deliver what it promises, it needs to have dark stores and riders among every community of a city.

According to the statement, Krave Mart, which launched its services in December, currently covers 25 % of Karachi’s population and aims to bring that number to 100% by January 2022. Kassim Shroff, Founder and CEO of Krave mart, stated, “By end of January or early February 2022, we would start operations in Lahore and then move on to Islamabad.”

Krave mart works on a hub and spoke model. A hub is a centre that receives and distributes goods to smaller locations owned by the company. These are called spokes that are located in small communities to quickly deliver.

Krave Mart stated that each hub creates jobs for 80 people and it aims to build 100 hubs per city. As it expands to 10 major countries of Pakistan in 2022, it would be creating up to 8000 job opportunities.

Reforms Pakistan’s Economy

Pakistan has seen more money flow into its nascent technology sector during 2021 than in the previous six years combined. Many global venture capital firms have invested in Pakistan for the first time in the current wave. This elevates Pakistan’s economy to new heights.

The rise of digital startups and their progress in the last some years has been quite vibrant. According to McKinsey & Co’s latest report on the Pakistani ecosystem, Pakistan has become one of the fastest-growing economies in Asia.

Upgrades living standards in Pakistan

Pre-covid, Traditional e-commerce deliveries through online ordering were becoming popular. However, the average delivery time was around 3–5 business days. Incentives of free delivery were given to encourage larger orders.

The pandemic helped push online grocery shopping into the mainstream, quick-commerce became a necessity in lockdown days. It raised the trend of instant deliveries of small amounts of food and goods from relatively local stockrooms or hubs.

It is easier to have such services operate in gated communities since addresses are messed up and usually not on the map in many local neighbourhoods. Krave Mart’s instant deliveries facilitate the residents of all communities. It puts all addresses on the map and makes other deliveries easier as well. Thus increasing accessibility and extending services to every corner of every city.

Creates presence of Pakistan in International markets

A statement from Krave mart read, “We are looking to create a social impact in the q-commerce landscape by serving 100 million households consisting of our employees, partners, riders, and customers across South East Asia.”

A few years back, Pakistan was seen as a perpetually messed economy, poverty-ridden, and an unsafe country to visit. Previously, Pakistan-founded tech companies weren’t majorly operating in Pakistan itself, let alone internationally.

Krave mart’s international expansion would mark a footprint of Pakistani startups globally. This would not only uplift Pakistan’s economy but change the narrative of the world about Pakistan.

Pakistan is the 5th largest market in the world which comprises a rising consumer class, presenting enormous investment opportunities. The Pakistani market can become a hub for startup investments and with so many startups emerging and growing every year, hopefully, Pakistan will shortly have its Nexicons and Unicorns.

Opening a startup in Pakistan? Here’s how the Government can facilitate you

Shaheera Faheem — Tue, 04 Jan 2022 15:05:51 GMT

Blaming the government for our own inefficiencies is the favourite drawing-room conversation of us Pakistanis. Similar is the case of unemployment, never have we pondered why we look for employment instead of creating employment opportunities.

Many would argue, starting something new in Pakistan with minimum resources is impossible because well “na-ehal hukumran” (incompetent leaders). The government has turned out not so incompetent here.

The truth is, Startups disrupt, and Regulations follow. Startups target untapped markets by providing digital solutions for existing businesses or introducing new projects altogether. These services are new thus no existing policies cover them. New policies are created with new innovations.

Issues faced by new startups

There is no denying that the law regime in Pakistan for years has been unfavourable for startups, which is why Pakistan lags behind its neighbouring countries in the tech and startup domain. A few issues are:

Demands high regulatory costs that are unsustainable for startups.
The lack of proper laws to incentivize foreign investors.
An ineffective taxation process.
The unavailability of proper digital payment infrastructure.

Notable disruptions by a few startups in 2021

However, the recent success of startups like Airlift, Zameen.com, Bazaar and Bykea validates the demand for digital services in the country. These startups’ success has also revived foreign investors sense of security in investing in local companies.

This year Pakistan saw a boom in global startup funding. Tech startup alone raised more than the previous 6 years combined, a 600% increase was witnessed.

As all of this shows, entrepreneurs and the companies they build are essential to revitalizing our economies. This urged the government to take necessary actions to facilitate and protect the startup ecosystem.

The current government seems to be somewhat in line with the trends of today.

“The best solution to empower the bulge of unemployed youth of Pakistan is small and medium enterprises (SMEs),” Asad Umar told startup Pakistan.

As per United Nations’ study, Pakistan needs at least 1.7 million jobs to be added every year. The government is well aware of the pivotal role the startup ecosystem plays in creating job opportunities.

If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, the government’s got your back!

Let’s see some of the government initiatives that can support you on your journey to entrepreneurship.

Kamyab Jawan Program

In order to support youth and offer opportunities, the Government of Pakistan has initiated a flagship programme titled “Kamyab Jawan” focusing on education, engagement and employment. Six thematic areas were identified and projects were created by the Government under the umbrella of the Kamyab Jawan Program. This program is overseen directly by the Prime Minister’s office, while implementation takes place through various relevant ministries, organizations, associations and development sector stakeholders. These six initiatives are:

The Youth Entrepreneurship Scheme (YES)
Hunarmand Pakistan (Skills for All)
Startup Pakistan under Kamyab Jawan
Green Youth Movement
National Internship Program
Jawan Markaz

Youth Entrepreneurship Scheme (YES)

It envisages “Skills to Business”, wherein youth are offered subsidized loans. The scheme was launched in October 2019 and now has a pool of 21 collaborating banks in Pakistan.

Age limit: 21–45 (18– 45 for IT businesses)
Education requirements: Grade 10
Payback period: 8 years (one-year grace period)

It is a 9 part form that requires general, personal and financial information along with some basic documents. The best part is the online portal for all applications. Guidance can be taken from the nearest branch of collaborating banks. The scheme functions in a 3 tier interest-free funding process.

Tier	Loan Amount
Tier-1	Rs. 100,000 to Rs. 1 Million
Tier-2	Rs. 1 Million to Rs. 10 Million
Tier-3	Rs.10 Million to Rs.25 Million

Success stories among underprivileged masses

Though we didn’t see any notable business come out of this scheme, it surely empowered a huge number of people from low-income communities. It facilitated tailors, beauticians, shopkeepers, milkmen and many such workers to run their small businesses with ease.

Asad Kamal obtained a loan of Rs. 9 million for his building and construction business and invested in the construction of houses and fulfilled his dream of having a real estate office.

کامیاب جوان پروگرام کی ایک اور کامیاب کہانی!
چند دنوں میں 90 لاکھ روپے کا قرض حاصل کر کے تعمیراتی شعبے میں سرمایہ کاری کرنے والا نوجوان اسد کمال اپنا کاروبار کرنے میں کامیاب ہو گیا! آپ بھی اپنے خوابوں کو حقیقت بنا سکتے ہیں! یقین دلاتا ہوں میرٹ اور شفافیت پر سمجھوتہ نہیں ہو گا! pic.twitter.com/IM6fyTV8Kl
— Usman Dar (@UdarOfficial) September 2, 2021

Meezan Bank and Retailo collaborate to provide Kamyab Jawan Financing to retailers.

The partnership is aimed at providing deserving retailers Kamyab Jawan financing in a Shariah-compliant manner to expand and support their small businesses.

Startup Pakistan under Kamyab Jawan

Prime Minister Imran Khan has taken the initiative of Kamyab Jawan startup Pakistan registration 2021 with the vision to develop a national startup ecosystem that provides one million young people training in entrepreneurship and launch 10,000 startups by 2023. It is a 5-step process with assistance provided at each step.

Learn: It teaches the aspirant the basics of startups through online training in collaboration with different colleges and universities also offering classroom activities.
Ideation: You are provided with businesses mentors to work on your idea.
Incubation: You work on the idea to prepare a minimum viable product. The finances for this step are covered through YES funds with seed level funding by collaborating universities.
Launch: Before launching the product, it is checked if the customer base is available and if the customer is willing to invest in that product. A customer lineup and a solid revenue model must be ready before the launch.
Accelerate / Grow: The focus is on growth. Startup Pakistan brings industry leaders to help startups grow and penetrate into the industry rapidly.

“Startup Pakistan is a flagship initiative of Kamyab Jawan Program by the government which envisions to create jobs and economic activity in an inclusive, scalable, and sustainable way.”
— Asad Umar, Minister of Planning and Development

National Incubation Center (NIC)

National Incubation Center, is a Pakistan-based startup incubation program under a public-private partnership with the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication, and other entities in Pakistan. Developed to further the vision of a Digital Pakistan, it is currently functional in Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar and Quetta.

To facilitate founders in scaling up, NIC provides them with a year-long training with these facilities:

Co-working Space
Mentorship and Coaching
Startup Training
Custom Designed Curriculum
Commercialization Support
Networking Opportunities
Access to Investor and Grants
Inclusivity and Diversity

The best part of NICs operating in Pakistan is that they offer zero equity-based incubation cycle for tech-based startups from the early to the growth stage to scale their businesses.

NIC backed startups that made an impact

NICs prove to be the best platform for startups since great successful startups developed in such incubation centres. All of the below-mentioned startups received huge amounts of global funding and recognition through awards.

Digit Khata: It enables micro and small businesses to manage their bookkeeping using its web and mobile app.
CricFlex: It is the world’s first patented wearable technology for cricketers who want to improve their game and make it to the mainstream.
Mapalytics: It is one of the leading providers of 3D scanning services for construction, mining, archaeological and historical sites.
Saving 9: It works to ensure the physical and mental safety of Pakistani citizens by enabling them with the tools, resources, and knowledge needed to save a life.
Daastan: Daastan leverages technology to bring accountability and transparency to the book publishing industry by interconnecting key stakeholders through Pakistan’s premier publishing portal called Qissa.
Deaftawk: It is bridging the gap between 466 million deaf people in the world and their communities by providing a real-time sign language solution at the user’s fingertips.

SECP Startup Portal

SECP is taking various initiatives to create an enabling regulatory framework for facilitating startups in Pakistan. These measures will attract local and international innovators.

Enables ease of doing business
Facilitates by making amendments in company act
Educates by creating awareness outreach

Their startup process comprises of 10 steps being Idea, finding a co-founder, building a prototype, forming a business model, then a business plan, branding, registering the company, pitch deck, funding, and building up a networking and marketing plan.

“The SECP startup portal will be a gateway to information and collaboration hub for the facilitation and uplifting of the existing and future entrepreneurs to connect and excel”
— Shauzeb Ali, Comissioner SECP

Pakistan is considered to be the untapped potential market among international investors. The reason is the 63% young population, the deep penetration of the internet with 110 million internet users and increasing tech awareness. Problems, demands and opportunities have always been there, it is only now that we have started to address them.

Efforts by the State Bank of Pakistan to boost the startup ecosystem

This year a good number of initiatives were taken by the SBP that helped upcoming and operating startups to succeed.

SBP altered its regulations to facilitate foreign investments as convertible debt

When a renowned media publication “The Current” received funding from Google, there was no way to get the money home. When the issue was highlighted Fawad Choudhry and SBP president Reza Baqir facilitated the startup by introducing friendly regulations on foreign funding. This opened up gateways for many more global investments for Pakistan-based startups.

Revised Policy for Equity funding abroad

In order to facilitate the startups and attract direct foreign investments, amendments were made in equity funding regulations. The new policy would allow Pakistani Fintechs and startups to establish holding companies abroad. It would further facilitate exporters to establish subsidiaries or branch offices outside of Pakistan.

Banking on Equality: Reducing the Gender Gap in Financial Inclusion

The SBP is working on this gender mainstreaming policy that aims to bring a shift towards women-friendly business practices.

“The SBP is building market infrastructures and facilities that support women entrepreneurs in the country. For the SBP, entrepreneurship and especially female-owned businesses has held utmost priority.”
— Reza Baqir, President SBP.

SBP launches Licensing and Regulatory frameworks for digital Banking

The SBP has developed a licensing and regulatory framework for setting up digital banks in Pakistan. It offers two types of accounts:

Digital Retail Bank (DRB): Focuses on retail customers
Digital Full Bank (DFB): Deals with retail customers as well as business and corporate entities

This policy aims to enhance financial inclusion, provision affordable/cost-effective digital financial services to the unserved and underserved segments of society.

Things seem to be going in the right direction. However, it is unfair for the government to claim all the credit for the recent development in the IT sector. It has undoubtedly been the efforts of the Private sector which at some places has only been facilitated by the government.

“The only tangible govt policy for the IT industry seems to be their misdirected focus on allocation of large pieces of land for technology zones. In an era when everything is moving to virtual offices and remote work, this government is trying to support the IT industry by starting (or worse, rebranding) real-estate projects.”
— Umar Saif, Chief investment officer at Khudi Ventures and Chief Digital Officer at Geo/Jang Group

People have mixed remarks on Government’s share in IT development. However, a boom was witnessed in the tech sector and it would not have been possible if the Government didn’t advance its policies in accordance with the new-age trends.

2016 to 2021 — How Bykea has grown in Pakistan?

Sarwat Rizvi — Fri, 31 Dec 2021 21:00:48 GMT

With every passing day, we see the roads of some of the big cities of Pakistan flooding up with men riding bikes and wearing green, red or now newly introduced purple T-shirts. These men can be seen delivering, buying, transporting goods and even providing on-demand transport services.

In recent years, Pakistan has seen a BOOM of such startups which has indeed provided ease to the general public, however, these startups gained further popularity when the pandemic kicked in.

When Bykea was launched back in 2016 it was one of a kind, the company had done a commendable job in identifying a huge market gap and seizing the day as we know it. Back then it only provided motorcycle ride-hailing and parcel-delivery service, unlike Careem.

While it wouldn’t have been easy to compete with big sharks like Careem and Uber both of which provided a list of transport options to choose from as per one’s liking or requirement, Bykea just gave the option of a bike. But even then it managed to create a loyal customer base, you know why?

Simply because it had a rather viable and well-suited business model that catered appropriately to the Pakistani market. It had intelligently devised its strategy and had a clear perception of its target audience.

The company well understood that while Careem and Uber did provide a wide range of transport options, the first and foremost option for the Pakistani common man will always be a bike more so when provided at a much more affordable rate. From students to the working class, everyone uses a bike. It’s the national mode of transport as we know it, and this idea and strategy were what landed Bykea $13 million in Series B funding last year.

But were the intricately strategized mode of transport at a cheaper rate, the only leading factor that contributed to its growth? Absolutely not. It was one of the first few internet businesses that offered an interface in the Urdu language, this quite literally broke the language barrier, that could’ve otherwise kept it from reaching the common man both as a potential employee (rider) as well as the customer.

The three cities Bykea operates in are Karachi, Rawalpindi and Lahore and they have a combined population of 30 million people. Although public transportation is underserved in all three cities, these urban sanctuaries drive the economy of the 5th most populous country in the world. Motorbikes are the rails for distributors, couriers, e-commerce retailers and restaurants to move goods and collect receivables, almost entirely in cash in one of the least banked countries in the world.

With 17 million two-wheelers in Pakistan which are subjected to meet an even further increment; 4x the number of cars; Bykea offers millions of people the chance to earn an income by tapping into the tremendous opportunity in the country for both transport and hyperlocal commerce.

From looking at the stats of the past 5 years and the levels of growth the startup seemed to have reached recently, one would say they’ve succeeded in their mission. As their slogan says, “Har Zaroorat ki Sahoolat”, and I think you would agree to me that over the past few months they’ve managed to become a go-to platform for us Pakistanis.

With updates to their app that included the addition of categories like Classified, Cash transfer, Khareed Lao & Shops, they’ve managed to attract a fair share of the female customer base as well.

While many of these services are also provided by Careem but the recent incidents regarding Careem and their management that can be seen making rounds on social media has led to Bykea emerging as a local super-app that had started off laying its infrastructure using bike taxis, which is why their trajectory may be smoother than Careem’s when it comes to having a loyal and more trusting customer base.

8 of the best-emerging startups in Pakistan for the year 2021

Sarwat Rizvi — Thu, 30 Dec 2021 17:56:56 GMT

Pakistani startup landscape has visibly encountered a massive shift over the recent years. From Careem, Rozee.pk, foodpanda, Airlift, Swvl to Daraz, Oladoc or even Sehat Kahani, you’ll find startups occupying many of the market gaps. One business model after another can be seen emerging, but while some make big, a good many get pushed back after some sit backs.

From ride-hailing to food/grocery delivery and now, you’ll even find online doctors for live consultation from quite literally the comfort of your homes. The year 2021 was no exception to this growth. The first half of 2021 was simply incredible for the Pakistani startup culture. According to the data compiled by Data Darbaar, the total investment that went into the country’s ecosystem topped $125 million.

It all began in January when $13.5 million was raised and then the next few months, from February to April, saw a dramatic increment, 7 companies raised $42.6 million in funding. The real climax of the story was the second quarter of the year, i.e., from May and June, startups raised an additional $69.2 million, with most of the funding going to eCommerce and FinTech startups.

Today we’ll be listing here 8 such startups of 2021 that not only made big but also, made our lives easier during the pandemic and have now become a part of the everyday life of many.

Airlift: 30-Minute Delivery of Everyday Essentials

What started as a pilot project in Lahore back in 2019 with a fairly small team became the receiver of the largest single private funding round in Pakistan’s history in August 2021. The Lahore-based online shopping delivery app raised a capital of $85 million in Series B funding co-led by Harry Stebbings from 20VC and Josh Buckley from Buckley Ventures Ltd., with participation from former Y Combinator president Sam Altman.

QisstPay: Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) for Pakistan

This got to be the absolute favourite of 2021! I tell you, this right here is what market validation looks like.

QisstPay brought to Pakistan’s 227 million residents, their hearts desire. The company was founded, back in November 2020 but closed an impressive $15 million seed funding led by MSA Capital in September 2021. You can already spot them on the checkout pages of some of Pakistan’s leading eCommerce websites.

Tajir: B2B (business-to-business) Inventory for Pakistani Retailers

This is what we call an intelligent business model! The founders of Tajir well understood the Pakistani retail sector and the market gap that lied below and came up with a platform, that could potentially prove to be the ultimate go-to for suppliers and retailers alike.

Tajir is a B2B mobile application that allows Pakistani shopkeepers to purchase their items and get the delivery the next day, with a robust tracking system in between. However, there is still a lot to be achieved in the country’s retail sector, given that it’s valued at more than US$ 150 billion, and has been growing at a rate of 9 per cent year-on-year for 20 years.

Dastgyr: B2B eCommerce Marketplace for Retailers and Suppliers

Dastgyr follows somewhat the same concept as Tajir, with the only difference being, that it empowers the retailers by providing them with B2B supplying services to purchase items directly from suppliers. The basic difference between Dastgyr and Tajir is that, with Dastgyr; the magnitude of ordered items is way more than that of Tajir’s. The company’s total funding as of yet stands at $4 million.

SadaPay: Pakistani Neobank

The startup was founded back in 2018 and most recently has raised a seed funding of $7.2million in May 2021, led by Recharge Capital.

Sadapay abides by the neobank playbook, starting with a debit card and a no-fee bank account + free yet instant transfers to any bank or wallet in Pakistan, and 3x/month free cash withdrawals at any ATM in Pakistan.

In future, we won’t be surprised to see, if Sadapay adds additional banking, lending, and investing services to further grow their customer base.

CreditBook: Digital Ledger for Pakistani Businesses

Claiming to be Pakistans #1 DigitalKhata, where Tajir or Dastgyr help small business owners in the country to manage their inventory, Creditbook focuses on finances, payments, and receivables for those same small and medium-sized businesses.

The startup has raised total funding of $1.5 million and has already recorded millions of transactions.

Bazaar: A B2B Marketplace for Pakistan

Bazaar was founded back in June 2020 with the aim of catering to small and medium-sized enterprises in Pakistan to procure inventory, manage their bookkeeping and access financial services to help them grow.

Bazaar, a year-old B2B marketplace from Pakistan, has raised $30 million in Series A financing co-led by Silicon Valley-based Defy Partner and Singapore-based Wavemaker Partners.

Oladoc: Doctor’s Online Consultation

Founded back in 2016 as a health-based startup, Oladoc had emerged as the ultimate need of the hour amidst all the stir caused by the pandemic.

It had catered to millions with its live doctor’s consultation, without having to travel to the hospital itself. Oladoc has successfully raised 1.2 million in the venture capital fund disclosed to date.

CreditBook — The Story Behind the Startup

Shaheera Faheem — Mon, 27 Dec 2021 15:53:00 GMT

Cash is still king in Pakistan. Moving to a cashless digitized economy remains a far-fetched goal. There is a huge unmet gap in Financial inclusion in Pakistan. There have been efforts by the government but the progress seems to be slower than expected. In a poor economy like ours, most low-income families and daily wagers run their households on “udhaar” (credit).

It is no surprise that most of the small retailers in less privileged areas run majorly on credit. The people of the neighbourhood buy their necessities when they have no cash in hand and their dues keep adding up in this “khaata”. Monthly repayments happen at an informal and unstructured rate which affects cash flow in terms of growth.

The most treasured item at every Kiryana store is not the cash, but this foxed register with pages ripping apart due to overuse. What they bought, which customer owes how much, how much do they owe the wholesaler, when are payments due, this rusty ledger has it all.

We might see it as an inefficient system, but the founders of CreditBook surely saw it as an opportunity.

CreditBook empowers small businesses in Pakistan with technology. It uses smartphones to digitize the workflows of millions of micro, small, and medium businesses (MSMEs). The aim is to increase their cashflows by digitizing their credit ledgers for now.

A failed project in the public transport sector

At their time in Esade Business and Law school, Iman Jamall and Hasib Malik, the founders of CreditBook worked on a startup in the mass transit sector of Pakistan. Their target problem was the broken public transport system of Karachi. After studying the problem and testing further, they realized they couldn’t grapple with the transport company. Thus dropping the idea altogether.

However, this early teamwork kindled their interest in financial inclusion in Pakistan.

How did CreditBook Start?

In late 2019, Iman Jamall carried out research as the service designer for a bank in Pakistan. She surveyed local retailers, corner shops, and unbanked businesses to observe their financial practices. It was then, she came across this regular credit behaviour among many communities. Taking Hasib Malik on board, they started working on a sustainable solution to solve the cash flow and cash conversion cycle issues.

Hisham AdamJee, the third co-founder of CreditBook was researching in the same area. With his 15 year insight into the sector, he proposed a solution that has already worked for a few startups in India and Indonesia.

The CreditBook Team

When working with middle-aged people who have been running their businesses manually for long enough, the key feature is a simplistic alternate system. After trial and error, the model that worked best for the users was a basic digital ledger and a system of auto-generated alerts for repayments. CreditBook took this model forward and launched it in June of 2020.

Funding of CreditBook

Initially, the founders of CreditBook contributed themselves to launch their app. A few months after the release, CreditBook landed pre-seed funding of $1.5 million. The funding team had many local and international ventures on board, led by Better Tomorrow ventures investing in Pakistan for the first time.

Hasib Malik stated in an interview that once a startup has a good scalable model, raising money is a frictionless process. On December 17th 2021, Tiger Global announced backing CreditBook as its first investment in Pakistan. A total of $11 million is raised in their pre-Series A funding round.

The Revenue Model of CreditBook

CreditBook is a free bookkeeping app that enables merchants to digitize their daily account tracking, sending automated reminders out for the credit uploaded on digital ledgers. The original business model is completely free with the objective of providing an easy, frictionless decision-making process.

The prime focus of CreditBook is to grow its userbase, hitting a critical mass of users. In an interview with David Roversa of Esade, Iman Jamall stated “We are moving into invoicing, and based on the data collected we will start offering value-added financial services with our partners”. We are looking to create revenue channels from learnings through the customer data, Hasib added.

CreditBook hit the 100 million downloads milestone in 2021. Their growth has been exponential, with 500,000 active users within a few months of its launch. The startup had surprisingly successful progress being a free platform. Building the mass market’s trust in digital financing would still be a struggle in Pakistan.

Effect of Covid-19 on their Progress

CreditBook was launched in midst of the worst of the pandemic. Despite all the damages Covid-19 brought to the economy, the inclination towards mobile money surely increased. Statistics show a noticeable increase in smartphone users and internet users amid the pandemic. In the lockdown, most schools shifted to digital learning. Earlier, the internet was considered an entertainment platform among most of our population but post-pandemic, the narrative has changed.

The pandemic situation accelerated the digitalization and the adoption of mobile connections that helped Creditbook and others that aimed to grow their businesses. This ever-growing shift towards digital creates more opportunities for tech startups.

What makes CreditBook sustainable?

CreditBook is run by a highly motivated team that deeply understands its target market. Their models have been simple and transparent. The team closely works with its customers, relying largely on feedback. Another practice that makes CreditBook better than its competitors is repeated experimentation before every launch.

CreditBook understands our population’s reluctance towards digital banking and spending on online services. In an interview with Tech Sheck, Hasib Malik acknowledges that making their customers pay on a utility app would be a mistake. “If you want to digitize this sector you would have to take them through an education process”, he stated.

In a conversation with Davide of Esade, Hasib and Iman recalled “I remember telling the team on the day we got married: ‘hey guys, we are not available for four hours because we are getting married.” Well, with this level of conviction and dedication, CreditBook is bound to succeed.

We would soon be seeing CreditBook land many more international investments, creating opportunities for the startup ecosystem of Pakistan.

What’s the hype behind NFT startups?

Sarwat Rizvi — Fri, 24 Dec 2021 17:46:15 GMT

Recently, a wave of NFT (Non-Fungible Tokens) startups have taken the internet by storm but what really is this buildup all about?

NFT (or Non-Fungible Token) are one-of-a-kind digital assets that provide certification of ownership for the resource or good a user is buying. They assign a unique identity to digital assets, allowing companies to create and offer rare collectables. This provides the buyers to truly own a digital collectable and generates an additional revenue stream.

Most NFTs live on the Ethereum blockchain network and are bought and sold online where all transaction details are secured. Ethereum is an open-source blockchain-based platform that creates and shares business, financial services, and entertainment applications. The network’s users can create, publish, monetize, and use applications on the platform, and use its Ether cryptocurrency as payment. Also, as a cryptocurrency, Ethereum is second in market value only to Bitcoin, as of May 2021.

How are NFT’s redefining the Startup Landscape?

Non-fungible tokens have been around since 2014, but their cultural relevance solidified in 2021, infiltrating almost every industry from art and music to charity. In September 2021, two NFT start-ups raised a total of $930 million, highlighting continued appetite from investors for cryptocurrency companies as the industry experiences massive growth.

In today’s world, whether you’re a startup entrepreneur in an industry where an NFT use case hasn’t been established yet or someone that is thinking about starting a business, it’s important to have an understanding of NFT technology and its potential growth aspects in various fields.

However, the question still stands that what exactly is so special about NFT startups that have left such a massive footprint in the market?

The 21st century is much more dependent on digital media than ever before, which is why everything is getting digitized at an even faster pace. It was only a decade ago that digital currency seemed like a far fetched thought and now, we talk about investing in crypto. From retail to education and trading, various different fields are being digitized.

NFT opens a portal to a much more secure digital market, where the creator can sell their art, collectables, luxury goods or even games and buyers can buy them. This makes one ponder over the next big question;

This also happens in regular eCommerce then what’s new here?

Well, as mentioned earlier it allows the users and organisations to make much more authentic and traceable transactions, helping them to stay safe from financial fraud.

The ingenious power of NFTs right now is the incredible transparency it brings to the startup landscape for NFT entrepreneurs, their customers, and even potential investors, giving the business a much more sustainable and futuristic approach.

While traditional eCommerce websites or startups usually require customer surveys or sometimes some other form of data collection to gather feedback. Customer engagement & feedback is woven right into the culture of NFT communities. Customers in strong NFT communities are the major deciding factor in product creation. They actively work together through different social platforms to discuss product ideas and help shape the future scope of their projects.

To generate capital and get an idea of product demand, startups typically need to build a product and monitor sales, however, instead of this, an NFT startup allows the entrepreneurs to initially focus on building a community around a shared idea by bridging the gap between a company and its customers. Companies can develop a product and then sell a limited number of NFTs to early customers. Each NFT sale will provide early proof and generate startup capital for the founders.

The most notable aspect is that each sale allows potential investors to see indicators of Product or Market Fit with NFTs in full transparency.

So, while NFTs can streamline a startup’s ability to gain customer feedback and generate early capital, it by no means suggests that NFT entrepreneurs can skip over the rest of the steps of building a startup. They still need to identify the market gap and come up with a unique approach to fill that gap. NFT’s only create a new opportunity for these companies to get started.

How Airlift & Swvl changed their strategy from ride-hailing to grocery delivery?

Shaheera Faheem — Wed, 22 Dec 2021 14:39:26 GMT

The back-to-back launch of Airlift and Swvl in early 2019

Early 2019 the news broke of Airlift, a Pakistan-based startup, raising a total of $2.2 million in a seed round. Airlift aimed to build a decentralized global mass transit system. They turned a lot of heads raising the country’s largest Series A funding of $12 million. After that, Airlift has been the talk of the town.

In July of 2019, Swvl, a global mobility leader in mass transit launched in Pakistan. Swvl is a company founded in Egypt based now in Dubai. The startup aimed to invest up to $25 million in Pakistan in the year 2019.

Both the startups offered prices as low as Rs. 50 for commuting within a city. Airlift and Swvl both started their services from Lahore. Swvl later extended their services in Islamabad and Karachi as well while Airlift now operates in up to 8 cities.

The public transport system in Pakistan has been an unsafe, unorganized and unclean mess. In a country lacking anything resembling a mass transit system, app-based bus-hailing services are destined to thrive. Airlift and Swvl instead of being a threat to each other prospered in their own ways. Cheaper than car-hailing services like Uber and Careem and more safe, comfortable, and convenient than public transport. Both the startups were exponentially increasing their customers until the start of 2020.

The effect of Covid-19 on the startup Ecosystem

Early 2020, Covid-19 happened, changing the world altogether. The fear and uncertainty had everyone clueless about what lies ahead.

Airlift suspended its operations in March 2020, issuing a statement that read “Crowded places in closed settings create a high-risk environment for contracting the COVID-19 virus. As a responsible organization, Airlift encourages passengers to adopt alternative modes of transport.” Swvl announced the suspension of the intercity bus service, however, the company’s intra-city bus service continued.

The pandemic was a test of time for which startups would strive and which won’t. A great number of full-blown businesses went bankrupt in those uncertain times, Millions around the globe lost their jobs. Airlift and Swvl had quite unique Covid strategies.

The Covid Strategy of Airlift and the launch of Airlift Grocers

1st of July 2020, Usman Gul, co-founder and CEO of Airlift announced Airlift closing $10m in Series A-1 Financing. At a time of mass turbulence in capital markets, Airlift’s Series A-1 round marked one of the largest capital investments in the region. He mentioned mergers with high-profile investors from San Francisco, London, Taiwan, New York, and more. Many of the investors from previous financing rounds also chipped in.

At the same time, Airlift announced the launch of Airlift Grocers under the umbrella of Airlift Technologies. “Our team is excited to resume transit operations once the worst of the pandemic is behind us. In the interim, we have introduced Airlift Grocer — a 45-minute delivery service for all household essentials. You can access Airlift Grocer via the app store, the play store, or on the web”, Usman Gul stated.

How Airlift managed a successful delivery service venture among prominent competitors

It is believed, there is no alternative to experience. Usman Gul, before launching Airlift, worked at DoorDash, an online food ordering company. He worked there for almost 2 years, resigning at the position of Senior Manager.

This explains Airlift’s shift to food delivery services. With lockdowns being observed all over the country, it was the utmost requirement of the time. They had the expertise, it was all about pushing the right button at the right time. Airlift Grocers now are a leading food delivery service operating in 8 cities across Pakistan.

In an interview with Karavan’s Amad Mian, Meher Farukh, the co-founder of airlift said she believes that in the early stages of a startup, speed is everything. “Start early, don’t wait for everything to be perfect, moving fast gives you wings. It accelerates your entire journey,” she suggested.

According to Mehr Farukh, their team focuses on solutions and doesn’t let challenges be an excuse. Airlift’s swift shift to the food delivery domain given the circumstances is a true example of what she said.

In addition to groceries, Airlift today also delivers fresh produce, OTC and prescription medicines, and sports goods, from its network of multiple fulfilment centres across every city it operates in. However, their mass transit operations still lie suspended.

Airlift now aims to expand internationally, raising a total of $85 million in Series B funding. The target market for them is Asia and Africa. Capital flowing in from other markets is great for the local startup ecosystem in Pakistan.

The Covid Strategy of Swvl

The case for Swvl has been pretty interesting as well. They had landed a massive Series B funding of $20 million just before the covid outburst. Instead of limiting its team, the company aimed to cut down its variable expenses. Since growth was at a halt, utilizing the downtime they focussed on optimizing efficiency.

They divided their employees into squads of 4 to 5 people who would work on problem statements within the company and come up with solving strategies. Within a span of 2 weeks, there was an 80% reduction in spending. Swvl turned up to be a net margin profitable company post covid while being on the same scale as pre-covid. The company now spends 50% of what they used to spend.

Why grocery delivery services?

There have been speculations about Swvl entering food delivery services. Two of Pakistan’s most prominent bus-hailing services entering delivery services have been incomprehensible.

Surprisingly enough, Mostafa Kandil founder of Swvl has previously worked with Rocket Internet. It is a venture capital company that acquired a food delivery service in Egypt. Mostafa worked closely on this project to restructure it and make it more efficient.

I see a few parallels here. A conveyance-providing company can perform deliveries using the existing human and vehicle resources they have. In addition to that, the founders had previous experience, specifically in the food delivery domain. The expertise, the given resources, and the post-covid requirements combined is a good combination for a successful delivery service company.

Upcoming ventures of Airlift and Swvl

Airlift and Swvl both have their eyes on the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. The startups are ready to launch internationally. Considering their accomplishments, challenges, and customer services, they have a long way to go.