2021: A Banner Year For Pakistani Tech Startup Investments

[RiazHaq]

2021: A Banner Year For Pakistani Tech Startup Investments

The year 2021 is turning out to be a banner year for Pakistani tech startups . At the end of the third quarter of the current year, technol...

www.southasiainvestor.com

The year 2021 is turning out to be a banner year for Pakistani tech startups. At the end of the third quarter of the current year, technology startups have already raised $278 million, twice the funding raised in the previous 5 years combined.

Venture Capital Investment in Pakistan. Source: Kalsoom Lakhani, i2i Ventures

The third quarter (July-Sept 2021) alone has seen startup companies raise $172.6 in 17 deals closed in the three-month period, according to data compiled by Kalsoom Lakhani of i2i ventures. The top deals closed in the third quarter were: 1. Airlift $85 million series B 2. Bazaar $30 million in series A and 3. QisstPay $15 million seed round.

Source: Kalsoom Lakhani, i2i Ventures

The lion's share of the ,money ($117 million) went to E-commerce startups followed by Fintech ($35 million) and trucking platforms ($13.6 million). Male-founded startups got 46.5% while female-founded companies received 1.7% with the rest of the money going to startups whose founding teams include both male and female founders.
Pakistan's technology sector is in the midst of an unprecedented boom. It is being fueled by the country's growing human capital and rising investments in technology startups. A recent tweet by Swedish fund manager Mattias Martinsson captured it well when he wrote, "Have followed Pakistan for 15 years. Can't recall any time time when VC activity was anywhere near we've seen in the last few months. Impact of reforms kicking in?". New laws have made it easier to create startups and offered greater protection to investors. Digital infrastructure has expanded with over 100 million smartphones and an equal number of broadband subscriptions.
With expanding Internet infrastructure and rapidly growing user base, Pakistan is now seeing robust growth in venture money pouring into technology startups. Pakistani startups have already attracted more than $278 million in funding in 2021, more funds than all the money raised by Pakistani startups in their entire history. A recent example is Kleiner Perkins, a top Silicon Valley venture capital investment firm, that led a series A round of $17 million investment into Pakistani start-up Tajir. The startup operates an online marketplace for small store merchants in Pakistan. The announcement came via a tweet by Mamoon Hamid, a Pakistani-American Managing Partner at Kleiner Perkins who led the investment. Last year, Tajir raised a $1.8 million seed round. The company's revenue has increased by 10x since its seed round.

Pakistan Technology Exports Trend 2007-2021. Source: Arif Habib

Pakistan's technology exports are experiencing rapid growth in double digits over the last decade. Total technology exports jumped 47% to $2.1 billion in fiscal year 2020-21.

Pakistan University Enrollment Growth. Source: Encyclopedia of Higher Education

The foundation for Pakistan's digital transformation was laid with the higher education reform and telecommunications deregulation and investments starting in the year 2001 on President Musharraf's watch. With a huge increase in higher education funding, Higher Education Commission Chairman Dr. Ata ur Rehman succeeded in establishing 51 new universities during 2002-2008. As a result, university enrollment (which had reached only 275,000 from 1947 to 2003) soared to about 800,000 in 2008. This helped build a significant human capital that drove the IT revolution in Pakistan.

Please watch the following video presentation for more details on Pakistan's technology startup ecosystem:

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2021: A Banner Year For Pakistani Tech Startup Investments

The year 2021 is turning out to be a banner year for Pakistani tech startups . At the end of the third quarter of the current year, technol...

www.southasiainvestor.com

 

[Flight of falcon]

QisstPay Raises $15M, cementing itself as the fastest growing emerging markets BNPL player from Pakistan

NEWS PROVIDED BY
Qisstpay
Sep 29, 2021, 09:00 ET
NEW YORK, Sept. 29, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- QisstPay, Pakistan's first and fastest growing buy now pay later platform (BNPL), today announced that they have raised $15M across its seed & pre-seed rounds with a mix of equity and debt. MSA Capital led the round, with institutional investment participation from Global Founders Capital; Fox Ventures, First Check Ventures; and a series of strategic angel investments from Simone Mancini and Johnny Mitrevski, Co-Founders of Scalapay, who recently raised a $155M Series A round at a $700M valuation; 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.
QisstPay is an installment payment service for emerging markets. They are addressing the lack of flexibility, integration, and the hidden fees currently plaguing Pakistan's payments landscape by giving customers an efficient, adaptable, interest free platform. When chosen at checkout, QisstPay allows customers to pay for their purchase in installments with 0% interest and no late fees.
QisstPay allows Pakistanis to pay for everyday necessities, effectively building better cash management in what is otherwise considered a very cash-driven society. 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 like phone service and food, and pay for it over time.
Co-Founder and CEO Jordan Olivas is a former Klarna employee who supported the launch of the company's Pay In 4 solution, one of the world's biggest BNPL platforms. After moving to Pakistan in 2021, he noticed the lack of working financial services plaguing the fifth largest population in the world. He decided to build a platform with his co-founder, Saad Ahmed, that took the globally successful blueprint of BNPL, and altered it to fit the needs of Pakistani citizens.
"After moving here to Pakistan, I noticed how badly the people of this country need a financial tool to help them purchase goods and services that they not only want, but actually need," says Olivas. "Over 60% of Pakistan's population is under the age of 30, which means that the majority of the country is adopting new technologies. Yet, so many people still believe that Pakistan isn't ready to adopt a BNPL system. The rapid growth and use of a platform like QisstPay proves otherwise."
QisstPay is growing rapidly and has seen a 92% growth rate week to week. Currently, they serve over 500 retailers in Pakistan, including the likes of Samsung, Camelbak, Diesel, Philips, Xiaomi, and Lenovo and regional leaders such as Sapphire, Uniworth, Logo Shoes, and the largest Shopify store in the country, elo.
"Export leftovers has recently seen another high of hitting the fastest spike of 85% on average order value ever since we have started to offer Qisstpay BNPL to our customers," says Umar Qamar Co-Founder of Elo, the largest shopify Ecommerce brand in Pakistan.
The funding from this round will go towards the expansion of QisstPay's services and team. This includes the funding of transactions and partnerships with traditional Pakistani financial institutions. They are also expanding their services to include Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. By the end of this year, they are looking to expand their Islamabad-based team to over 100 people.
"Pakistan is one of the most often overlooked countries when it comes to fintech investments," says Tim Chen, General Partner at MSA Capital. "However, it's also one of the countries with the most potential. We're excited to be working with QisstPay to help bring one of the biggest global populations some much-needed financial services and tools. We're not only investing in the company and its founders, we're investing in their impact."
To learn more, please visit https://qisstpay.com/.
About QisstPay
QisstPay is an installment payment service for emerging markets. QisstPay is a Buy Now, Pay Later platform that, when chosen at checkout, allows customers to pay in installments with 0% interest. They are addressing the lack of flexibility, integration, and the hidden fees currently plaguing Pakistan's BNPL landscape by giving customers an efficient, adaptable, interest free platform.
Press Contact: Kathy Osborne, Press@qisstpay.com
SOURCE Qisstpay
We will hit $1 billion in sha Allah this year.
Pakistan’s fintech TAG raises $12mln funding at $100mln valuation
Business
September 23, 2021

KARACHI: Pakistan’s fintech TAG Innovation Pvt. received $12 million from international investors, as it eyes to enhance its digital payments business in the country, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday.
The funding was led by Liberty City and also included Addition LP, Mantis Venture Capital and Banana Capital LP, Bloomberg quoted Chief Executive Officer Talal Ahmad Gondal as saying.
Previous investors in the pre-seed round were 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, added the report.
The funding put the company at a valuation of $100 million.
TAG is a mobile application that allows its users to open mobile wallets and get debit cards. The app’s users can use it to perform online transactions such as money transfers, bill payments, and mobile top-up payments with a touch.
This Rawalpindi-based startup was founded by Talal Ahmad Gondal, Ahsan Khan, and Alexander Lukianchuk, and also received an undisclosed amount of pre-seed investment from regional and international investors including former executives of N26 and Revolut.
Last year in November, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) approved TAG to operate as an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) in Pakistan.
“There is more demand than we had initially anticipated,” said Gondal, 29, a former executive at Amazon.com Inc. “Other than many retail customers still on the waiting list, we have also been approached by several organisations to digitise the payroll system that have been dealing in cash until now.”
Pakistan’s startup ecosystem has received a major boost this year with the arrival of high-profile investors including those backing Tag as well as Harry Stebbings’ 20 VC and Josh Buckley’s Buckley Ventures.
Pakistan's startups have been in the news every other week with companies announcing multi-million dollar funding from both series and seed funding rounds.
Pakistan's edtech startup Maqsad raises $2.1 million in pre-seed funding
Just days ago, BridgeLinx, the Lahore-based company that commenced operation nine months ago as a digital freight network, marketplace, and solutions provider, managed to raise $10 million, the country's largest seed capital investment that beat the previous $7.2 million raised by Sada Pay earlier this year.
Last month, Airlift, a transportation platform, announced it secured $85 million in the largest Series B financing in Pakistan’s startup history.