Q2 Startup Funding Up 114% for Pakistani Tech Startups

zahid
Q2 Startup Funding Up 114% for Pakistani Tech Startups

During Q2 2020, three Pakistani tech startups raised $13,100,000 in disclosed funding.

Compared to Q2 2019, that’s an increase of 114% from $6,125,000 and 936% increase over the previous quarter from $1,265,000.

2020 Q2 Funding

This year started strong with 4 startups raising $1.2 million in funding to end Q1 with great momentum.

Despite the ongoing pandemic and Pakistan’s inability to get a grip on the Coronavirus situation, the startup ecosystem attracted $13 million in Q2 funding.

A big caveat here is that one startup, the VC darling — Airlift Technologies — raised a huge $10 million Series A-1 round to skew the total amount of Q2 funding.

Let’s do the numbers.

$1,300,000

Bazaar, a Karachi-based B2B e-commerce marketplace startup, raised $1.3 million in seed funding from Indus Valley Capital and Alter Global. Founders are ex-Careem and ex-McKinsey.

$1,800,000

Tajir, a Lahore-based B2B e-commerce marketplace startup, raised $1.8 million in seed funding from Fatima Gobi Ventures, Pioneer Fund, GoldenGate Ventures, VentureSouq, Karavan, and several angel investors. Tajir graduated from Y-Combinator’s Winter 2020 batch and raised $150,000 in Q1.

$10,000,000​​

Airlift, the app-based vanpool service provider, raised $10 million in Series A-1 from Quiet Capital, TrueSight Ventures, RT Ventures, Shorooq Partners, ACE Capital, and existing investors. It also introduced a 45-minute delivery service (think Postmates). This latest round of funding brings Airlift’s total investment to $24.2 million.

The amount raised by Pakistani startups is a drop in the bucket in a larger scheme of things.

Globally, startups raised approximately $70 billion in Q2 2020 according to Crunchbase. An increase of 17% quarter over quarter and 2% year over year.

Yes, some big tech names with significant operations in Pakistan have announced layoffs, such as Careem and KeepTruckin. However, that hasn’t deterred investors from betting on promising new tech startups with good traction and solid product.

Total
0
Shares
Related Posts
Total
0
Share