ISLAMABAD: Pakistani start-ups raised $163 million in 15 deals during the first quarter of 2022, which was seven times higher than the amount raked in during the same period of last year.
According to a report of the start-up consultancy firm Invest2Innovate, Pakistani start-ups raised $728 million across 272 deals from 2015, including the first quarter of 2022, reports WealthPK.
A deal involves the amount invested and what the investor gets in return.
The mixed category, where at least one international and one local investor is involved, raised $122 million in seven deals during the first quarter of this year.
International firms raised $36 million in three deals, while four local deals fetched $850,000, according to WealthPK.
Out of the four purely local deals, two were done at the pre-seed stage, one at the seed stage, and one at pre-series A, according to the start-up consultancy firm’s report.
Invest2Innovate report says that the e-commerce sector raised the maximum investment of $202 million in the first quarter, while $17 million was raised by fintech firms. An amount of $13 million was invested in trucking and logistic sectors. The average ticket size of e-commerce was $32 million, while average ticket size of fintech was $5.8 million.
A ticket size is an amount of money put in by an investor in a deal.
B-series remains at the top as far as amount raised in different stages is concerned as it raked in $70 million, while $58.5 million was raised in A-series, which is really a positive sign for start-ups because A and B series represent the established businesses.
Similarly, in early investment stages, pre-seed and seed stages raised $5.3 million and $29 million, respectively.
Among the top three e-commerce start-ups, Bazar raised $70 million in B-series, Retailo and Jugnu raised $36 million and $22.5 million, respectively, in A-series. Similarly, in top three fintech start-ups, Nayapay raised $13 million at the seed stage, while Taro and Metric raised $3.5 million.
The Invest2Innovate report says that men-owned start-ups remained dominant in terms of the amount raised during the first quarter of this year. An amount of $159 million was raised by male-founded start-ups, which was 98% of the total amount raised, while only $3.9 million were raised by female-funded firms.
According to Kulsoom Lakhani, the founder of Invest2Innovate, the $163 million raised in the first quarter of 2022 is seven times higher than the amount raised in the same period of last year, and accounts for more than 50% of the total investments during the entire 2021.
In a tweet, Kulsoom Lakhani commented, “Fact that B2B e-commerce players raised later-stage rounds is a strong signal for the Pakistan’s market, negating the concerns that there was a dearth of growth-stage capital.” Fintech also did well this Q1 albeit mainly via earlier stage deals, like nayapaypk’s $13M in seed stage.”
Kusloom Lakhani said that like other emerging markets, a triangle of funding has been observed as e-commerce, fintech and logistics have a symbiotic relationship.
INP
